My guest today is Tricia Rose, Founder of Rough Linen, where she makes hand sewn bedding and other household items from exceptional linen fabrics. We’ll be talking about linen as a natural fiber, making things by hand, and living with elegant simplicity. “I didn’t find linen,” Tricia told me, “It came to me. I found this homespun, hand sewn linen pillow slip while I was clearing my grandmother’s cottage in Scotland. It was made by her great-grandmother, in 1840, and was in regular use for three generations. When it came to me I used it to store lavender. Years later, by good fortune, I found a natural linen with the same wonderful texture and feel, and I decided to make bedding in this simple, elemental tradition. I wanted the feeling of connection, appreciation of good materials and handiwork which is part of my heritage as part of my everyday life.” www.roughlinen.com

 

 

TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
For the Love of Linen

Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Tricia Rose

Date of Broadcast: April 02, 2014

DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And this is Toxic Free Talk Radio, where we talk about how to survive in a toxic world and how to live toxic free.

I’m feeling so great this morning. I don’t know if it’s just because it’s spring time and the sun is shining. And it’s 80 degrees outside here in Clearwater, Florida—what’s going on? Maybe it’s because it’s April [inaudible 00:00:24]. It’s a great day for me. It’s Tuesday—no, it’s not. It’s Wednesday, April 2nd. And I’m getting a note that my mic…

TRICIA ROSE: [inaudible 00:00:38]

DEBRA: I’m hoping that sounds better. I can’t tell from here. No? Well, we need to fix this first.

TRICIA ROSE: Alright. You know what, I really…

DEBRA: Okay. Try that. It’s just a mechanical difficulty. And I’ll tell you what it is. It’s just a little place where the cable hooks into the mic. There’s something with the mic that it falls out.

Anyway, today we’re going to have a wonderful show. We always have wonderful shows. In fact, you can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com and you can listen to all the shows that I’ve done for the past. It’s been almost a year, coming up on April 22nd. It will be a year on Toxic Free Talk Radio. So, all the shows are archived on Fridays. Instead of doing a live show, I play some shows from the past. But every single one of them is wonderful, every single one of them has great information and you’ll get to meet the people who are actually creating a toxic-free world.

Today, we’re going to talk about women. My guest is Tricia Rose. She’s the founder of Rough Linen. And she not only makes the things that she offers out of natural fibers, natural linen, but she hand sews them. These are not sewn on big industrial machines. She sews all these products herself. Hi, Tricia.

TRICIA ROSE: Hello. Hi, Debra.

DEBRA: How are you doing?

TRICIA ROSE: I’m fine, but I have to say I do have ladies who help me. I don’t sew everything myself.

DEBRA: Okay. But you’re all sewing like on sewing machines or by hand, or something like that, right?

TRICIA ROSE: We have a very small, little workshop. But it started on my dining room table, so it really is one of those grassroots things.

DEBRA: Yes. Yes. Well, I want to hear everything about what you’re doing. But before we start talking about your products, tell us your story of how you got started in doing this.

TRICIA ROSE: Well, my mother was a health food nut and a natural liver. And I know that she cared very much about where things came from and what they did. So, we had a vegetable garden. We always ate brown bread. We were allowed to have sweets or cookies or pudding only if we made them ourselves, which I think was a terribly clever rule.

DEBRA: I did that myself when I was making a transition from eating garbage food to—I mean, I always ate good food. My mother was a healthy food nut too. She used to make what we now would call a “green smoothie.” She called it a green drink.

And to get us to drink it, she would one of those horrible red—well, it didn’t taste horrible, but a horrible red maraschino cherry. She’d put it in the bottom, so we’d have to drink it in order to get the cherry. She was trying to be helpful. And I think that at the time nobody knew how bad FD&C maraschino cherry was.

TRICIA ROSE: Debra, I’m a great believer in intention.

DEBRA: Yes, me too.

TRICIA ROSE: If your intentions are pure, then some good has to come of it.

DEBRA: I think so too.

And so, when I decided that I was really going to eat natural, and all-healthy, and organic, and not eat so much packaged foods, my rule about any desert at all (except for ice cream), any cookies or cakes, or anything like that, if I was going to eat them, I had to make them myself. I had to make them out of organic ingredients and natural sweeteners.

That really cut down on eating junk food. And I got to have my treat if I actually stuck it through and actually made it.

