Patcraft Designweave

is working on greening up the carpet industry (for stats on the problems inherent with carpet, see Union Eighteen). Part of Shaw Industries, Patcraft "is committed to cradle-to-cradle design, whereby products are intentionally designed to be deconstructed and reused to make the same product, again and again." Their signature, branded product, EcoSolution Q is made with 25% recycled content and minimal raw materials, so you can "choose to do the right thing for the planet."

Easy on the Eyes. Designed by Patcraft Designweave.

For NeoConEast, Patcraft brings us the new See It to Believe It Collection, which includes two modular patterns, Moving on Up and Easy on the Eyes. Available in over 200 colors, EcoSolution Q is also cost-effective, as mentioned by Jenny Rector in her NeoCon 2009 post about Patcraft's Define & Conquer pattern. All this sustainability and mid-market price doesn't minimize your design options: Patcraft Designweave offers a wide array of patterns in many different colorways, broadloom and modular. All abracadabra and hocus-pocus, the collection takes its cue from visual illusion. Moving on Up (despite its inherent allusion to The Jeffersons for people of a certain age) features lines and squiggles in various blocks-I think some of the designs resemble 1950s TV sets. The modular carpet is playful, whimsical, and futuristic. Most of the patterns are in neutral colors, such as the taupe Open Sesame and the brown Voila. Moving on Up's coordinate, the far subtler Easy on the Eyes (aptly named) uses only the lines of varying width and straightness that already make up a piece of Moving on Up. Again, the patterns stay in the neutral range, with little forays into colors like rust and steel blue, found as accents within the brown and grey tones-see Shazam and Alakazam.

Patcraft Designweave's EcoSolution Q is certainly a step in the right direction where carpet is concerned. Since making and disposing of carpet can be both toxic and wasteful, this material proves promising: "Look at it from both sides. Every square foot of our carpet is created to work beautifully on your project's floor and our planet's surface. Top to bottom, our carpet is engineered with your future in mind." With unique designs like those in Patcraft's new See it to Believe It Collection, you can feel just as good about how it looks in the present.