We figured out the bed! I think our biggest obstacle was my friends 2 year old jumping up and down on it while she was trying to put it together. We LOVE it!
Seriously it rocks! My partner has carpal tunnel like symptoms but this morning her arm was not numb when she woke up!
Thanks so much! – E. R.
Your kapok is coming to you unfluffed. You do not have to fluff it, but if you are using it for a pillow, you will find your pillow rather lumpy without taking the time to pull apart the fibers.
Depending on your distraction level, it will take about half an hour per lb. of fill to fluff. Our technique is simple though rather humorous looking:
Caution: Do NOT touch your eyes after touching the fill! If you look on your fingertips after touching it there will be tiny fibers clinging to them. You can imagine the itch if they were to get in your eye.
Happy DIYing.
While there is an initial breaking in period, your topper can become an heirloom topper as the wool will never spoil or the fiber will not break. Down the road, you may choose to have the wool relofted at the mill if you want that fluffy feeling of these first few months.
Initial care must be given to cause even compression. Inside the topper is dense, lofty wool batting. As you sleep on it, you will notice that a body impression will form. To keep your topper from becoming mountains with a valley, you need to sleep on it in different spots. Sleep toward one side for a week and then the other side for a while. Flip it over the next week and sleep sideways on it, one side and then the other. Rotate the topper, again sleeping on it sideways. Your body weight is your tool here. Even try climbing into bed from different sides of the topper or if you are in the habit of sitting on your bed, sit in different spots.
If you have taken care to use your body to apply pressure all over, the topper will compress all over. You will find that after about 2-4 months of care, your topper will retain its comfort, but will have lost some of its loft.
Natural latex foam can be cut to almost any size. This ability to be resized, along with its flexibility and its comfort, makes it a high-end fill to any piece of furniture.
Our Arpico natural latex comes in 6” slabs and as large as 76” x 80.” Since it is Dunlop processed, the molds are as large as an Eastern King. Talalay processed mold are only as large as a Queen. A 6” slab gives you enough depth for a couch cushion or the ability to trim it down an inch or two.
To obtain a quote on a custom size, visit our Custom Cut Latex Calculator.
The depth of the piece will affect your preference of firmness. A 3” extra firm or hard piece would be as thin as you would want. Four inches or five inches would be more comfortable and allow more people types to sit on it. Six inches is definitely a safe choice. A person of any weight could sit on it and not feel the slats or springs underneath it. When you get into the six inch depth, you can decrease the density of the foam to a firm if you like. A back cushion for a couch commonly is cut out of a Soft piece of latex as there is no gravity holding the sitter to it, only body weight.
Why is thicker better? When a person’s weight is pinpointed directly into one spot of the latex, the pressure points are much larger than when a sleeper stretches out and spreads his pressure points out.
In short, I would consider a wool wrap around your latex if using it for upholstery purposes. It is not necessary, but it has a few purposes. Besides acting as a physical barrier between the latex and the elements that cause latex to deteriorate, it also can act a little bit of the softening that a down blanket would. Consider it a way to ease into the comfortable support of latex and to reduce the bounce. It always serves to buffer the air space between the latex and the case.
We do not make frames, but I have multiple customer who specialize in custom furniture, woodwork, titanium welding and metalwork. Contact me for their contact information.
Send us your fabric and we can sew it up for you or we can use our fabric to sew you cases. Woven fabrics vs. knits are strong and durable for upholstery use.
If you are looking for organic fabrics, there are more sources than ever before. Check out Two Sisters Eco Textiles or Organic Cotton Plus and note their color grown cotton fabrics as well as the hemp and wool fabrics. They also have subtle patterns appropriate for upholstery uses. GOTS organic is the best standard available but the standard has only been around a few years so it is a taking a while for many manufacturers to catch up. Organic fabric (USDA) is common, even fabric.com carries it.
Cording is a decorative accent that can be added to the edges of a cushion. We can add it for you if you like. However, if your latex will be folded for display as a futon, I do not recommend cording as it will not necessarily perch properly on the edge of the latex. No need to highlight an askew seam. Another decorative accent is gussets; gussets are side panels sewing on sewn on the sides of the cushion. Pictures available on our Custom Sewing Page.
According to the web, cheap sofas use foam alone. Better sofas use foam core within a down & feather blanket (wrap). The ratio of down to feathers is usually only a 10/90 ratio, but the greater the ration of down to feathers, the better. Even better sofas use a spring core encased in foam. The best of the better sofas use either a spring core that is encased in foam that is then encased in a down wrap or an all-down and feather cushion.
The very best couches a use latex core with springs. In order to get this combination you would have to visit an upscale upholsterer. (Yes, customers do take our latex to such shops.) This style is rarely composed in the United States but apparently, the French do so. Good upholstery, depending upon the style, has lots of springs. There can be springs in the seat, the back, and in the arms. That’s what makes a great upholstery job look “full” and it keeps the sofa looking that way for years but it’s very expensive and usually seen only on hand made sofas. Often on these handmade sofas, you will see hand stitching as well. This upholstery company has some reupholstered pictures of before and after of some high quality piece of furniture.
For more reading on upholstering tips, here is a summary article.
Visit our Custom Cut Latex Calculator to get a quote on a custom cut piece of natural latex. If you want to cut your own latex, electric knives work well.
A long awaited pattern is ready for delivery. Our most unique ticking and complicated pattern too. You will not find a product anywhere on the net like this because it did not exist until we created it. And we’re offering you the option to create it too.
It is available in two formats:
PATTERN
PATTERN KIT
The pattern is quite simply the 12-page pattern with pictures, instructions, and a detailed cutting chart. The pattern kit is the pattern with the proper length of zipper, 2 zipper pulls and the appropriate length of fabric to preshrink.
One pattern for all your bed sizes. If you need multiple sizes, you need only one pattern purchase.
Our pattern is licensed under a creative commons license. In short, this license acknowledges that ideas are free and knowledge can be shared willingly. It means you may remix, tweak, and build upon our work even for commercial purposes, as long as you credit us AND license your new creations under the identical terms (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License).
Happy DIYing.
Quilted Fabric now available!
Pillowcase, ticking, quilt for your bed, you name it.
Here is life simplified. You could spend an hour picking out fabric, cut it to size, purchase some wool batting, drive to a long arm quilter, wait a few weeks to get it quilted together and then hand sew the binding on like a normal quilter, or… you could do it the easy way. We’ll quilt it, you sew it as you like.
