How it's made

​​​​​​​We work with a range of mills in Australia and Europe that each have a special part to play in producing blankets from offcuts and yarn that would otherwise be destined for landfill.  

Geelong, Australia – the mill with deadstock yarn
Our Rugged range is woven at a mill in Geelong that is traditionally an upholstery weaving mill. When we learned they diversified into blanket weaving, we were thrilled. What’s more, they have a stockpile of deadstock yarn that they’d been keeping with the hopes of using it before getting dust-covered and moth-eaten. Mills are left with ‘deadstock’ yarn if it's over-ordered or their customers change their designs or quantities. We design blankets with the deadstock yarn to avoid sending it as waste to landfill. Read more about weaving blankets from deadstock yarn in Geelong. 

Co-founder Karina working with knitting samples at Hatch & Make

Yarra Valley, Australia – the knitting studio 
Our knitted blankets are made at Hatch & Make, a knitting studio on Wurundjeri Country in the Yarra Valley. Hatch & Make are committed to working with responsibly sourced natural fibres (using non-mulesed wool aligned to The Five Freedoms) in a close-to-no-waste model. Knitting reduces waste in the making process because only the yarn to make each piece is required, rather than having to deal with an oversupply of fabric production. The outfit is run by a team of textiles experts whose mission it is to develop and manufacture premium knitwear in systems where waste is eliminated and nature is regenerated. Read more about knitting blankets from responsibly sourced merino wool here.

Italy – the post-consumer textiles recycling
Seljak Brand uses yarn made of post-consumer textiles waste, which is discarded clothing like old woollen jumpers. The ‘waste’ is recycled into new yarn at mills located in a textiles region near  Florence, Italy. The woollen garments are sorted into like-colours and by material type and fibre quality. Colour experts meticulously match the colours of every yarn lot so they can offer ‘stock colours’ no matter what garments they’re recycling. Each time, the recipe will be slightly different but the end result will look the same. They are then ragged and shredded and spun into a new yarn with a bit of polyamide for strength. Read more on the post-consumer yarn making process in Italy.

Lithuania – the mill with the jacquard looms

The mill we work with in Lithuania is almost a century old and its Italian weaving machinery produces very high quality recycled textiles and intricate designs. ​The mill collects offcuts from the factory floors of 16 mills around Europe and pools them together  for processing in Lithuania. This mill also weaves with the aforementioned post-consumer textiles yarn made in Italy. The specialty Jacquard looms mean we can weave abstract patterns into the blankets! Read more about our mill partner in Lithuania.