Door Curtains

Step away from the shiny polyester! As if choosing a curtain fabric wasn’t hard enough, trying to avoid unsustainable fabrics takes it to a whole new level.

It is estimated that heating a home accounts for about a third of a household’s carbon footprint, and so this year I decided to add some extra insulation to my home in the form of some curtains for my front door and dining room bi-fold doors. The front door was an obvious choice as I can actually feel the draft from it all the way down the hallway, however with the bi-fold doors it was less of an obvious issue. But I managed to convince my husband that it would make a difference and we decided to go for it. As it turns out the effectiveness of the curtains far exceeds any of my expectations. The temperature difference when the curtains are drawn is so dramatic I wish I had done it sooner.

I have to say that when I first started looking at fabric samples I got a bit excited. It was only once I had found one that I liked that I then noticed on the back that it was 100% polyester. (As was all of the other fabric samples in the book!) My sustainability alarm bells went off and so I went online to do a quick bit of research to see what the more sustainable options might be. Unsurprisingly, I found that I should be trying to avoid the synthetic materials like polyester and acrylic due to them being produced from oil, however what was even more unfortunate was that cotton is also considered a hugely damaging material due to its water and chemical usage!

The ideal eco-fabrics that I needed to find were natural raw materials that don’t use chemicals, pesticides or synthetic fertilisers and they are a renewable and sustainable resource. Fabrics like: hemp, bamboo, organic cotton, organic silk and linen. Plus there are also now some great innovative recycled materials like those made out of plastic bottles.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t see any of those options in the sample books and so even though I was nervous about asking (for fear of being seen as a pain in the arse) I did. Luckily, Sophie from Sophie Sews (who made the curtains for me) was so supportive in helping me in my search. She had never been asked for sustainable fabrics before but totally embraced the idea and tried to help me find some solutions. Unfortunately, however there are not yet many suppliers that offer such fabrics. I did however manage to find these two suppliers that have a small range of sustainable fabrics and you can actually search for them by that criteria which is a huge help.

https://www.justfabrics.co.uk/…/eco-friendly-fabric/

https://www.stitched.co.uk/shop/our-fabrics

However, even after A LOT of searching and deliberating I still wasn’t able to find a sustainable option that I could look at and love every day, so sadly I had to make a sustainability compromise. (Here is where the “Imperfect” part comes in.) For the bi-fold curtains I therefore decided that avoiding the polyester was more important to me and I eventually managed to find a pure cotton fabric that I liked (unfortunately not organic), this was a decision that I made very reluctantly but I figured that at least I am planning on keeping them for a very, very long time! For my front door curtain though I was delighted to have a bit of success by finding some beautiful fabric that is made from recycled plastic bottles. I did also try to get some organic cotton for the linings but unfortunately Sophie didn’t think that the ones we could find would be suitable as the samples we managed to get were more for clothes rather than curtains or just far too expensive to be a viable option.

I wish I could have found some more sustainable fabric options, but at least I know that I tried and I am hoping that the energy savings that I am yielding from the curtains already will at least start to compensate for the negative impact that the materials had whilst being made.

It was very disappointing to see how little choice there is in this area especially as there is so much potential, and so I called one of the main fabric designers to ask if they were looking to produce some more sustainable materials and they did actually say that yes it was something they were discussing. So fingers crossed there will start to be a change in the industry soon if enough people start asking. In the meantime though, I have fired off a few more emails to various fabric designers to hopefully get them to start thinking about the impact of their materials too.

My curtains might be a bit bold, but bright beautiful colours and shiny tropical parrots are just what I need to see on a cold, dark winter night. It makes me feel cosy and warm just looking at them!