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The Making of Our Carpets
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All of our Kate Thornley-Hall rugs are hand woven with meticulous attention to detail, using the highest quality wool and silks. Working in close collaboration with workshops and artisans in both Nepal and India has enabled me to forge ongoing and delightful relationships with our local creative teams. I visit these workshops as often as I can, and feel honoured to be able see the creative teams at work firsthand. Getting to know the weavers and see them at work is very rewarding. Visits also allow me a glimpse at the lives of these talented creators, many of whom are descendants of generations of Tibetan weavers who came to Nepal as refugees in the late 1950s due to their brutal treatment at the hands of the Communist Chinese regime.
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"Visiting our workshops myself enables me to develop personal relationships with the weavers."
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Our workshops in Kathmandu are owned and operated by Karma (above right), one of the Tibetan refugees who was only a small child when he was transplanted to Nepal. These artisan-run workshops have been bringing my rugs to life for nearly 15 years. The creative process begins with detailed hand renderings of each design. I send these designs as a jpeg file, which is printed and forms the basis for the rug creation process. In the photo above, an artisan works with Karma on the preliminary graph for one of our Kate x Tommy flat weave rugs.
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In the next phase, the graph is enlarged to scale and drawn by hand, then affixed to the loom to guide the weaving process. The complete process takes about four months and during that time each rug is worked on by many hands, both men and women. We offer small strike off samples first, for client approval before we go into the final weaving process.
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Bales of hand-dyed New Zealand wool are stacked and ready to be woven into yarn. The wool is hand dipped into vats of boiling natural dye to get shading just right.
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In the bright and open workspace, a weaver sits at one of the enormous wooden looms on which larger rugs are made.
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A newly made Shibori rug hangs to dry in the workshop courtyard after the final washing stage. Custom coloured for a client in champagne neutrals, the rug is an excellent example of the workshop's ability to create rugs in a range of subtle colours as well as brighter hues.
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Inspired by patterns of the traditional Japanese fabric dyeing technique, my Shibori rug is handwoven in Nepal of wool and silk at 100 knots per square inch. In shades of indigo blue the design more closely recalls its inspiration, but it takes on entirely new character in custom colourations, which have recently included bright reds in addition to the neutrals shown above. As with all Kate Thornley-Hall carpets, sizing is also customizable.
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Many of my rug designs are the product of inspiring collaborations with artists and designers who interpret my initial design concepts. Shown here, the Paisley rug is based on a print work by Canadian artist Eric Mathew. Handwoven at the Kathmandu workshop in wool and silk at 100 knots per square inch, the carpet has been produced for both wall to wall installation and as a stunning area rug. Available in custom sizes and colours.
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We recently partnered with a workshop in India to produce a new line of richly textured rugs in wool, jute and bamboo, hand woven in monochromatic, muted natural tones. This collection debuts this fall at the new Hopson Grace showroom in Toronto. Learn more about these rugs in an upcoming newsletter.
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Photos: Patrick Biller (rooms)
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