Cotton & The Environment

Did you know that the average tee-shirt will generate 28 times its weight in harmful carbon emissions in its lifetime?

Well you like me might wonder well, why and how is that? It comes down to a number of issues:

1. Methods that are used in farming the cotton.
2. The fact that most cotton is then transported across large distances to reach the processing/manufacturing plants.
3. Methods that are used to process the raw material, to the knitting and dying processes.
4. The later washing, drawing and packaging of the producting.
5. And the fact that most products once packaged for shipping then travel long distances to reach the place where they are then sold.

Transportation accounts for a large percentage of the carbon footprint that is given off. The fact that most materials are not grown where the product is made and the fact that most of our products are no longer made locally not even remotely so.

People might think that Cotton is a wonderful alternative to all the plastic fabrics out there such as polyester or nylon and other mixes there of. However, Cotton isn't always the great alternative.

1. Cotton is one of the most pesticide-intensive crops grown in the world.
2. Cotton farming and the production accounts for a quarter of the world's total pesticide use.

Links: 
- Harmonious Living, Your Carbon Footprint - Read The Lables: http://www.harmoniousliving.co.za/Environment/Eco-Friendly/Your-Carbon-Footprint-Check-the-Labels/
- Earth Trust, Carbon Footprint Reduction Table

Tag UpDate

So an update on the tags and what we're doing. Candace and I put together a number of the images we took from the GoodWill escapade and I took from the Walmart escapade (People give you the oddest looks for just walking around places and taking pictures). So we took all these pictures and put them together into the shape of a t-shirt and then used the cloth printer in the textile's lap to print it out in a large size.

When Candace get's back we're going to collage the tags across the top of the printed form--sewing them on one side so that they stick out and create a 3d layer over the 2d print out. At least that is the current plan of attack. ;)

We may need more tags and we've talked about a couple of other ideas as well.

I would also like to create a digital form of the map that goes along with this project that is somewhat interactive but I'm still trying to figure out Flash and thus the first few attempts have failed. We'll see if I can do it by next week. hahaa. *disappears*

Around the World with Aunt Sharril!

In these last two weeks Jay and I are trying to reel in some information from people abroad, and I'm very happy to have received a response from my Aunt Sharril, who is the most well traveled lady I know. I'd love to get a peak her closet, but alas, all I have is some interesting information about a few items.

White pants,  50 % cotton,48pc linen 2 pc lycra bought in Australia, Made in China
Printed Top, 100 % rayon  bought in Autralia, made in Indonesia
Skirt, 100 % cotton bought in New Caledonia, made in India
Shorts, 100 % cotton bought in US, made in Egypt
Sweater, 100 % cotton bought in France, made in Spain
Night gown, 100 % cotton  bought in England, made in Sri Lanka.
"I wonder where all that cotton actually came from. I notice that nothing I randomly picked in my closet is made in France or the US where I spent a lot of time"

Which is a good point. Even though things are made in one country, there is a very long chain of production leading up the actual constructing of a garment. An item of clothing could have materials that travelled around the world 5 times before making it to your closet!!!

Thanks again to Aunt Sharril, and hopefully we get some more responses from others abroad!!

-Candace

Last One - Printed Tags

The newest thing as I'm sure many people are aware of is the 'Printed Tag', which I for one love. I cut all my tags out and throw them away as soon as I get anything from anywhere. However, when you got somewhere to try and take the tags out of something... it does rather present a problem.

So what do you do? Well, I took pictures of the tags for the fun of it. When approached by GoodWill employees asking what you're doing, looking like a crazy art student helps. Just smile and say, "I'm doing a design project, designing tags for clothing so I'm doing research is there a problem?"

Alright so there is an answer to that problem at least a fun one if not anything more then that. I'm done with the posting spam for tonight.

More to come later.

Adventure!

Well, you have a pile of tags on a table. What do you think? Where can I get more of these!

Hahhaha... or at least that's what went through my head. So Candace and I went on a field trip out of the studio with scissors, camera, hat's and all daring to GoodWill. Where we proceeded to fill a cart with clothing.

We did not much care what the clothing looked like, or if it wouldn't in a million years fit either one of us. What did we pay attention to? What was on the tag, a funny face, the word 'hemp', or *gasp* made in the USA and a variety of other things.

So you have a cart full of cloths in GoodWill and then you take them by fives and sixes into the dressing room and proceed to cut all the tags out of them and stuff them into your camera bag (or purse)!

And then after that of course you go through everything that has been left in the dressing room and see what you can find in there. You'd be surprise what you find in dressing rooms.

Any questions? Nope good, wanna help?

Tips:
1) Get a pair of scissors that fits into your purse or a small bag.
2) Make sure you have room in your small bag for the tags.
3) Take camera but remember people give you very strange looks if you use the flash while you're in there...