OUR WORKSHOPS
THE WORKHOUSE
Set the small town of Presteigne on the Welsh borders our purpose built sustainable building houses the repair workshop, design studio, carpet showroom, gallery and café.
We source a great selection of hand woven carpets, rugs, kilims and textiles from all over the world specialising in ethically produced, beautifully designed, wool carpets with many of our lines using natural dyes and hand spun wool. Our aim is to find and support small weavers and producers buying directly from them and working with them to develop their products to be as sustainable and saleable as possible.
The gallery is stocked with the unusual and the exceptional. From toys to tools, textiles to teacups, all ethically made with integrity and passion.
The café has a simple menu serving freshly made light lunches from locally grown and sourced produce.
Tel: 01544 267864
Email: info@theworkhousegallery.co.uk
KOSTANDAVO
SUSTAINABLE, RESPONSIBLE HAND PRODUCTION
The workshop is situated in a small village near the spa town of Velingrad in the Rhodope Mountains in the south of Bulgaria. Built during the communist regime the workshop is light and warm with the heating coming from large wood burning stoves.
The looms are constructed from local trees and the dye vats are also wood fired. The traditional process of carpet weaving has changed very little in the last hundred years and the whole process is done by hand. The weavers are highly skilled and are from the local village with the workshop providing most of the employment in the area.
A MODERN, ENVIRONMENTALLY-FRIENDLY WORKSHOP
The carpets are woven from very high quality Bulgarian wool and dyed with Swiss conservation quality, low temperature wool dyes to exact colours and shades. The carpets are not chemically washed after weaving, only vacuumed and hand finished with scissors by the weavers who wove them. The whole process is eco friendly with a sealed pot dye system using extremely small quantities of water. Even the wool trimmed as the pile is cut during weaving is sent back to the spinners, to be respun with new wool for the wool weft.
At the workshop, we reject the use of open dye systems and chrome dyes which flush dye pots at the end of each colour. We also reject the system of chemically washing carpets using a three way system which uses huge quantities of water that become polluted by the chemicals which are extremely hazardous to health once they are in the water course.
We pride ourselves on environmentally-friendly work practices and our Bulgarian workshop was considered by the United Nations DP Inspectorate to be a centre of excellence.