We also have added zipper by the foot to our supplies page as retail fabric stores will not have zipper lengths suitable for mattress sizes.
A new post in the Of Interest section might interest you: Fire, Legalities and Wool.
For more information on fire retardants and your health, look for another article in the near future.
The story goes, in the seventies, when everyone lit up and the number of deaths due to cigarettes in bed was rising, tobacco companies were urged to make their cigarettes safer. However, since the best way to make cigarettes safer would be to not use them, tobacco companies went another route. The three Big Tobacco Companies created an alliance called Citizens for Fire Safety. This committee lobbied heavily for flame retardants to be put into bedding and other products.
Now that media has exposed who is actually behind the Citizens for Fire Safety, the tobacco companies have disbanded that committee for a new one. However, their previous website can still be found. Their new alliance is called North American Flame Retardant Alliance. The Chicago Tribune does a good job exposing their recent manipulation of a particular legislation.
Because of current legislation that was initiated in the seventies by these companies, mattress producers must pass a smolder test and a burn test of their product. The smolder test is outlined in law 16 CFR 1632. It specifically “measures the ignition resistance of a mattress or mattress pad by exposing the surface to lighted cigarettes in a draft-protected environment…At least 18 cigarettes are burned on each mattress test surface, 9 on the bare mattress and 9 in between sheets placed on the mattress…Individual cigarette test locations pass the test if the char length is not more than 2 inches (5.1 cm) in any direction from the nearest point of the cigarette. “
The burn test is outlined in law 16 CFR 1633. A burn lab will burn a minimum of three mattresses and box springs, at about a $600 per mattress. The mattresses are ignited with a pair of open flame propane burners, much like a blow torch, on the side and the top of the mattress. The test measures how quickly the mattress burns, how hot it burns and how quickly the flame extinguishes after the torch is removed. To pass, your mattress must self extinguish in a particular amount of time as well as only have a certain percentage of surface area burned.
If you have read this far, you’re wondering what we do about this legislation. Quite simply, it doesn’t apply to us, so we don’t have to do anything.
We sell supplies, parts that would be useful if you wanted to assemble them to make your own mattress. You can make a mattress out of our parts, just as you could out of a few bales of straw and a futon case. True, unzipping a three-sided zipper on a piece of ticking and stuffing it full of latex or wool is not difficult for either us or a customer to do, but we deliberately do not assemble mattresses.
Our supplies model enables us to be exempt from the burn test law. Both laws define mattress as follows “Mattress means a resilient material or combination of materials enclosed by a ticking (used alone or in combination with other products) intended or promoted for sleeping upon.”
We do not sell parts enclosed in ticking, so we need no fire barrier and no burn test. No burn test for us, no chemicals and no government agency deciding what you can and can’t sleep on.
Interestingly enough, our quilted ticking could pass the test. Wool is a natural fire barrier, especially when it is compressed so tightly that air, which fire needs to live, cannot penetrate it. The company who makes it for me reports many of their customers passing the burn test with it.
Testing over many years has confirmed that the high keratin protein and moisture content of wool make it naturally resistant to burning. It is difficult to set alight under most conditions and burns only weakly, forming a cold char, which tends to extinguish burning. It is important to note that wool is naturally fire resistant, not a fire retardant. Fire retardants reduce the flammability of materials by either blocking the fire physically or by initiating a chemical reaction that stops the fire. Pure wool without any added chemical fire retardants performs well as a fire barrier if it is used in the proper weight (app. 1.8 oz per square ft.) and is either mechanically densified (needle punched) or densified by the quilting process itself. Wool will burn at 600 degrees F; however if air is removed from the batting by densification, it performs very well and will pass the CFR 1633 burn test. This has been proven time and time again by many credible mattress manufacturers.
There are certain types of processed wool that perform better than others. Not performing well is wool batting that contains synthetic bonding agents; this batting sometimes does not act as a robust fire barrier due to the synthetic polyester used to bond the wool batting together. Another type of wool, raw grease wool is required by law to be scoured or cleaned and cannot be used as fire barrier in its uncleaned state. Some commercial wool available to bedding manufacturers is chemically scoured with hydrochloric acid. This process causes carbonization which strips the wool fiber of lanolin and even can destroy the outer sheath of the wool fiber itself, thus diluting its natural fire resistant properties. Carbonization is the term for the conversion of an organic substance into carbon or a carbon-containing residue through pyrolysis or destructive distillation. Carbonized wool smells like chemicals and is often bleached; two very good reasons we avoid it at all costs. The best performing wools are wools that are scoured in a mild biodegradable detergent without removing all the lanolin or stripping the outer sheath of the wool fibers. Natural pure wool processed in this fashion will pass CFR 1633 burn tests with very good results if used in the proper weight (1.8 oz per sq. ft).
Wool grown on farms or ranches utilizing sustainable ranching techniques without the use of chemical pesticides and overgrazing on pastures that contain no chemical herbicides or chemical fertilizers is the best conditions for purity of the wool. This is our wool.
To read about flame retardants and their ability to impact our health, view this short video.
For more details on chemicals and mattresses, visit People for Clean Beds.
Some on the details of wool borrowed from Mattress Consultant.
Comforters! Available in two different weights with our local farm wool and GOTS organic sateen fabric. Made locally at St. Peter Woolen mill. Sometime this year we will also post a DIY pattern on making your own with a few variations to account for skills and tools on hand.
These are not on our website yet, so if you would like to see a sample or order one made, stop on by or give a call. Each piece is custom made per order.
UPDATE: They are on our website! See their product here.
Farm wool and GOTS organic percale fabric, made locally at St. Peter’s Woolen Mill. Maybe you’d like one. Contact us if so. It’s not on our website yet. We’ll post it later when we get our DIY pattern available for it, but in the meantime, we can make them for you. Comes with elastic straps on each corner.
Pick from your choice of pillows – Shredded Natural Latex or Kapok Fiber. All our pillows are adjustable fill, meaning the liner has a zipper enabling you to take out extra fill or add in extra fill, to create just the right height of pillow for your night. The pillows offered are standard size; if you want a larger size, you can pay the difference.
With a new website that comes with a name change and an inability to magically change this facebook address, we need to abandon ship and start anew.
There are three ways to win:
You will eventually see cross postings from the blog to Google+ and Facebook. If you enter in more than one way, we will count your entry only once.
Thanks for spreading the word.
Happy winnings,
Deborah
Welcome to DIY Natural Bedding.
