The Workshop

Since 2007 the Kate Thornley-Hall rug collection has been produced by talented, local weavers in Nepal. The wool, silk and flat-weave rugs are woven by skilled male and female weavers on hand operated looms. Over the past 13 years, Kate has travelled numerous times to visit the workshop and meet the weavers.

The weavers live near the workshop with their families in small, self-sustaining villages, with schools, daycares and shops, all set in the foothills of the Himalayas. The weavers work on a commission basis, and through this employment are able to not only feed their families, but send their children to school and support their local community. When each and every rug commissioned arrives to Kate and her clients, Kate is overwhelmed with pride as it is rolled out, knowing that the rugs have been made with exceptional talent by skilled artisans, and contributed to the livelihoods of the weavers, their families and their community.

The Process

Kate designs many of her rugs in collaboration with artists both in Canada and abroad. Once Kate has finalized the artwork, it is sent to the workshop in Nepal as a digital image. The workers then create a coloured, hand drawn graph to scale that is affixed to enormous looms. Several weavers may work on one loom at the same time, weaving the wool and silk rugs at 100 or 150 knots per square inch. The weavers are usually from a long line of weaver families, and the workmanship is exquisite. The wool comes from New Zealand and is hand-dyed on site, by dipping the wool into large vats of dye. The entire process is done by the hands of talented artisans whose life’s work is weaving, and this meticulous process takes approximately four months for each rug.

“It is amazing to see my designs actually on the loom being made before my eyes, it’s like magic”, Kate says.