Environment & Crafts, crafting green, upcycling, etc.

April is a mixed month for me as an environmentalist. Earth Day drums up a lot of good press, and with it comes recycled products, art ideas, etc. While these are all great I hope the momentum will carry it further than one month and help people realize there are lots of ways to be more friendly to the environment year-round. All month long I'll be focusing on recycled and green crafting methods and products. Please let me know if you have any questions about my art or experiences that you would like me to share!

I'll start with a "do want"- Recycled Cotton Yarn!

Wow, just wow. I am so impressed with Lion Brand right now. When thinking of Lion yarns my mind immediately goes to acrylics, or scratchy wools like Fisherman's, but it seems like they're keeping up with the times with more earth-friendly products.

Not only have they been making Organic cotton for a while, but I recently found out about Recycled Cotton! From their site:

"Made from cotton fabric pieces that would otherwise be discarded when fabric is cut to produce tee-shirts, our Recycled Cotton yarn reduces waste and conserves resources. These clippings are sorted by color, minimizing the amount of dyeing needed for the final yarn. The sorted cotton fiber is then blended with acrylic for enhanced performance."

It comes in with an impressive recycled content of 72%. I'm really liking the Seagrass colorway, and hope that my local craft stores are carrying this! Organic is fantastic, but I really like that this product takes fiber that is a byproduct and makes it into something new. Don't get me wrong, I love the Blue Sky Alpaca organic cotton I bought from Purl last year, but at $10+ a skein it's really only for special projects. In the past few years organic yarns have made their way into the big crafting stores, it will be great to see this trend expand and continue!