I began my journey as a handweaver nearly thirty years ago and am still in love with the utter simplicity and directness of the craft. My goal is, and always has been, to create textiles which stand up to many years of daily life and have a visual and tactile sensibility that I could live with for just as long.

As a one person studio, there is a natural limit to what I can produce and the opportunity to develop license collections for Schumacher has allowed me to reach beyond what can be produced on my looms, building on ideas with more complexity while still aiming for that space of simple, clean, approachable design.

For this collection, I turned to my studio library for historical references that felt modern and relevant. One of my favorite books is Royal Silks, written by Ulla Cyrus-Zetterström & Gudrun Ekstrand for the Swedish Royal Armoury, which examines the weave structures of historic royal textiles like Queen Sofia Magdalena’s coronation gown, a stunning brocade of silver diamonds and gold crowns.

But it's the drawdowns of the binding weaves — more than the gold crowns — which I find unexpectedly beautiful, similar to the patterns on the backside of a well made embroidery.

It is these patterns — the practical infrastructures of impractical fabrics — that formed the starting point for this new collection. For example, the design process for Sparre, a large chevron with a bit of a tilt, began with the binding weave for a 17th century flowered silk liseré:

The épinglé weave, which itself is gridded or pixelated, became a perfect foundation for these patterns, helping to bring the designs to the forefront. Mill woven in Belgium, the looped cotton fabric is richly interesting and beautiful, but also incredibly durable.

I chose names that reflect both the Swedish inspiration and the groundedness of the collection like the striped pattern Struktur, which translates rather directly as structure in Swedish and the trellis pattern, Berg, which is Swedish for mountain because it makes me think of many mountains.

They really must be seen in person — the colors, patterns and texture are truly wonderful in hand!! — and samples can be ordered directly through Schumacher.

I want to give a HUGE thank you to Sawkille Furniture Co. for the collaboration with their beautiful pieces (that bench!), to photographer Francesco Lagnese for the fabulous installation shots, to Hudson Moore, design editor at Frederic Magazine, and to the entire Schumacher team for the opportunity and their support.

Berg

Sparre

Struktur

Grunda