process – Boston Wool Works

In Recycling, Sewing on

August 9, 2017

Birth of a product…and a wholesale line!

Developing new products is always both fun and terrifying at the same time. Sometimes I have an inspiration for a piece and need to struggle through figuring out how to make it and all the details about the design (because for me, they need to be both aesthetically pleasing and practical). Other times I get so excited about working with a particular material that I try to figure out what I can do with it that will make sense.

As any maker will tell you, often you come up with ideas that don’t work, but if you stick at it long enough you usually will have a few winners. It’s such an amazing feeling when you’ve been struggling through trying to figure out how it will all work, and suddenly it just falls into place! And then, of course, you need to figure out all the manufacturing details to make sure you can make it consistently and profitably over and over… but I actually really enjoy that part. Throw in a little left brain, a little right brain, sprinkle with a heavy dose of wool… Read more

Clasped weft in action

Tight detail of back of Peruvian tapestry using clasped weft technique

In my Intro to Traditional Weaving class last week, some of my students were experimenting with the “clasped weft” technique, and it occurred to me that I had some great examples of this technique in a traditional context hanging in my house. Unfortunately I realized this too late to show them to my students in person, but it prompted me to write this post and show this technique in action in a beautiful traditional piece. Read more

Sometimes the yarn knows best

I had recycled a bunch of brightly-colored cotton sweaters, and after doing some “weaving math” I realized I had enough yarn to do really thorough test… and still have enough yarn left over to make multiple warps of the same thing. The nice thing about weaving (as opposed to knitting, for example) is that you can set up one long warp (the yarn you put on the loom before you weave) to make multiple pieces.

So I thought I’d put this yarn through its paces and see what how it wanted to be woven. Since the yarn was all cotton (some of it organic! What a treat!), I decided I wanted to try some kitchen towels, having done a few sample variations in the last few months, and loving the feel and the warmth of handwoven towels in my kitchen. The nice thing, too, is that often a sweater will say “hand wash only” but since it’s 100% cotton I felt pretty sure I could machine wash them. Or at least it wouldn’t kill me to find out with a few sample pieces.

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