We hope you, like us, enjoy doing things yourself and like living naturally. We are here to enable you to have the bedding you like with industry quality products, yet at diy prices. We like to ask questions and hope you feel comfortable doing the same. We are people first, a business second. We work out of our home to enable that balance as well as to keep costs down for you. Stop by for a visit (well, call first please), we’d love to meet you and chat.
If you’re the facebook type, we’re there. If you’re on Google +, put us in your circles. And then we’re here too. See you around.
Deborah and Bob Brenton
What a great mattress and fantastic experience working with Deborah! We bought the 9″ King size with quilted ticking and it is amazing. I knew it would be comfortable but it really exceeds my expectations. It is just luxurious. Deborah was very helpful and we were able to fine tune our choices for each side of the king size. I plan to eventually switch all the mattresses in the house to this natural choice. Worth every penny! – A. B.
When natural rubber is tapped from a tree it is very dilute, the rubber content being only about 30%. It has to be concentrated before use to above 61.5% solids. Of these solids 60.0% is rubber, the remaining 1.5% are compounds that are unique to natural latex (proteins, phospholipids, carbohydrates, amino acids). These unique ingredients are very important in explaining the behavior of natural latex.
This stabilizes the mix, i.e. it prevents it from coagulating until we are ready for it to do so, when the foam is in the mold. Soaps also assist the latex mixture to foam up when air is introduced in the foaming machine.
The latex compound is foamed up to the correct foam density, then the required amount metered into the mold. The mold is closed and the Talalay cycle begins. The mold is cooled and a vacuum is applied, which causes the foam to expand to fill the mold completely. A disposable paper gasket prevents latex entering the vacuum lines and a rubber gasket seals the mold from the outside world.
This is the key step in the foam making process. It is at this point that a phase change occurs and liquid foam becomes “solid” foam, and the foam sets or “gels.” In the original (standard) Dunlop Process, the foam is set by adding to the wet foam a small amount of gelling agent (sodium silicofluoride or SSF). In the Talalay process the foam is frozen at 0°F then carbon dioxide gas (an acidic gas) is passed through the foam to lower its pH and set the foam.
This whole process is done so that when the foam begins to warm up again, it does not revert to a liquid. The foam at this stage is however very weak and could not possibly be removed from the mold intact. The strength is built in during the next stage – vulcanization.
Sulfur is added to the mix during compounding. Without sulfur in the production process, the foam would resemble chewing gum and would have little resilience. The double bonds in the rubber molecule are utilized by sulfur, which forms bridges with adjacent molecules, known as cross-linking. This process gives the product its familiar properties of elasticity and resilience.
The process of heating rubber with sulfur is called vulcanization or “curing,” and was discovered by Charles Goodyear in 1839. This is a fairly slow process, even at a temperature of +240°F so certain accelerators are required in the production process to make this happen quickly. A very small addition of these reduces the time required for curing from about 25 minutes to about 8 minutes. At the end of this time the mold is cooled, opened, and the product is removed and sent to the washer.
This removes soaps, ammonia and anything else water soluble, which have served their purpose and are no longer required or desirable. If they were not removed they would contribute to discoloration, odor and could leave the product feeling tacky.
This removes all water from the block and completes the vulcanization process, thus giving the product satisfactory physical properties (compression set, tensile strength, elongation at break, pounding and indentation set). The dried products then arrive at Inspection for weighing, hardness checks and grading.
Any double bonds in the rubber which are not used up by the sulfur are at risk from attack by oxygen and ozone in the atmosphere, particularly when catalyzed by the presence of UV light. This is why latex will deteriorate in sunlight. A small amount of ‘antioxidant’ is added to the latex during compounding. This is a substance which is preferentially oxidized (and therefore sacrificed), thus affording some protection to the rubber. Eventually however it becomes depleted and deterioration of the rubber then occurs. Latex foam must never be cleaned with solvents (dry-cleaning): this would remove any antioxidant completely; deterioration would then be very rapid.
Molds are made from aluminum (very good heat transfer properties) and are hollow, with channels within their walls so that a heat transfer fluid can circulate through them.
Since latex foam is a very poor conductor of heat a large number of “pins” are present to enable heat/cold to get into the heart of the foam. The resulting pinholes then play another very useful role in that they make it much easier to remove moisture during the drying process.
In the end, natural latex is still a foam, but an almost perfectly natural one:
Ingredient Amount
1. Natural Latex Rubber 90-95%
2. Zinc Oxide 2- 3%
3. Fatty Acid Soaps 1-2%
4. Sulfur 1-2%
5. Sodium 1-2%
Item 1 is pure, natural rubber harvested exclusively from the “Hevea Brasiliensis” tree, which grows primarily in South-East Asia. Ours is from Sri Lanka.
Items 2 thru 5 are essential to the vulcanization, foaming and curing process that all latex cores must go though. The finished core is then washed a minimum of 3 times to remove any residuals that may be left over after curing.
You will note from the above information that all the ingredients in our 100% natural latex mattresses are natural – this is why it is listed as 100% natural. You should also note that NO fillers are used in these mattresses. It is very common for other sellers and manufacturers to use clay and other natural fillers in a 100% natural latex mattress, these ingredients make the mattress less costly to manufacture but also hinder the quality, comfort and longevity of the mattress as well.
While the term “natural latex” has been used throughout this article, since organic latex is made of natural latex, the process above also applies to organic latex.
The process above outlines the making of any natural latex foam product, both Dunlop and Talalay processes, however one can get more detailed in explaining the two processes. I have done exactly that in the article here Dunlop vs. Talalay. While our 3″ organic latex slab product says it all, to note it here, we sell Dunlop processed latex.
One farm our wool comes from is Harvest Haven Farm in Hager City, WI. You can see some pictures of it and the fleeces we picked up from them here. Jon and Sherry Johnson believe strongly in natural living and have raised their animals and six children accordingly.
The 11 sheep are pastured with access to the barn for the intemperate weather. The sheep are not coated nor sprayed for insects. Some farmers do coat their sheep (literally, the sheep have to wear coats) to keep every bit of debris out of the wool, but they prefer to let the sheep’s wool breathe and do its job for the animal as well as for us. The farm also has a luscious garden for their CSA, about 30 free range chickens, a cow named Quarter pounder (not a dairy cow, you can imagine), a llama, a few dogs and cats, and a few hogs.
