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Add a little green to your décor with some attractive cushions and blankets – or for venturing on a walk during a cool, brisk night, try a scarf made from biodegradable materials.
 
All natural fibers that are guaranteed to break down in a compost box within a year are used in the attractive and comfortable products made by the Canadian designer Joanna Notkin, founder of Looolo Textiles.

Looolo Textiles explains on its web site that the name “looolo” is a physical representation of the numeric value 100%, which is what Looolo Textiles promises with its products – they are made from 100% organic materials.

“Since the textile industry is one of the largest known environmental polluters, we want to address this in order to affect global change,” according to Looolo Textiles on its web site.

Looolo Textiles makes its products using felts and yarns from Switzerland that are free of chemicals and “hazardous by products.” It also uses organic cotton and a fiber called Kapok, which comes from Malaysian rain forests.

“Yes, you can throw them in your composter at the end of their useful life and they will biodegrade within 1 year,” as stated on the web site.

 Quite the innovator, Notkin’s Looolo Textiles has been featured in national and international publications such as Elle, Gardening Life, House & Home, en Route, The New York Times and Fashion, among many others.

Looolo products come in colors with names as natural as the fabric and yarns themselves – for example, colors like persimmon, coffee, lilac, ocean and sprout add to the natural feel of the plush scarves, cushions and blankets. Even the dyes used for the colors are free of

toxic chemicals. But that’s not all. Looolo has added a line of plush toys for children. A bagel sandwich or a hamburger featuring knitted lettuce and felt cheese make wholesome products that babies and toddlers, and even collectors, alike will want to touch and squeeze.

For locals interested in buying plush cushions or soft blankets, they can find them at Openhouse, a shop inside The Shops at 5807 on Patterson Avenue in Richmond.

There, Openhouse has cushions in pale grass green and a blanket and matching cushion in brown and teal.

“We also have a lot of customers call from seeing our cushions in magazines and order direct,” said Notkin, head designer of Looolo Textiles. “The most popular is the Janthur pillow.”

Cotton does not grow in Canada due to the cold climate, so Looolo’s cotton comes from the United States or outside of North America, according to Notkin. “Incidentally, our cushions are made from wool and not cotton which comes mainly from New Zealand and Australia.”

Notkin has won numerous awards for her designs. Most recently, she won the Eileen Fisher Grant in 2007 for Women in Business in New York. In 2005, she won the Editors Award for Textiles at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York.

“Doing our part for the planet means making the best environmental choice at every stage,” is part of the company’s philosophy.

To view Looolo Textiles’ products and learn more, visit www.looolo.ca. To learn more about Looolo Textile products sold in Virginia, visit The Shops at 5807 at www.shop5807.com or Openhouse at http://openhouse-richmond.blogspot.com.

  – Bobbie Whitehead