#2: Let the travels begin

After a good fall show season, we're heading out tomorrow for 4 months in Thailand and Laos. As always, we have visits planned with weaving groups with whom we've been working for the last few  years. Top of our list for this trip is sourcing organic silk and organic cotton fabric for several designers who value fair trade and working with handwoven, organic fibres and natural dyes. We also have several new groups to visit, as we've connected recently with some people doing interesting work with Thai weaving groups on organic cotton production.

In Laos, we will be visiting Mulberries' farm to see firsthand their work creating organic silk and have offered to make a book for them, similar to the 3 we've already created for 2 Thai weaving groups and a Thai NGO. We'll be delivering 15 copies of our latest book, Weaving Sustainable Communities, to the Pattanarak Foundation the day after we arrive in Bangkok. Take a peak inside TAMMACHAT's 3 books if you haven't already seen them.

And back at home in Atlantic Canada, we'll stay in touch with the newly formed Clothing and Textile Action Group, a group of people working within the Ecology Action Centre, based in Halifax, NS, on issues around sustainability, clothing and other textiles. We've been involved since the first meeting and value having a local group that shares our values and is taking active steps to change how we look at our current production and use of the textiles we wear and use.

Hitting the ground running, in our usual fashion!

In fair trade,
Ellen (Nok Noi, my Thai nickname, which means little bird) and Alleson (Pii Plaa, Thai for older sister fish -- hard to translate!)