Iris Hantverk

You may already know or even own one of more of Iris Hantverk's beautiful brushes - they are sold in discerning design and homeware stores throughout the world. 

The company was first set up in the late nineteenth century to provide employment for visually impaired craftsmen. To this day Iris Hantverk continues to work with highly skilled visually impaired craftsmen in Sweden and Estonia. 

The traditional techniques of hand-drawing and binding are still used today resulting in brushes that feel both beautiful and functional.

The brushes are made from a amazing array of materials including agave leaf fibre, sago palm leaf fibre and goat hair. There is lots of great information on Iris Hantverk's website about all the materials and their specific properties

We are very pleased that Iris Hantverk stock our blankets in their Stockholm flagship store - to us they feel like real kindred spirits. 

For more information about Iris Hantverk and their beautiful brushes have a look at their website.

The wonderful photos above are all by Anna Kern

Assyrian Lion Hunt

We were in the British Museum the other day when I came across these extraordinary low-relief carvings from Nineveh.

Although I am familiar with the big gates from Nimrod in the museum these 'lion hunt' stone panels were a real revelation.

The carvings date from 645 - 635BC and lined a chamber in the North Palace at Nineveh.

The palace was built for King Ashurbanipal. Although a keen sportsman, rather than hunting lions in the wild, Ashurbanipal had them rounded up and brought to an arena where he could shoot them down one by one. The staged hunt must have been a real spectacle and testament to his power and authority.

What I find really extraordinary about the carvings is that while the people in the images remain very stylized - always shown in profile and with no expression on their faces, the dying lions are depicted with an intense realism and - to my eye at least - an empathy for their suffering. You can clearly see the pain in their snarled and furrowed muzzles. 

Perhaps there were strict rules and conventions about how humans could be depicted, whilst the sculptors were left to interpret the animals in a much freer way.

Whatever the truth, if you have a spare fifteen minutes in the British museum they are well worth a visit.

End and End

Almost all of our fabrics are double-cloths. This means that the fabric is made up of two distinctly separate but interlocking layres. I love using this technique because it allows for very sharp graphic patterns.

The warps we use for double-cloth are called 'end and end' - the literally means one yarn of one colour and the next of another. We use end and end warps for all our patterned upholstery fabrics. You can see in the image above the warps for our Bilsdale, Heathfield and Mendip fabrics - made up of alternating threads of white and grey. This warp has finished weaving and you can see underneath the warp for the Totley and Belmont which is 'end and end' orange and white.

Our upholstery fabrics are all made on the same threading set-up which means that one warp can follow on from the next on the loom. New warps are knotted onto the end of the old one - as you can see above at the start of the warp for the Ashkirk and Chillerton.

The blue and white warp above is the end and end warp for our Wrekin, Rowridge, Caradon and Wharncliffe fabrics. Of course the warp is only half the story as far as colour and pattern - once you add in different weft yarn colours and different lifting patterns the possibilities are infinite.

The weaver in the image above is preparing the orange and white warp for tying on - you can see the distinct groups of yarns created through sectional warping. 

And the image below is of the very clever magical machine that ties each thread from the end of one warp onto the beginning of the next.

I really like the way that this stage - before any weft goes is woven in - the warps are so linear. I guess literally the threads are only going in one direction. The effects on the loom as as one set of threads emerge through the other is like that of Ikat. Beautiful

Thanks to Catherine at Bute for the wonderful photos.

Cave Interiors

Happy to spot our cushions in this smart Marylebone apartment recently refurbished by Cave Interiors. You can see more details on the project on Cave's website here.

  

Images: Luca Piffaretti

Ercol

Nice to see our Peppercorn and 405 Line blankets on this Ercol shoot

Beautiful colours of Stockholm

Pumpernickel and Sourdough

This year we are launching two new designs woven with undyed British wool. Called Pumpernickel and Sourdough, we think they make a handsome wholesome pair.

The blankets are woven for us in Lancashire, and the yarn for both designs is made up from a blend of fleeces from three breeds - Suffolk Lowland, Welsh Mountain and Jacobs sheep.

These above are Welsh mountain sheep in the snow in their thick winter coats. It is the Welsh Mountain fleeces which give the darkest colours in the range - seen below in the mix for our new Pumpernickel design. We've paired it with a white on the reverse and a scarlet stitched edge.

The palest colours in the range are from the Suffolk lowland sheep with their white fleeces and black faces and legs. The painting here is of the prize-winning Suffolk Lowland sheep of the Marquis of Bristol.

On the right below is our new Sourdough design. As with the Pumpernickel we have paired it with a white reverse and this time we have added a stitched boarder in a tumeric yellow on the blanket. For the cushions we have used our Straw Yellow ground fabric as the backing for the Sourdough and the Petrol Green ground on the Pumpernickel.

second: Wild wool farm
fourth: wikigallery