I thought it would be nice to do a little series of posts this week on some of the beautiful craft work that comes out of Japan.  Perhaps no other country is so obsessed with both the past and the future at once, so it’s the perfect place to explore when it comes to using historical materials and methods to create more sustainable products.

All images via Kurikan

First in our series is the cloth ware company Kurakin.

After receiving a research offer from the government to see if it could find a way to use food scraps as colorants, the Tsuyakin Kogyo Company, of Ichinomiya, Japan, developed the “nokori dye” method.  Read the rest of this entry »

I’m a big fan of wool, as anyone who has ever heard me speak will tell you.  Wool rocks.  It’s renewable, anti-static, resilient, dust mite resistant, won’t go up in a fire ball if exposed to flame (no need for fire retardant), and at the end of it’s usefulness will go back quietly to that good earth from which it came.

So you can imagine how excited I was to see that Mickus Projects has created a chair using only wool and steel.

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Pindler & Pindler has introduced a new line of luxury fabrics under the name “Pindler Green”.  Focused on natural fibers such as organic cotton and linen, Pindler has created some lovely patterns that are sure to have wide appeal, and not just to the sustainably minded.

I am particularly drawn to their suzani influenced patterns, such as Tybalt, an upholstery damask design, which is woven of 100% organic cotton and  comes in 5 colorways.

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