TRICIA ROSE: Yes.

DEBRA: That’s a good strategy. So, she’d let you eat homemade cookies? Good.

TRICIA ROSE: Yes. And when I was 13, because she couldn’t sew at all—my grandfather sewed—I used to work the treadle for her machine. I mean, don’t ask me how somebody else work the treadle [inaudible 00:05:25].

And so, my mother sent me on a sewing course in the summer holidays. And when I came back, I had one beautiful clumsy dress with big puffed sleeves and a [inaudible 00:05:41] to show for it. I then made her clothes and mine my sister’s, a large proportion of them.

And then later, when was at the university, I wanted extra income. I sewed [inaudible 00:05:55] for other people. And so, I’ve always, always sewn. And all through my marriage, I’ve sewn as well because my husband and I worked together. But his hours tend to be longer.

And I have always gravitated towards beautiful pure fabrics. And then I found a linen pillowcase in my grandmother’s linen closet. I had to clear out her house after 67 years of continuous occupation (my aunt went into a nursing home).

And so, I went to this little stone cottage that I’ve known all my life. And amongst all the free beautiful linens, still wrapped in their cellophane, pure, beautiful linen sheets. I found this one neglected hand-woven, natural-colored [inaudible 0:06:52].

And it hadn’t been at all respected. Someone had put a casing into it and the drawstrings. I assumed it was used a shoe bag or as a laundry bag.

And I have a vague memory of an old spinning wheel, but I couldn’t find it. I knew that this was from my great great grandmother, who had lived in the country in Scotland. And it was around about 1840, which was a point at which people still grew a field of flax for their own use and then they spun it and wove it.

And so, I brought it with me to America. And I kept that [inaudible 00:07:37]. But about four years ago, I found a manufactured linen which had exactly the same texture. It’s obviously not hand-woven, but it has precisely the same texture and color and handle. I thought that I would make myself a duvet cover. I did. People started admiring it, so I made a few more.

And then I had one glass of wine too many one Sunday night and thought, “I need to share this with the world.”

DEBRA: And I’m so glad you did.

TRICIA ROSE: I just wrote a little piece about it and I sent it to a design blog called Remodelista , never thinking that they would run the piece the next day. And suddenly, I had 10 orders. And that was how it started in 2009.

DEBRA: Well, that was exactly the right place. I love Remodelista and Gardenista. I get the Gardenista email every day, and I always read it because it’s so beautiful about…

TRICIA ROSE: It’s a bright spot in the inbox, isn’t it?

DEBRA: It is. It really is, and I highly recommend it, Gardenista.com. It really has a being-aligned-with-nature viewpoint, and bringing nature inside, and using natural materials, and all those kinds of things which is right in alignment with me.

So, they ran it the very next day of course because that is just what they do.

We need to go to break, so we’ll talk more when we come back.

You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and my guest today is Tricia Rose. She’s the founder of Rough Linen. That’s the name of her website. It’s RoughLinen.com. She has absolutely gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous natural linen bedding and curtains, and other things for the home.

And we’ll be right back to talk with her more.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Tricia Rose, founder of Rough Linen. That’s at RoughLinen.com. She makes gorgeous things out of beautiful linen.

Tricia, I know that you started your company because you were inspired by the fabric and the history and the possibilities.

But I’m doing this show because I’m looking for things that are not toxic, which of course yours is. Is there anything you want to tell us about regular fabrics and toxic chemicals?

TRICIA ROSE: I really [inaudible 00:10:38] so much on linen. And I’ve never liked synthetic materials. That said, what would do without Lycra. I don’t know [inaudible 00:10:50]. But I feel like if I look at my underwear, I’m definitely in a state of confusion.

But for big items, like sofas and beds, it’s appalling how toxic they can be. I have a number of these in my [inaudible 00:11:16]. One of them is box-spring. I do not know why anyone in the world has as a box-spring in their bed because, first of all, they’re just very big, and bulky, and ugly.

If you have sprung, laminated wooden slats (like the very expensive European ones), it [inaudible 00:11:40] in a narrow profile.

And then, again, mattresses, since I came to America, first of all, I noticed how enormous the beds were, and then the mattresses have kept on growing with the advent of pillow tops and things.

DEBRA: Yes.

