December 18, 2023

Croatan Institute has teamed up with Solid State Clothing and TS Designs to make 100% NC cotton t-shirts dyed with locally-foraged black walnuts. A portion of the proceeds from every sale will support our Canopy Community, enabling us to meet our mission of building social equity and ecological resilience by leveraging finance to create pathways to a just economy.

The beautiful soft brown of this shirt comes from locally-foraged black walnuts, the fruit of a tree native to the Eastern United States. Added to a meticulously crafted t-shirt made from North Carolina cotton, it’s piece of clothing intimately connected to the land we live on.

TS Designs collected hundreds of pounds of walnuts that fell from large, old trees near their production facility in central North Carolina. They soaked the walnuts in water for several weeks to create a dye—a slow process that reduces their carbon footprint by requiring zero energy input. The t-shirts were then dyed at TS Designs‘ dyehouse four miles down the road.

The t-shirts would make a wonderful gift! Here’s the specifications:

• Classic, tailored fit

• Unisex style

• 100% ringspun cotton grown in North Carolina

• 5.5 oz

• Garment dyed with locally-foraged black walnuts

• Made in North Carolina and South Carolina, USA

• QR code allows you to track every step of your shirt’s making