Collection: Peggy Hart
Peggy Hart is a textile designer, production weaver, and teacher with experience in designing, producing, and marketing hundreds of blankets annually including custom blankets for sheep and alpaca farmers using their own yarn. The woolen mills of New England are gone, but inside her barn in rural Massachusetts there lurks a complete 1940's weave shop. Old industrial looms live their second life weaving cotton and wool blankets. Each loom is a ton and a half of greasy gears, wheels, and pulleys; mechanical innovation that made complex patterns possible.
Hart has a deep interest in the history of weaving and wool in American. In 2017 her book Wool, Unraveling an American Story of Artisans and Innovation, was published. From the book's cover: "Wool's colorful and epic tale has impacted millions of lives, including artisans, inventors, immigrants, merchants, mill owners, millworkers, slaves, and Native Americans, to farmers and advertisers. A story of technological and social change, marketing forces, and our choices as consumers, Wool is a must-read for anyone who has knitted (or worn!) socks, woven a piece of cloth, or curled up with a warm wool blanket."
She has also:
Hart has a deep interest in the history of weaving and wool in American. In 2017 her book Wool, Unraveling an American Story of Artisans and Innovation, was published. From the book's cover: "Wool's colorful and epic tale has impacted millions of lives, including artisans, inventors, immigrants, merchants, mill owners, millworkers, slaves, and Native Americans, to farmers and advertisers. A story of technological and social change, marketing forces, and our choices as consumers, Wool is a must-read for anyone who has knitted (or worn!) socks, woven a piece of cloth, or curled up with a warm wool blanket."
She has also:
- Collaborated with spinning mills and small scale wool producers to weave custom designed throws and blankets since 1990.
- Presented at the 2015 New England Weaver Seminar, Northampton, MA
- Taught at Penland School of Crafts in 2012
- Served as warp designer/winder for Boott Cotton Mill, Lowell National Park
- Wove a commission piece for the Columbus Museum of Art and a reproduction of a blanket from the collection of the Memorial Hall Museum, Deerfield, MA.