TRICIA ROSE: You have to be so careful. All of that bulk is plastic and rubberizers and [inaudible 00:12:09], why do we want to have that near us? A slimmer profile mattresses (and preferably of natural materials) makes so much more sense than this sort of bed where you need a little ladder to climb into.

I think that would health risks quite apart from [inaudible 00:12:30]. I mean, what happens when people fall out?

DEBRA: That’s a very good point. I was housesitting for a friend of mine who had one of those beds that you have to climb up a little ladder to get in it. Really, I did. It was difficult to get in and out of. I myself sleep on a woodstock bed with maybe five inches of mattress. And it’s all stuffed with wool and natural fibers sheets. Everything about my bed is natural.

But I understand what you’re saying, and I do very much prefer the natural-stuffed mattress on top of the woodstocks in terms of comfort.

TRICIA ROSE: Yes. Yes, I mean, it’s just far more comfortable. Obviously, there’s a hierarchy of bedding. And I would say right at the bottom is nylon and polyester. Although polyester is actually the strongest sheeting that you can have. Polyester is next doors to indestructible, but it [inaudible 00:13:42] and it looks stingy, and it doesn’t feel nice. It has sort of a clamminess next to your skin.

DEBRA: I agree.

TRICIA ROSE: Then you have the poly cotton mixes, then you have cotton which of course is beautiful. But the way that cotton is produced is not beautiful. Cotton has a very high use of irrigation and pesticide because the little ball is a fruit, so the caterpillars and things like it, whereas linen is the stem of a plant and so it’s much less likely to be attacked by insects.

It’s a big tough, longer stem.

We might have trouble [inaudible 00:14:30] pesticide used in linen. It’s basically a weed.

It traditionally was grown in places where it hasn’t needed irrigation. What it does need is a reliably damp autumn. And when it’s harvested—and quite often it’s pulled up by the roots by machines, not by hand anymore—then it is laid in stooks in the field. If allowed to just sit there and get damp, it’s called field resting.

And what happens it that the softer stuff rots away from the long stem. It smells terrible. But then that is harvested [inaudible 00:15:24].

And the reason that linen is relatively expensive is it goes through so many hand mechanical processes after that. You whack it with a little stick, and then you drag it through a bed of nails, and it turns into long hanks. It looks like long blonde hairs. And then, it’s woven [inaudible 00:15:57].

DEBRA: But it’s a very natural process. As you’re talking about, all these are happening in the field and by hand. It’s not something that requires a lot of chemicals and thing like that.

TRICIA ROSE: Exactly.

DEBRA: I just want to describe that linen is the name of the fabric that comes from the flax plant.

TRICIA ROSE: That’s right.

DEBRA: And if you’ve never seen a flax—now, I actually grew up with flax plants in my front yard. And they grew quite large.

They were very good flax, little yellow and green flax. But if you’ve never seen a flax plant or you don’t know what it is, it is like a bunch of blades—big, wide blades. It’s like a blade of grass, but on steroids. It’s very big.

And the flax plants we had when I was growing up were maybe three or four feet high. And there was a bunch. All these leaves would come out.

Oh, I see we need to go break, so I’ll continue my story when we come back.

This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And today we’re talking about linen fabric with Tricia Rose, founder of Rough Linen. She has got the most beautiful linen bedding you’ve ever seen. We’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: Here we go. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Tricia Rose, founder of Rough Linen. She’s at RoughLinen.com. And you can go there and see her beautiful things that she makes from linen with hand sewing.

So, to just finish up my story about the linen plant, you can actually see—I remember as a child, I would pull the leaves off the linen plant, and I’d rip them apart, these long strands. I thought that was a lot of fun. I had no idea it was linen at the time. But you can actually see the fiber in the flax plant.

TRICIA ROSE: Oh, yes. Yes. And one of the beautiful things is—but unfortunately, in the United States, there is no fiber flax grown. But there’s a lot of nutritional flax. I mean, flax seed is from linen. It’s a wonderful plant. And anyone who’s driven through fields of flax knows that they’re such large plant, those are. But the field grows green, and the plants go away, the flowers open again and they bloom. It’s a beautiful, ethereal sky blue.

DEBRA: Oh, how beautiful.

TRICIA ROSE: It’s a lovely sight.

DEBRA: I’ve never seen that.

TRICIA ROSE: So, it’s grown…

DEBRA: Go ahead.

