Wool Textiles Designed & Milled from our Local Fibershed

November 5, 2019

Wool Textiles Designed & Milled In-House at the JG SWITZER Workshop

We design, mill, and sew every piece. Our workshop is located in The Barlow, a maker space in West Sonoma County, an hour north of San Francisco.

We begin with locally-sourced wool from Fibershed-certified wool, fibers/natural dyes, & labor sourced in our Northern California fibershed. These bioregional textiles function hand-in-hand with principles of ecological balance, local economies, and regional organic agriculture.

EVERYTHING STARTS WITH A CANVAS

Our canvas is locally farmed Dorset and Suffolk wool from Bodega Bay.

PAINTING WITH WOOL

We paint with wool using "oil pigments" comprised of different breeds of sheep. Wensleydale, Bluefaced Leicester, Shetland, Navajo-Churro, Icelandic, Gotland and Romney Fleeces are a few of the breeds used in our one-of-a-kind pieces.

DESIGN OF THE FABRIC

Using a painter’s palette of natural colors from local and Heritage breed sheep, we use a handheld needle felting tools to tack the colors together before they go through the needle loom.

"LUNA" THE NEEDLE LOOM IS ONE BIG SEWING MACHINE

Weighing 7.5 tons and comprised of a motor with 10,000 felting needles, the needle punch process sews the wool fibers together. This is aided by the scales and composition of wool, which loves to adhere to itself.

RAW FLEECES MEETS MODERN DESIGN

We love working with nature's finest fiber: wool, to create textiles that incorporate the raw, untreated wool in the colors that nature made.

Above: Roll of Gotland sheep fleeces sprinkled on large batt of local canvas.

Above Left: We can create a multitude of fabrics and custom work in very speedy turnarounds since everything is done under one roof. Above Right: Uncut fabric for soon-to-be pillows