Tangled Bank Farm in Wabasha, MN raises beef and sheep. Tom and Sue Hunter have been growing their beef herd for the last three years and their sheep for one year. They feed their animals grain-free diets, avoid all pesticides on their fields and even deliberately planted a variety of grass to create a field suitable to good nutrition.
As we were talking about our company’s choosing to trust farmers rather than an organic label, Tom point out that even the organic label needs trust. He raises his herds organically, no pesticides, no chemicals, only grass and hay and he could pay for the organic certification label. But since there is no one to hold you accountable to your labeling practices, you’re still taking the farmer’s word for it, label or not. It’s nice to work with people who take giving their word seriously.
I brought home about 75 lbs of wool from them, leaving behind one fleece for the beehive.
Their website describes their practices quite well and has some lovely pictures of their farm and the animals.
Together Farms in Mondovi, WI (15 minutes out of Eau Claire) has animals, lots of animals. They have sheep, pigs, cattle, turkeys, chickens and ducks. As I pulled up to the farm, I was greeted by the few animals brave enough to be out in the drizzle, a few dogs and roosters and a flock of ducks. The chicks and hogs were in the barn, the sheep hiding under a spread of trees and the cattle out grazing in their pastures.
Their sheep, which are Tunis and Leicaster Longwool sheep, were up a hill so a picture was difficult to get. The animals in the front are hair sheep, which don’t grow thick coats of wool. The sheep our wool is from is the bigger ones in the back of the flock.
Stephanie and Andy Schneider are very selective about their heritage breeds and raise their animals for meat. They also offer CSA shares of their animals or if you prefer they offer individual cuts of meat. Their website has complete information on the farmer’s markets they are at and their drop sites, including one in the Twin Cities. Stephanie also crafts her own super swine soap. W93 Norden Road, Mondovi, WI 54755
Sunbow Farm in Eau Claire, WI has 45 sheep, a whole lot of chickens and fields and fields and greenhouses of vegetables and herbs. While I was there, a few of the members owning CSA shares were earning their veggies by weeding those gardens. The sheep were contentedly hiding under a tree from the growing sun in one of their pastures. There are five fields they are rotated between, making them entirely grass fed sheep. The sheep are a mixed breed that is primarily Icelandic. The morning I came it had rained so their wool still drying in the sun, but they came eagerly to the fence to greet us. Two hundred lbs of wool later, my van was very full.
Kristina Beuning’s green thumb extends beyond vegetables to herbs as well. Her herbal line of salves, teas, extracts, soaps, oils, and bulk herbs is supplied with either herbs from her garden or foraged herbs on their land. All of their products are available at the farm by contacting them; the herbal products are also available in local shops around Eau Claire. Look for the SunBow symbol of a sun in a bow. Check them out on their website or at the farm W4620 Langdell Rd., Eau Claire, WI 54701
A bench cushion, a bassinet, a couch, a futon, a dog bed, an odd size mattress – whatever your need, we’ll cut it for you. We can cut the latex as deep as 6″ and as thin as 1.5″. We sell 3″ slabs because it gives you a bit of choice in adjusting your firmness as well as choosing a depth that you are comfortable on. However, we are happy to cut our 6″ cores into the perfect size for your project.
If you have general questions about futons and couch cushions, peruse this blog post and then contact us with further questions.
For a quote on your next project, visit our Custom Latex Cut Calculator page.
We are happy to give you a 60 day trial period to determine if the latex firmnesses are right for you. We understand that the only way to accurately decide if the latex firmnesses you picked out for your mattress are comfortable is if you sleep on them.
Mattress sized natural latex slabs in original condition are accepted for exchange without a charge within the first 60 days after delivery. We can exchange latex between firmnesses: for example, upgrade a firm piece to extra firm or hard or downgrade to medium or soft. Custom cut sizes may not be exchanged.
To emphasize: We will only accept piece that are in original condition, that means, no wool on them and certainly nothing else. Please tape off or use a lint roller on your piece before shipping it back.
Please click here on the Natural Latex Buy and Try Shipping to initiate the Buy and Try Swap.
This charge covers both the shipping of the new piece of latex as well as the return shipping and UPS pickup of the unwanted piece.
The worthy pieces of latex you send back to us appear in the Clearance section as they are still good pieces of foam. They are labeled as being part of the Buy and Try program.
The Case for Wool on a Latex Mattress
Wool and latex share similar properties, so they accompany each other well on a mattress. They both won’t mildew, won’t harbor dust mites, are breathable, flexible and are good at distributing heat so you don’t end up too cold or too hot.
In a latex mattress, wool has another purpose as well as a comfort layer. It is an excellent protector of the latex. Latex is biodegradable; you can throw it in your compost pile when you are done with it. A few months later, it will be completely crumbled. Wool is not as biodegradable; you can weave it into garden mats to keep down the weeds and it will take 2 years for it to degrade rather than a few months. Natural latex contains an antioxidant, much like vitamin A is in our foods. Once the antioxidant dissipates, the latex can be affected by oxygen. Direct sunlight, direct heat (as from a vent) and poor air quality can cause the latex to yellow and harden sooner than otherwise. Since latex is biodegradable, it appreciates being wrapped to keep it from the elements that cause it to prematurely harden. Thus, the dense wool wrap adds a breathable layer of defense against the elements.
Some DIYers like to wrap their natural latex slabs with a batt of wool, some just like the quilted ticking with wool inside it. While a second cotton case would alternatively protect the latex, cotton just is not as nice of a fiber as wool. Also, a carded wool batt is more affordable than cotton fabric being a less processed fiber.
(This article is not my own, but is in its entirety from the American Sheep Industry Association.)
Like human civilization, the story of wool begins in Asia Minor during the Stone Age about 10,000 years ago. Primitive man living in the Mesopotamian Plain used sheep for three basic human needs: food, clothing and shelter.
Later on man learned to spin and weave. As primitive as they must have been, woolens became part of the riches of Babylon.
The warmth of wool clothing and the mobility of sheep allowed mankind to spread civilization far beyond the warm climate of Mesopotamia.
Between 3000 and 1000 BC the Persians, Greeks and Romans distributed sheep and wool throughout Europe as they continued to improve breeds. The Romans took sheep everywhere as they built their Empire in what is now Spain, North Africa, and on the British Isles. They established a wool plant in what is now Winchester, England as early as 50 AD.
The Saracens, nomadic people of the Syrian-Arabian deserts, conquered Spain in the eighth century and established a widespread wool export trade with North Africa, Greece, Egypt and Constantinople.
