Mukilteo

5000-1000

/
White

About

Viscose from bamboo gives this fabric a silken look and feel. It drapes beautifully. We think it would be terrific for baby blankets, especially since it's Oeko-Tex certified so you can use it without worry. It's also great for drapery, bedding, dresses, and a variety of other uses.

Eco Facts

GOTS, the Global Organic Textile Standard, is the gold standard of fabric certifications. GOTS is
your assurance that the fabric you are bringing into your home or workplace is the best possible
choice in these categories:

  1. Toxicity and Impact on the environment
  2. Toxicity and impact on human and animal health and safety (Yes, #1 and #2 are
    different. You can have a fabric that is safe to use, but whose production was an
    environmental disaster. In fact, this is usually the case.)
  3. Carbon Footprint
  4. Social justice issues – workers safety and rights, a real concern in the textile industry still
  5. End of life disposition – right now, at end of life, you bury our fabric in your back yard
    where it becomes food for tomatoes. This is the ideal end of life scenario (and true for
    all but 3 of our fabrics).
  6. Water treatment at every stage of production

Fabric Name

Mukilteo means "good camping ground" in the Snohomish dialect. Located on Puget Sound north of Seattle, Mukilteo was one of the first suburban cities to ban plastic bags.

Care

Mukilteo is washable in all temperatures, but it will shrink about 10% in width and 6% in length the first time you wash in hot temperatures and about half that using cool temperatures.

Uses

drapery

Specifications

  • abrasion test results: 25,000 Wyzenbeek
  • certification: Oeko-Tex 100
  • content: 54% bamboo viscose, 46% organic cotton
  • weight: 12 oz yd2 / 448 gm m2
  • width: 54" / 137 cm

The Japanese yarn manufacturer that supplied Mukilteo's yarns developed a new viscose1 production method to turn the bamboo into yarn that has a substantially lighter environmental footprint than previous viscose production processes. Manufacturing viscose requires the use of a sulfuric acid bath; so, although the resulting yarn is non-toxic (ours is Oeko-Tex 100 certified, and safe enough to eat), the waste could create an environmental hazard. 

Our manufacturer uses bacteria and enzymes to neutralize the sulfuric acid and thereby returns wastewater to the ecosystem that meets stringent Japanese drinking water standards. There is some outgassing of the sulfuric acid to the air, air pollution. As demand for our bamboo grows, our spinner will be able to afford to address this issue as well. All in all, even with the slight outgassing into the air, we believe bamboo is a very important addition to the world's textile set. 

A dedicated conservationist owns the small mill in Japan where these yarns are woven into fabric. In his state-of-the-art mill, each step of the process has been carefully analyzed to ensure that it is environmentally sound, for example, in 1995, he began treating his wastewater to be compliant with environmental regulations of the Seto Inland Sea, among the strictest in the world. 

Our partner has been among the first to try new green processes, such as using ozone to bleach fabric (in which the only byproduct is oxygen). 

Although there is no wind generator on the premises, he buys wind power from a wind farm north of the mill, the first medium-size enterprise in Japan to do so. This results in a reduction of approximately 370g of carbon dioxide per yard of fabric produced, or 20 pounds of carbon dioxide per 25 yards of fabric (about the amount needed to cover an average sofa). 

1People are often not familiar with the fiber, viscose. For an explanation of what viscose is, click here.

    Why choose us?

    We've done the work for you

    Over the years, Patty and Leigh Anne dedicated tons of time researching ethical and sustainable production—how it’s done, and what the implications are to us (and to all living things)  and to our planet.  They even put it in their mission statement, a goal “to change the way textiles are being made” – kind of a reach for such an upstart little company, right? 

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