Surely everyone wants to lower the rate of damage the human race is wreaking on our beautiful planet. Well here at York Scarves we have introduced a brand new line of organic cotton scarves which you can add to your organic clothing collection. For those that don't know organic cotton clothing is made from cotton yarn that is produced using no artificial chemicals and by sustainable farming and production practises. Not only is environmental damage minimised but we have found that organic cotton is softer and seems to absorb and hold the azo free dyes we use better that other cottons.

Another winning point for organic cotton is that it does not create problems for people who are sensitive to chemical’s, in other words it is hypoallergenic. Mass produced scarves will often have traces of chemicals embedded in their fabric and these can be a real issue for some people and cause severe allergic reactions. So not only is ethical clothing better for the planet, it is also better for the wearer, and it helps to lock more CO2 into the soil helping to combat global warming.

There are many other points that make organically produced cotton so much better than conventionally produced…….

It requires much less water to produce and is typically grown in areas with good rainfall.

The people that work on the farms and in production work in a much safer environment without the contamination of toxic chemicals.

The fact that the soil on these farms is not poisoned allows farmers to safely grow food and other crops on the same soil, something that can be hazardous on other farms. And it isn’t just the soil and the people that are affected but all life within the ecosystem.

Organic cotton may cost a few pence more but the environmental benefits are many whereas the damage caused by chemically produced cottons is huge .

As we move forward we hope to contribute more to the ethical clothing market by bringing in new lines produced from organic yarns. The current plain pashmina we are selling makes the perfect summer scarf so if you want a cotton pashmina and you want to know that your purchase has been responsibly produced you are in the right place.

There are many ways of imprinting a pattern onto fabric but probably the most common is the traditional method of screen printing. The screen itself is a fine mesh which is fitted into a wooden frame big enough to contain the whole pattern. If the pattern is a simple repeat pattern the screen might be quite small and the frame can be systematically moved over the fabric to produce the repeat. If the pattern is a non repeat pattern that covers the whole scarf then the screen needs to cover the whole scarf. In the image below the screen is half the length of the scarf and the pattern is repeated in either half.

I remember when I was growing up and my mum would wrap a scarf round my neck on a cold morning before she sent me off to school. Whatever the weather I'd walk the half mile and meet up with my chums en route and we'd have competitions to see whose foggy breath was the thickest. There was no school run and no worries. A scarf was for winter and it kept me warm. When I was older and started riding motorbikes a scarf was a great way of stopping the freezing cold air from rushing down the front of my scruffy leather jacket, and it kept the bugs and dust out. To me a scarf was a practical means to an end.

So there I was madly packing scarves over the Christmas period and then a few weeks later it's almost June, and another Christmas on the horizon......Amazing....I guess when you are busy time does seem to hurry a little. We had a great time in India early in the year and ordered more new lines than we have ever done before. It seems from the feedback that we did a good job as well so here's hoping for another great year.

Indian weddings are always extravagent affairs with copious amounts of food, guests, noise and colour. Below are a few images I snapped on the night.