During the twelfth century, weaving in Florence, Genoa and Venice was stimulated by the Norman conquest of Greece. The conquerors sent about a hundred Greek weavers to Palermo as slaves, and their extraordinary work was copied at once by Italian weavers.
Back in Spain a thriving wool trade helped finance the voyages of Columbus and the Conquistadores. Guarding its wealth closely, Spain levied the death penalty on anyone exporting sheep until 1786. That year King Louis XVI imported 386 Merino ewes to cross with sheep on his estate at Rambouillet in Northern France. The resulting Rambouillet breed is highly desirable today because of its fine and long-staple wool.
Just like Spain, England froze its borders to raw wool exports. In 1377 England’s King Edward III, “the royal wool merchant,” stopped woven-goods imports and the domestic weaving of foreign wools and invited Flemish weavers fleeing the Spanish invasion to settle in England where the industry thrived. By 1660 wool textile exports were two-thirds of England’s foreign commerce.
Columbus brought sheep to Cuba and Santo Domingo on his second voyage in 1493, and Cortez took their descendants along when he explored what is now Mexico and the southwestern United States. Navajo and other Southwest Indian tribes are famous yet today for their magnificent woolen rugs and colorful wall hangings.
Although pelts may have been worn in Britain as early as the late Bronze Age (3000 BC) England’s “empire of wool” peaked during the 1509-47 reign of King Henry VIII. He seized the flocks of the monasteries and redistributed them to court favorites. This caused unemployed shepherds to be sent to prison for non-payment of debts and was one of the unfair treatments which incited
immigration to America.
Despite the fact that England tried to discourage a wool industry in North America, a few smuggled sheep had multiplied to about 100,000 by 1665. Massachusetts even passed a law requiring young people to spin and weave. Traditions and folklore grew with the industry. Spinning duties fell to the eldest unmarried daughter in the family, hence the term “spinster.” Spun yarn was wound on a reel (weasel) which made a popping sound when a given yardage was reached. Pop goes the weasel!
King George III of England made wool trading in the Colonies a punishable offense. Cutting off the offender’s right hand was the chosen punishment. This policy, together with other oppressive actions including the Stamp Act of 1765, which required that revenue stamps be affixed to all printed matter and official documents in the Colonies, helped incite the Revolutionary War.
Despite the King’s attempts to disrupt wool commerce, the wool industry flourished in America. Both Washington and Jefferson maintained flocks of sheep; both were inaugurated in woolen suits. New inventions like the spinning jenny, combing machines and water-powered looms, expanded the industry rapidly. Sheep moved West with civilization and beyond; at the turn of the 18th century small flocks in the hands of pioneers started the industry in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
Sheep are as versatile as the fiber they produce. All parts are used; they provide tender, delicious meat… and wool is a renewable resource. Sheep thrive in all 50 states and most nations of the world, often in rough, barren ranges, or high altitudes where other animals cannot survive because of lack of vegetation.
Sheep can survive and flourish on weeds and vegetation other animals will not eat, therefore they convert to protein a group of natural resources which would otherwise be wasted.
Sheep fill our food and fiber needs today just as they have for centuries.
This article taken in its entirety from:
Division American Sheep Industry Association, Inc.
6911 South Yosemite Street
Centennial, CO 80112-1414
(303) 771-3500 • Fax (303) 771-8200
www.sheepusa.org
Picking out latex firmnesses is very vague if you have no frame of reference. So, I present to you, the banana comparison, an imperfect example but a good start.
Imagine the amount of pressure it would take you to flatten the following bananas with the palm of your hand and you just might be capture the feel of flattening the latex too.
Soft: a brown banana
Medium: a yellow banana with a few spots
Firm: a yellow banana
Extra-Firm: a chartreuse banana
Hard: a green banana
The top layer of a mattress is the comfort layer. This is true if you make a wool mattress and use a wool topper or if you make a latex mattress and choose a soft piece of latex. The top layer will degrade faster than the rest of your layers as not only does it get the most use, but it is the softest and has the least amount of material to resist your body weight.
Choose your comfort layer first. You will feel this piece as soon as you crawl into your mattress. It is the layer that will cradle your pressure points and give you ease as soon as you lie down.
A supporting layer keeps you from sinking through to your slats or frame beneath you. it is what holds up the comfort layer and ultimately you. While its feel may be subtle, its function is necessary. A supporting layer is what you sink into after you use up the depth of the top layer.
When making a mattress, you can choose to concentrate the feel toward either comfort or support. In other words, you could choose a Soft/ Medium/ Extra Firm to concentrate on the comfort layer. Or you could choose Soft/ Firm/ Extra Firm for a concentration on the supporting layers. Rule of Thumb #3 & 4 (below) are for people who don’t want to choose a concentration but rather a balance.
You create the largest pressure points of all sleepers with your hips and shoulders. You will tend to want a soft or a medium layer on top of your bed, unless you fit into Rule of Thumb #2’s category.
Your pressure points are not as large as a side sleeper’s are. You will tend toward a medium or a firm as a comfort layer.
Your body weight is stretched out so the pressure points you create will not be compounded at one point of the bed. This means that you may be comfortable on a minimalist depth of 6″ of latex or 4″ wool mattress with topper.
Your body weight is compact which means that your pressure points will be concentrated. You will lean toward a deep mattress of 9″ or more.
LINKS
For common configuration ideas, see this chart here.
For an interactive selector that will walk you through the process to a probable comfortable combination, see here. (link coming)
Besides comfort, there are three notes to consider when choosing a pillow.
All of our pillows can be made high or low, soft or firm at your whim, due to the easy access of the fill because of pillow case’s zipper. Some pillows can accommodate multiple sleeping positions, such as our shredded latex pillow which lets the sleeper shove extra fill into the corners, if desired, for when rolling onto a side.
The softness of your mattress will affect the height or depth of your pillow. A soft mattress lets you sink into it further than does a firm one. That sinking in takes away some of the height needed for a pillow. Conversely, those of you on firm mattresses may find you prefer a higher pillow than when you are on a soft mattress.
Back or stomach sleepers tend toward thin pillows. A side sleeper’s shoulder raises the head much higher off the mattress than does a back or stomach sleeper, thus the tendency toward a higher pillow. With our pillows that simply means adding in more fill for side sleepers and less fill for back and stomach sleepers.
This one is pretty obvious; a wide shoulder needs a higher pillow and a small shoulder width needs less of one. Children need shorter pillows than adults do.
