Name: Puget
Brand: Two Sisters Ecotextiles
SKU: t6010-1700-sample
Availability: InStock

Uses

clothing, drapery, upholstery, anything!

Specifications

abrasion test results: 40,000 Martindale
care: In cool water and air, pre-shrunk; In hot, 10% shrinkage.
certification: Cotton only certified organic; but, as in all of our fabrics, GOTS compliant processing from field to finished fabric.
content: 33% hemp; 19% linen; 21% ramie^*; 27% organic cotton
weight: 15 oz yd² / 509 gm m²
width: 54" / 137 cm

^*Ramie is a natural fiber, a bast fiber as are linen and hemp. Bast means the fiber is drawn from the stalk of the plan and not the flower, as with cotton. Bast fibers can be grown with no chemical inputs as the bugs are not drawn to flowers. Bast fibers are difficult to separate from the lignins and glues in the stalk, and the separation can be done by chemicals (boo!), water (boo if not treated and it is almost always NOT treated), or in the field, which is what we do. One of the major reasons why a hemp fabric should be GOTS certified.

^**Allen, Will, “Fact Sheet on U.S. Cotton Subsidies and Cotton Production”, Feb. 2004, Organic Consumers Association, www.organicconsumers.org/clothes/224subsidies.cfm

^*** World Wildlife Fund (www.panda.org) “Cotton: a water wasting crop.”

The organic fibers were woven in compliance with The Global Organic Textile Standards (GOTS), which means many things, including:

1. The prohibition of a long list of chemicals, such as formaldehyde, fluorocarbons (PFC's), heavy metals (lead, cadmium, mercury), the same chemicals prohibited in the GOTS standard.

2. Basic worker rights are honored and decent working conditions provided.

3. Although it is not specifically called out in the standard, a GOTS certified fabric is the best carbon choice by far, even if manufactured overseas and shipped back to the United States (for an explanation of why this is so, click here).

The GOTS standard is completely transparent, nothing is proprietary so there is no guessing as to standards used. You can download it at: www.global-standard.org. To learn more about GOTS, why it is important for you and your Earth, please read the answer to the question: "How can we make sure a fabric is free of chemicals of concern?"

To be clear: When we say that the fabric is produced in compliance with GOTS, we mean that we adhere to the GOTS standard even though we cannot prove it to you because someone in the chain of custody has dropped their GOTS certification. We know that we advise you to avoid suppliers who claim to be safe but do not have the certificates to prove it (putting us in a rather awkward position!) so if this makes you uncomfortable, please select a different fabric which has GOTS or Oeko Tex certification. We promise that we are converting to all third party certifications as soon as humanly possible.

¹For a discussion of what the abrasion ratings mean, please 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?