TRICIA ROSE: Well, apparently, you can’t use—I mean, it’s a matter of economics, I’m sure. You can’t use the seed flax for fiber. But there used to be a flourishing flax industry.

I mean, it’s what people used to grow. There was in Washington State and in Oregon, in particular, there was a very flourishing flax industry, and an interesting story that comes with it.

At [Inaudible 00:19:20], flax was grown and woven. And the best mills sold flax in America were slaves growing cotton. Flax couldn’t compete with this new cheap slave-grown cotton.

DEBRA: What’s coming to mind is linsey woolsey. Was that linen [inaudible 00:19:45]?

TRICIA ROSE: Linsey woolsey is linen and wool woven together.

DEBRA: Yes.

TRICIA ROSE: I mean, what a wonderful name?!

DEBRA: I know! I love it.

TRICIA ROSE: If you read in the Bible, there are a lot of [inaudible 00:19:58] against mixing wool with linen because pure linen is mentioned over and over again. Pure white linen, it was what you use as a shroud. The priests at the temple wore it.

And I’ve read a lot of stuff on the internet about the purity and helpful vibrations within it which I find very interesting.
I mean, I love linen for itself. It doesn’t sway me in any way except that I find it fascinating that there’s such history going back so far.

In fact, the oldest—not woven, the oldest spun linen fibers ever found were in a cave [inaudible 00:20:50] because of the dye that was used in them, they are 65,000 years old.

DEBRA: Wow!

TRICIA ROSE: So, it’s very likely that people [inaudible 00:20:59] this sort of woody plant, and they just twisted it. It makes a lot of sense.

DEBRA: Yeah. It just kind of blends itself to being a fiber, that you could…

TRICIA ROSE: Absolutely.

DEBRA: Yeah. Also, another thing is that linen is traditionally the preferred fiber for clothing in hot climates because it breathes really well. And here in Florida, I think that linen is actually the correct fiber for us to wear.

And so, does it grow in all kinds of different climates? Could I grow linen in my backyard?

TRICIA ROSE: I don’t think Florida noted for long damp autumns, is it? You might have a bit of trouble. I mean, think of Ireland, Irish linen and Belgium, Belgium linen.

DEBRA: So, it needs to be [inaudible 00:21:50].

TRICIA ROSE: [inaudible 00:21:51]

DEBRA: Yeah.

TRICIA ROSE: Yes. And in those northern latitudes, a short but very intense growing season—it has I think a 60-day growing season. If you haven’t got a reliable dampness, you do need to damp it down. It [inaudible 00:22:13] what we call a wetting pond, and rest it that way (although it needs a bit more supervision). And if you [inaudible 00:22:21].

DEBRA: Now, you have—

TRICIA ROSE: But if you want to wearing linen, it’s cool to the touch. It’s wonderful, just wonderful to sleep under because it retains a sort of wholesomeness and [inaudible 00:22:37] even better than cotton.

Sometimes people who come to linen after cotton say that the handle is harsh because cotton tends to be much smoother.

You have to try them both to find out what you like for yourself. But I’m now at a stage where I can’t stand anything remotely slithery or clingy like bamboo.

DEBRA: I myself love linen. It’s my favorite fiber. We have a store here in the Tampa Bay area where I live that was made as kind of a homage to England from somebody who had gone to England and spent a lot of time there. He wanted to come back and have this store be like a store in England. And I’ve been to England, so I know what that’s like. It’s my favorite place to be in the entire area here where I live.

I went in there one day, and they had whole rack of linen throws, I guess, that you would toss on the sofa. And they were in all these different colors and they had been washed a million times. They were so soft. I just wrapped one of those around me and I didn’t want to take it off.

I didn’t have the $200 that day to buy it, but I went back because I couldn’t stop thinking about it. And when I had the $200, I went back and they didn’t have them anymore. I was so disappointed!

TRICIA ROSE: Oh, dear.

DEBRA: It was like from that moment on, that was all I wanted to sleep in.

I mean, I sleep on cotton flannel sheets, so they’re very cozy, and comfy, and soft. But when I wrapped that linen around my body it was like, “Yes. This is my fiber. This is what I want to sleep on. This is what I want to wrap myself in.” It’s just so attuned with my body.

TRICIA ROSE: Yes.

DEBRA: It was amazing.

TRICIA ROSE: And it’s so versatile because, obviously, if you iron it, it becomes crisp and very, very smooth. And new linen, you need to wash it and to use it before it soften down. And it becomes the most beautifully soft, light, embracing textile quality that you could possibly search for.

