Olive Pearson makes scarves. Her business is small, but her drive to work sustainably has prompted The Green Crafts Initiative to use her as a case study.
She does all she can to avoid waste, using old yarns in her work and ethically sourced, traceable materials produced by suppliers with a record of good animal welfare and environmental care. Her aim is to provide customers with heirloom pieces they love and that will last a lifetime.
She tells me:
"As a designer-maker I love to create one-off bespoke scarves for people. My designs are always offered with a suggested colour palette but it really pleases me when people choose a colour combination to suit them and their style. My process: hand-framing on a vintage knitting machine, means that all scarves are 'slow fashion' and because I use luxurious quality fine cashmere and merino lamb's wool they really are made to last.
Wool is of course also biodegradeable. I also offer a repair service and scarf recycling.
I try, where possible, to source raw materials as responsibly as possible from ethical suppliers. Using natural yarns, wool, silk and cotton, avoiding man-made, processed fibres. Left over yarns are used to attach my labels, showing the weight, colour and quality of yarns used to make the fabric. Recycling is important and I buy small quantities of different yarns from graduating students and use remnants of yarns and fabrics to create new products.
In January I won the Gold Award in the Jewellery and Textiles Category at Scotland's Trade Fair for a new range of HARRIS design scarves that enabled me to use every short length of yarn or 'cone end'. Each scarf is completely one-off as different colours are selected and put together to create colourful deep borders; a departure from my usual Fair Isle all over designs.
After winning the award I was asked by Green Crafts Initiative to participate in their series of case studies and you can find details of that on this link."
For more information and to browse her shop, see Olive Pearson Designs.
This feature is part of my Sustainable Style series and is unsponsored. Read other features in my Sustainable Style series here.