THE DAILY CHUM

Hop on the Green Chain

 I know. I know. Everyone’s talking “Green” these days. I’ve heard it all too. And I do try, whenever possible, to put what little money I have towards going and staying greener in my life. Composting? Sure. Buying products with less packaging? Absolutely. Turning off lights and switching to fluorescent bulbs? You bet! Using the “More With Less” cookbook? Duh! But it’s hard not to feel like what you do in your home is barely a drop in the bucket. However, as we just saw in the recent election, where President Elect Obama raised gazillions of dollars off of $10 contributions, drops in the bucket eventually garner vast oceans. I like to recall the words of Rabbi Tarfon (circa 100 C.E.), “You are not obliged to complete the work, but neither are you free to evade it.” I know I’m not perfect and I can’t fix it all, but I’ll do what I can.

One of the things I can do is choose to buy green—we all know that. But what about green crafting? Holly Gummelt and Drew Raine found a way to do both. For years now they’ve been waking up at the crack of dawn on specific top secret days to buy mill ends from the Pendleton Factory. That’s right. Huge multi- pound bags of the cut-off, cast-off edges of that lovely, soft, cozy, Pendleton wool.

And then?

They create!

That whole Reduce, Reuse, Recycle triangle—well, it’s roughly the shape of the hats Holly and Drew create for you. Holly is the designer and Drew is now the hands of the operation. Together they are a well-oiled, long-distance machine. Holly is now in the Seattle area while Drew remains in Portland, where the Pendleton factory is located, but they come together on their Etsy shop “Fairy Tale Fibers”, which Drew has been running since 2007.

Friends for over eight years, Drew took the Handmade Pledge in Dec 2007 when she pledged to buy, give, and request to receive handmade items. “I like using my money as a tool toward sustainability.” Drew, known as FairyDrew on Ravelry is also profiled at We Love Etsy. Drew is also a proud member of two Etsy Street Teams: Trashion – a global team of artisans that work with materials that some would call trash; and HOST (Helping Others Street Team)—a team of folks devoted to helping other Etsians in need. As Drew noted, “Sometimes trying to start a wee business, we don’t prioritize things like flood insurance, so we here at HOST are helping those folks out to the best of our ability.”

While Drew has been working the Etsy side of things, Holly has opened Monster Art and Clothing—Everyday Clothing for Unusual People , NW 20th and Ballard Ave in Ballard WA, which carries far more than the hats. Visit it when you’re in the Seattle area or go check out the website.

You can tell from reading one of Drew’s articles  that Fairy Tale Fibers hasn’t only embraced green creation, but green living. It sounds daunting, but little steps can make great strides, and in our current economy, anything that saves…well…anything sure makes sense.

But, as you know, the proof of the pudding is in the tasting and no one will buy a product—no matter how green it is—if it doesn’t work. On the Sea Socks ’08 cruise this past May these two intrepid entrepreneurs opened a trunk full of hats…and promptly sold them all. Me? I live in Tucson, AZ where the need for a Pendleton wool hat is roughly the same as my need for a spike through my foot. Knowing this, and knowing that I was going to disembark into the frozen north of Juneau, Alaska the next day, I convinced Holly and Drew to loan me a hat so I could test it out.

photo courtesy of Brenda Dayne

It works.

It works so well—and I have witnesses who will vouch for me—that I had to take the hat off temporarily…while in the mountains…in Alaska…on a hike…while it was snowing. My pathetically wussy Arizona blood was that well-warmed by the hat. These hats are that good. Good, unique, funky, and warm—what more could you ask for in a hat.

Oh. It’s also green.

Heather Ordover is a regular contributor to Cast-On with Brenda Dayne, a new contributor to Weavezine.com, and the host of the long-running podcast Craftlit: A Podcast for Crafters Who Love Books. She lives, teaches, writes, and podcasts in her corner of the Sonoran Desert (The Old Pueblo, Tucson, Arizona) with her extremely tolerant and supportive husband, her two goofball sons, their playful dogs, and a single, mournful, blue-tongued skink.

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