While you could get the best comparison if you tried out a latex bed, wrote down the ILD’s of the layers you liked and then came to us, perhaps having a comparison of what I am comfortable on might give you some more perspective.
I weigh 115 lbs and am 5’4” tall. I sleep 80% of the night on my side, 20% percent on my back, 0% on my stomach.
My own choice for mattress and bedding is
top: 3″ Medium
middle: 3″ Firm
bottom: 3″ Extra Firm (This layer is only to keep my side the same height as my husband’s side or to help out with pressure points when I am pregnant. Otherwise I don’t need a third layer.)
My husband weighs 200 lbs and is 5′ 10″ tall. He sleeps 60% of the night on his side, 40% percent on his back, 0% on his stomach.
My husband’s choice for bedding is
top: 3″ Soft
middle: 3″ Medium
bottom: 3″ Firm
I do not use a mattress protector or topper. I sleep on a shredded latex with a quilted pillow case and a woolly bolas pillow.
These are not rules or even suggestions. Consider them generalities.
Remember we offer a buy and try period. You may swap out layers of latex until you are satisfied with the firmness for 60 days.
Simply said, slats are the most common support system used with latex and wool mattresses. For more thorough information, see the article here on Bed Frames.
This timeline traces rubber back to its beginnings, follows the British experiments, the plantation startings, Goodyear’s perseverance and brings us out to the present with latex foam.
| 4th Century BC | Herodotus Zanzibar | Claimed to have seen natives playing with balls from Lydia which bounced high in the air. This seems to be the only reference to “rubber” in the old world. | |
| 6th Century | Aztecs & Mayas Mexico & Central America | Played with balls, dipped feet to make shoes, coated fabrics etc. Gulf of Mexico. (Pictures copied in National Museum, Mexico) | |
| 1493 | Columbus Haiti | 1st European recorded to have seen rubber balls but second hand observation – not recorded by Columbus himself. | |
| 1528 | H Cortez Spain | Returned to Spain with two teams of ball players. | |
| 1536 | D’Orviedo y Valdes Spain | Describes the N American Indian ball game (Batey). Some balls light in weight – perhaps they were of blown rubber. | |
| 1735 – 1745 | Charles Marie de la Condamine Andes | Described how Indians “milked” trees for liquid to waterproof fabrics. The Indians called the tree “HEVA” and the gum from the liquid “CAHUTSCHU”. He used the word “latex” to describe the “milk” or sap from the tree. | |
| 1751 | La Condamine France | Presented his and Fresneau’s work to Paris Academy of Science. | |
| 1755 | Don José Portugal | The King of Portugal sent boots to Para (a region in French Guiana, South America) to be waterproofed. The first sapling of the ‘hevea braziliensis’ had been discovered in French Guiana by Fresneau just years before, causing a bit of confusion between the different types of latex dripping trees. | |
| 1761 | F Fresneau France | Discovered turpentine an ideal solvent for rubber. He told Minister Bertan who ‘leaked’ information to two professional Scientists, Herrisant and Macquer. | |
| 1770 | E Nairne UK | Started to sell cubes of rubber from his artists’ shop as pencil erasers. | |
| 1770 | Priestly (of oxygen fame) UK | Noted that Nairne sold a ½ inch cube of material for erasing pencil marks for 3 shillings. He called it “INDIA RUBBER” having found from whence it came. | |
| 1783 | JAC Charles France | First hydrogen-filled balloon. The fabric was rubber-proofed oiled silk. | |
| 1803 | France | Probably the first ‘Rubber Factory’ (to make elastic bands) built near Paris. | |
| 1813 | J Clark UK | Patent for making inflatable articles from rubber interior-coated fabrics – beds, cushions etc. | |
| 1820 | T Hancock UK | First patent for dry rubber; cut strips for elasticizing clothes, braces etc. Opened a factory in London which became ‘James Lyne Hancock”. | |
| 1823 | C Macintosh UK | Realized that if fabric coated with rubber solution then had another layer of fabric applied to rubber, the three layer sandwich was waterproof and not sticky –“MACINTOSH”. | |
| 1827 | UK | First recorded use of rubber hoses used against a fire (in London). | |
| 1828 | EM Chaffee USA | Roxbury India Rubber Co. founded (1st US rubber Co.). | |
| 1832 | A Barbier & NE Daubrée France | Founded company named after themselves. Eventually became Michelin et Cie. | |
| 1834 | T Hancock & C Macintosh UK | Hancock became director of Chas Macintosh and Co. | |
| 1834 | C Goodyear USA | Became intrigued by rubber – some say obsessed after seeing rubber goods in New York store of the Roxbury India Rubber Co. And so begins the race between Goodyear and Hancock to improve on and experiment with rubber. | |
| 1837 | C Dickens UK | Wrote that Mr. Pickwick’s frown vanished like the marks of a blacklead pencil beneath the influence of India rubber. | |
| 1839 | C Goodyear USA | Left a mix of rubber, sulphur and white lead on a hot stove and he recognised that the resulting material was “CURED” of all its defects. It no longer softened on heating/hardened on cooling and it had lost its stickiness. Now rubber no longer melted in the summer and became as brittle as glass in the winter. | |
| 1842 / 1843 | T Hancock UK | Identified sulphur in a piece of Goodyear’s cured rubber. Could not duplicate cure as did not know about white lead, but effected cure with rubber/molten sulphur. Nicknamed the process “vulcanization,” after the Roman god of fire, a term much easier to remember than Goodyear’s name for the finished product “rubber gum elastic.” | |
| 1842 | UK | The UK began to import wild grown rubber from Singapore (from ficus elasticus and urceola elastica). The ‘hevea braziliensis’tree which we use today was still undeveloped. Most of the latex collected was from South America at this time. | |
| 1847 | JG Ingram UK | Began manufacture of vulcanized rubber balloons. | |
| 1848 | UK | Byrne India-Rubber Co. founded later sold to Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co. | |
| 1853 | Amazonia | 3 tons of rubber exported. | |
| 1853 | USA | Rubber sole with leather edging (to sew to uppers) appeared. The rubber sole of boots is called a commando, thus where the military squadron got its name. | |
| 1855 | C Goodyear Junior USA | Patented use of ebonite for dental plates. Around the same time that Goodyear received his patent on vulcanizing (sadly 3 years after, anesthesia was patented by a fellow named Wells. Relatively speaking, Wells’s discovery made getting your teeth pulled a moderately painless experience, so teeth were being pulled left and right. This meant, of course, that the demand for false teeth was rising proportionately. Before vulcanization, denture bases had been made primarily of gold and were both costly and difficult to make. After vulcanization, denture bases could be made of vulcanized rubber set in plaster molds. This process did not demand a great deal of skill, and soon scores of dentists had small, round vulcanizers with which to ply their trade. These were called “dental pot” vulcanizers and would be used eventually to manufacture the first rubber stamps. | |