DEBRA: It really does. It’s a pretty amazing thing. Well, we need to go to break.

TRICIA ROSE: And it’s easy to care for too. You just wash it. It’s very important not to over dry linen because that will shorten the life of the fiber. This will break it down. It doesn’t like dry heat.

DEBRA: Mm-hmmm…

TRICIA ROSE: So, you can lay off the ironing.

DEBRA: Well, we’re going to break again. When we come back, we’re going to hear all about what Tricia makes at Rough Linen. She has different kinds of linen fabrics. We’re going to hear about that.

You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. We’re talking about linen today with Tricia Rose of Rough Linen. That’s RoughLinen.com. We’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Tricia Rose, founder of Rough Linen. That’s at RoughLinen.com. And Tricia, tell us about these different kinds of linen fabrics. What’s the difference between them? You have four different types.

TRICIA ROSE: It’s all linen. It depends where it’s grown, how you can use it. And in fact, just about every part of the plant is used. The tougher, shorter fibers are made into rope. And I’m extremely thrilled that now it’s legal to grow hemp in California.

There was a ridiculous ban on it because it looks exactly like marijuana because it’s the same plant family. I mean, it’s quite ridiculous. You couldn’t grow this absolutely harmless useful plant just because of the way it looked. It would confuse people.

Hemp and linen are related. I’m looking forward. If there is hemp grown in California, I would like to sew it [inaudible 00:27:08] how can I do that.

But the very best linen is grown in Belgium and Ireland. But the trouble is it’s un-economic to process. The reason that you get such a beautiful linen out of that strip—it’s Belgium, France, Ireland, that entire strip, that latitudinal strip, and France and Luxemburg. They’re heavily subsidized there.

And then as you go further north, there is [inaudible 00:27:51], but it tends to be the more utilitarian linen. And there used to be a thriving linen industry in Scotland, in Poland. Lithuania didn’t plant a single hectare of linen last year, not one. And they were big, big producers.

So, there will not be a shortage because the price will simply go up to cope with this. But it does seem like something where it’s one of the places where the government could actually do some good by allowing us to grow linen.

DEBRA: Wow! Yeah, they really should. They absolutely should. So, there’s these four different kinds. Are they different by—like if I were wanting to choose to buy some bed linens and you have Orkney smooth linen, St. Barts, and Myriad. How would I know what the difference is in those? Which one would I want to choose?

TRICIA ROSE: Yeah. Orkney is my original and best-loved linen. That’s the one that has the homespun texture. We sell it now. I have Orkney natural (which is the one that my heart belongs to), Orkney white (which is a creamy white), and I have flax which I use to make a pinafore. I didn’t mean to go into clothing. But once again, I made a pinafore, and it’s been selling like hot cake.

So, a pinafore, it’s like an apron. It’s based on an old Amish canning apron. You slip it over your head, the straps cross at the back, and you don’t have to tie it. Both your hands are free. You don’t have to mess about behind you. And it’s a wonderful garment because you have two great big pockets. So, my iPhone is one pocket, everything else is in the other.

And it’s just a very useful garment.

But anyway, sorry, that is Orkney and that is the toughest of them all.

Then I have St. Barts, which is very like the Orkney. It’s just a little bit lighter. And the reason I carry St. Barts is that it’s the only one I can get in color. And so I make curtains, in particular, out of that and some duvet covers.

Of course, most of the people who buy my linen goes for natural all-white. That’s the way it is.

Then Myriad is an off-white open-weave curtain material. So, it’s like with a shear, and I only can use it for curtains. It’s too loose for anything else. I couldn’t resist it. And the third linen…

DEBRA: And I’m looking at the pictures on your site as you’re describing these. And the Myriad, really, it’s diaphanous. I thought that were diaphanous.

TRICIA ROSE: I got a lot of teasing about the photograph from the website. I was soaking the curtain material and I loved the texture. And I love the way all linen curtains move in the breeze. They are just wonderful, the way they float. But people were saying, “Ooh, Tricia. You’re in love with a curtain.

And then, our third linen is woven for me to my specification, double width. I wanted to make a sheet, and you cannot have a sheet with a seam in it. So, it has to be at least 120 inches wide. Mine, it varies. I’ve learnt such a lot about the finishing of linen. It varies between 123 and 128 inches wide depending on the batch. And I have that in natural and I have it in white.

When people ask me if my fabrics are natural, the white has been bleached, there’s no way I can get around it. It has been bleached. So it has been treated chemically. And the colors have been bleached before they’ve been dyed. So, for people who do have chemical sensitivities, I would send them the natural.

DEBRA: Yes. It’s nice that you have both those choices to make. And I see some of the other things that you have besides the beddings and curtains. I see there’s a shower curtain here and various table runners, and napkins, and placemats, and things like that. So you can just look around her site and see all these lovely things to bring linen into your home.

TRICIA ROSE: Right.

DEBRA: I also wanted to—

TRICIA ROSE: The napkins are a wonderful—I’m sorry, dear.

DEBRA: Go ahead. You go ahead.

TRICIA ROSE: The napkins are wonderful for everyday use because, first, you don’t have to iron them. You’re not stuffing around. I make them a generous five. And the texture gives you plenty of traction if you got a bit of mustard on your chin.

And you just use them every day, and wash them, don’t iron them (don’t give yourself that amount of work). And they look very attractive.

I use the old-fashioned napkin rings, so that we can tell whose napkin is whose. So we don’t change them every day. That’s too much hard work.

DEBRA: Oh, yes. I use cloth napkins. And I actually have some linen napkins. I’m looking on your page here and I looked at this picture of the restaurant, and I went, “Oh, that looks familiar.” I used to live in [West Marine in Forest Hills]. Here, this restaurant is there in [inaudible 00:34:04]. I know that building. I’ve been in that room.

TRICIA ROSE: It’s such a beautiful room, yes.

DEBRA: It is.

TRICIA ROSE: Yes. I was very honored that they’ve heard of my linen. It goes completely with the ethos because it’s local…

DEBRA: Absolutely. They would be perfect.

TRICIA ROSE: Yeah.

DEBRA: They’re perfect, perfect. So, I just wanted to talk a little bit. We’re almost near the end of the show, but I wanted to talk a little bit about hand-made things. Could you just speak to the importance of hand-made items in your home?

TRICIA ROSE: I think the real importance of hand-made items is to the person who makes it because there’s such a disconnect. If you don’t create anything, you’re robbing yourself of an interaction with the rest of the world.

I mean, I think it’s almost the leaning of our day to day reality. I would include in that gardening, or looking after animals or pets, as well as crocheting and sewing, and knitting. I mean, even making up your face can be an art form.

DEBRA: Oh, of course.

TRICIA ROSE: Yes. So, one of my favorites, I used to love to braid my daughter’s hair. You know how little girls are. They’re quite [inaudible 00:35:31]. So I would do that. It’s almost like cornrowing. That’s what you do on the tail of a horse. And it would keep her hair beautifully neat all day. And I felt when she went out through the door, she looked as though somebody loved her because somebody had taken the time to braid her hair.

I mean, that sort of everyday [inaudible 00:35:55], it’s an art form to anyone—and men too. It isn’t just if you’re a woman in a domestic context (and most of us work now). But for men to work with their hands, and women—

I’m on Gandhi’s side. He used to sit and weave he needed to think.

DEBRA: Yes. One of the things that I do is I make desserts from natural, organic, and natural sweeteners. And now I make them gluten free. But I bring them to—whenever there’s a potluck or something, I’m always bringing things that are hand-made as opposed to going and buying something because so many people just go buy something and bring it to the potluck.

TRICIA ROSE: Yeah.

DEBRA: And I remember, one day, I had made these cookies. I had to just kind of padded them with my fingers instead of rolling them with the rolling pin. A friend of mine picked one up and she said, “I can see Debra’s fingerprints in the cookies.” I almost cried when she said that because it’s like that’s what we should have our lives to be about. It’s to see that love in the products that we use every day.

And I’m going to run out of time saying this here, so I’m going to say it really fast. But my wool bed, I know the girls that sewed it. I know where the sheet came from. And I know when I ordered your sheets that you sewed them, and that’s going to be special to me.

TRICIA ROSE: I want to know where everything comes from, and we love things.

DEBRA: I need to stop because we’re really out of time. They’re going to cut us off.

TRICIA ROSE: Thank you so much, Debra.

DEBRA: Thank you so much for being on the show. I love what you’re doing. Good luck to you with everything. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. Bye.