| 1859 | UK | New Liverpool Rubber Co founded – later to become Dunlop Rubber Co. | |
| 1860 | Brazil | Rubber prices at all time high – cost more than silver. | |
| 1862 | J Leighton USA | Invented the ubiquitous rubber stamp. Metal printing-stamps, also called hand stamps or mechanical hand stamps, preceded rubber ones by six to eight years. The union financed the war by issuing revenue stamps which were required on virtually all business papers of any kind — notes, drafts, bills, checks, etc. | |
| 1868 | USA | A shoe was produced with a vulcanized rubber sole fused to a canvas upper. Reputedly known as the ‘felonies’ and also ‘brothel creepers’ they must have been very quiet! In the UK they were eventually called Plimsols by Philip Lace (1876). | |
| 1875 | G Bouchardet France | Suggested that isoprene was the primary unit of rubber and obtained a ‘rubber’ by heating it with fuming hydrochloric acid. The first synthetic rubber? | |
| 1876 | H Wickham Brazil | Three years after his commissioning for this project, he dispatched about 70,000 hevea seeds to the Botanical gardens in Kew, England. 2397 germinated. | |
| 1876 | Singapore | 50 seedlings arrived from Kew. Died due to neglect. After several false starts, including one by a planter in northern Borneo who felled his plantation after finding no rubber balls hanging from the branches, the prospects were grim. | |
| 1877 | UK | In all, by the end of 1877, Kew had distributed over 3000 seedlings; vastly more than their primary stock, so there must have been considerable propagation from cuttings. Sri Lanka then forwarded 22 seedlings from that delivery of 100 to Singapore. All of these survived and Henry Ridley, Director of the Singapore Botanic Gardens, was later to remark that it was from these 22 seedlings in the Gardens that more than 75% of the cultivated plants in Malaysia were derived. | |
| 1884 | G Daimler Germany | Produced a light-weight four stroke petrol engine which would fit in a ‘horseless carriage’ | |
| 1884 | C Macintosh UK | Invented a ‘cushion tyre’ for bicycles. | |
| 1885 | Belgium Congo | Exported first African wild rubber. King Leopold of Belgium had spent the last 20 years manipulating European countries and banks to set up his kingdom in the Congo. While ivory was his first expectation of profits, rubber soon took over. The slavery and gruesome tales of this period of history are captured in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. | |
| 1888 | JB Dunlop UK | “Reinvented” the pneumatic tyre, now bicycles and vehicles were available to use it. Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co. Ltd was formed to accommodate this great demand. | |
| 1890 | JW Williams Belgium Congo | In an open letter to President Harrison he coined the phrase ‘A crime against humanity’ in describing what was happening in the Congo. | |
| late 1800’s to 1920 | JG Araujo, JC Arana & The Suarez brothers Amazonia | The three great overlords, all 3 specializing in torture, maiming and murder to amass their millions (JGA in the ‘Manaos’ region) (Suarez, 16,000,000 acres in Bolivia centred at Cachuela Esperanza). (JCA 14,000,000 acres in Colombia and Peru). Arana is the most documented because of the ‘Putumayo atrocities’ | |
| 1895 | H Ridley Singapore | The head of Singapore’s botanical garden, persuaded two coffee growers to plant two acres (.8 ha) of Hevea trees. Twelve years later more than 300,000 ha of rubber grew in plantations in Ceylon (present day Sri Lanka) and Malaya. Because of his very fervent promotion of this crop, he is popularly remembered by the nickname “Mad Ridley”. | |
| 1892 | W Tilden UK | Synthesised ‘rubber’ from synthetic isoprene. | |
| 1898 | F Seiberling & C Sieberling USA | Goodyear Tyre and Rubber Co. formed. | |
| 1898 | Michelin France | The “Michelin man” appeared for the first time. | |
| 1899 | Sri Lanka | 1st Plantation rubber shipped from Sri Lanka. | |
| 1900 | Firestone USA | Firestone Tyre and Rubber Co formed. | |
| 1900 | Michelin France | Michelin introduced grooved tire treads. | |
| 1901 | Goodyear & Ford USA | Goodyear enters motor racing with Henry Ford. | |
| 1906 | TW Miller USA | Patented the molded rubber hot water bottle. | |
| 1910 | World | Wild rubber production around 85,000 tons (50% Amazonian, 25% African, much of the rest from Mexico) and 11,000 tons of plantation rubber. | |
| 1913 / 1914 | World | Cross over point! Plantation output of NR exceeds that of wild (ca. 55/75,000 tons plantation to 66/49,000 tons of wild). | |
| 1914 | WL Utermark UK | Patented latex concentration by centrifugation. | |
| 1914 | P Schidrowitz & HA Goldsborough UK | Patented manufacture of foams from latex as opposed to dry rubber. | |
| 1915 | SJ Peachy UK | The first practical patent for chlorinated rubber. Solutions as varnishes and corrosion- resistant paint. | |
| 1920 | P Schidrowitz UK | Prevulcanization of latex and its use to manufacture dipped goods. This prevulcanization process let workers do away with the chemical sulphur chloride; instead they added polysulphides to the latex followed by controlled heating for a prolonged period of time. The end product gave a latex which was visually unchanged from the starting material but, when it was dried and gently heated, it had the properties of a normally vulcanized piece of dry rubber. The process was known as the Vultex process. | |
| 1924 | Germany | Fossilized rubber 60,000,000 years old found in lignite deposits. | |
| 1920 | World | Natural rubber production (on the plantations) 350,000 tons, only 37,000 tons wild. | |
| 1925 | Germany | Serious work began on the synthesis of Synthetic polybutadiene (Buna). | |
| 1926 | Rosenbaum UK | Quote: “Synthetic rubber is dead”. | |
| 1927 | Henry Ford Brazil | Began to build ‘Fordlandia’ – a complete town in the jungle with (eventually) a plantation of over a million rubber trees. However, due to leaf blight, his plantation was wiped out twice and then abandoned within 7 years. | |
| 1929 | E.A. Murphy UK | A research scientist at Dunlop Tyre and Rubber Company accidentally discovered that mixing together and heating soap, liquid latex, and gelling agents would create latex foam. His wife suggested using a cake mixer to create the airy product. It worked. The latex foam branded Dunlopillo® was soon used for theater seating, cushions for cars and airplanes. | |
| 1931 | S Ishibashi Japan | Forms Bridgestone Co Ltd. | |
| 1931 | Dunlop | The first latex mattress sold using the Sodium Silicoflouride process (known as the Dunlop® process). | |
| 1933 | N Christensen USA | Invented the ‘simple’ ‘O’ ring seal. | |
| 1935 | Russia | Leon, Joseph and Ansil Talalay reinvented latex-foam rubber products. They manufactured and sold latex mattresses to Sears, Roebuck & Company in American department stores. | |
| 1940’s | USA | With Japan occupying prime rubber-producing areas in Southeast Asia, the U.S. feared it would run out of the vital material. Every tire, hose, seal, valve, and inch of wiring required rubber. They created a program to come up with some novel plans to produce rubber, including planting dandelions—their milky sap a small, but useful source of rubber—in 41 states. Extensive work on synthetic rubber yielded a product that, in time, economists predicted, would replace natural rubber. | |
| 1943 | USA | GR-S production started (now known as SBR). Government rubber-styrene -> styrene butadiene rubber (c.f. Buna S). | |
| 1945 | Dow Corning & General Elec. USA | Silicone rubber. Not a sulphur cure, peroxides used. | |
| Late 1940’s | B.F. Goodrich, Dunlopillo, and Radium LLC USA & UK | Made Talalay process latex foam commercially practical. | |
| 1950’s | Brazil | Last wild rubber exported. | |
| 1960 | World | NR production 2,000,000 tons, Synthetics 2,500,000 tons. | |
| 1970 | World | NR production 3,000,000 tons, Synthetics 5,750,000 tons. | |
| 1972 | Dunlop UK | Dunlop introduced the ‘tubeless’ tyre. | |
| 1973 | OPEC Arabia | The oil embargo of 1973 doubled the price of synthetic rubber and made oil consumers more conscious of their gas mileage. The concern over gas mileage brought an unexpected threat to the synthetic rubber market: the widespread adoption of the radial tire, which Michelin had imported to the US in 56. The radial tire replaced the simple bias tires (which had made up 90 percent of the market only five years earlier) and within a few years virtually all cars were rolling on radials. Synthetic rubber did not have the strength for radials; only natural rubber could provide the required sturdiness. | |
| 1990 | World | Perhaps 5 billion plantation “hevea braziliensis” trees producing rubber worldwide. | |
| 1997 | World | NR production 6,500,000 tons, Synthetics 8,700,000 tons. | |
| 1990 | Arpico Sri Lanka | Starts massive US campaign to revive the latex mattress industry. | |
For more information on historical perspective, famous people involved with its processing and natural latex’s chemistry, technology and conservation, visit BouncyBalls.com
Organic Latex is made primarily from tree serum called latex. Latex is not sap and harvesting it does not take the lifeblood of the tree contained in the cambium layer. While the trees do not benefit from chemical fertilizers or pesticides, they do require a specific microclimate. They cannot grow here in the US as we do not have their climate, so any US made latex is either a petroleum product or is a product of liquid latex shipped here.
Rubber is not harvested from the wild trees, leaving the jungle intact. Trees are transferred from a nursery to a plantation when they are about three years old. Herein lies the environmental question. Would these monoculture plantations be better if they were polycultures, with a diverse spread of vegetation? For more detail on this subject, this article summarizes an in depth look at the impact of rubber forests.
Hevea Brasiliensis generally has a life cycle of about 32 years. Rubber serum is harvested from the bark of the tree when the tree is 5 years old. It can be harvested twice a week for an average of 25 years, taking 2 months off during the dry season. When the tree is 30 years old, its latex production slows considerably and it is usually cut down. Previously, the trunks were merely used locally and burned as fuel but recently the rubberwood has been recognized as quality lumber and is now shipped worldwide. It has also been called white teak, Malaysian Oak, Plantation Hardwood, and Parawood. It is used to make a furniture, toys, construction timbers and kitchen accessories. The circle of life continues when another sapling is planted in the same spot.
We welcome you to test out the five different firmnesses of natural latex at either our Lafayette, IN location or Eden Prairie, MN location. Rearrange the layers to find your depth and most comfortable solution for your bed. Try out the pillows and see the ticking in action.
No stock is kept in MN, all products will ship to you; pillows, wool products, and clearance items available in IN for local pickup; MN addresses do not pay sales tax.
Both showrooms are run by families in their homes. We’re glad you can stop by. Contact us to setup an appointment.
Just wanted to thank you for your help and for a terrific mattress. I’m so glad I came across the information about your company through the TC Natural Family Living listserv. Our son has transitioned nicely into his new bed and is sleeping soundly and healthfully. When we’re able to make the change, we’ll be in touch about a mattress for our own bed. – R. W.
GOTS certification: Our organic cotton fabric has attained the GOTS certification. The Global Organic Textile Standard is encompassing; it covers employee’s work standards, growing conditions and processing procedures. It prohibits use of formaldehyde, chlorine bleaches and dyes that release carcinogens. There are two grades available in the standard: level 1 requires the product to have 95% of its fibers organic, level two requires 70% of the materials’ fibers to be organic. Our fabric is not only grade 1, but our manufacturer keeps the fabric consistent and uses the same organic cotton threads for that last 5%. Our fabric then is 100% cotton and 100% organic. For more information, see the standard.
The standard is so complete, it covers on what tables fabric is cut and in what packages it is put. Our cutting area is not certified nor is our packaging. We do not display the GOTS logo with out fabric on their page because of our lack of certification. As we work out of our home, we couldn’t really certify our house. However, we can say that we believe in living naturally, so we consciously keep our home free of chemicals and other pollutants.
Why choose organic fabric? Cotton is one of the most chemically sprayed crops in the US. In order to pick the cotton seeds from the plants with machines, the leaves must be removed from the stalk first. The sprays defoliate the leaves to allow the machine access to the cotton. They also protect the plant from the notorious boll weevil. In our pursuits to pursue chemical free options, the organic label gives the assurance of the fibers being processed consciously. The cotton for our fabric is grown in India, where pesticides have yet to become the dominant choice.
Take part in the process.
How hands on would you like to be? Do you want to sew from a pattern and use our GOTS organic fabric and supplies or would you like us to sew your custom piece for you?