HOME SPRING 37DESIGN|PROFILE
can unpick it.” She encourages me to have a go
and it’s quite physical: fi rst you pull the beater
towards you and push it back, then you push
the foot pedal and throw the shuttle carrying
the weft thread through the warp structure,
and then repeat: pull the beater again and so
on. It’s a rhythm and I can imagine continuing
happily for some time, once you’re in the swing
of it. What I can’t imagine, however, is conceiv-
ing of a pattern and working out how to thread
the loom to create it. “One of the most diffi cult
things when you’re learning is to have an idea
in your head and translate it to the loom. I have
found that as long as the vision is really clear
then the result is successful. Understanding
pattern and graphic design has become an
important part of the business.” Mills can
do more complex patterning with jaquard
looms, while Selby’s own main loom has 24
shafts that can be lifted diff erently, to create
separate weaves side by side. When working
with a mill, she will provide them with a sketch
created in Illustrator, and then instruct them
to apply certain weaves. “So I can combine
my work on the handloom with the industrial.
Some people think of manufacturing as a dirty
word, but for me, the mills are run by amazing
craftspeople with many years of experience
in developing techniques.”
Margo runs weaving workshops for com-
plete beginners as well as more experienced
weavers, not because she needs to fi ll her
weekends with weaving but because shewants to keep the craft alive, and because
she just loves it. “It’s a bit of a dying craft, it’s
a slow process and one that’s easy for people
to forget so we feel like we’re keeping it alive.”
She also mentors younger weavers through a
Crafts Council scheme.
While Margo Selby fabric has become a
staple in the interiors industry, it was ac-
cessories that came fi rst for her. In fact, she
wasn’t particularly interested in what the
fabric would be used for at fi rst – all she cared
about was making diff erent fabrics and pat-
terns, experimenting with threading the loom
to get diff erent results. “I thought I wasn’t
going to worry about the end use, I’d just make
pieces,” she says, and though her fi rst pieces
did become scarves, that was mostly because
of the simplicity of the scarf size and shape.
Today she makes fragments of cloth that are
designed to be framed as art pieces; last year
she held a solo exhibition of them. “I feel as
though I’m painting with yarn, exploring how
colours and threads react to one another when
I place them together. I’m fascinated by the
process of blending yarns on the loom rather
than dyeing them.”
It wasn’t until she started being approached
by people asking her to apply her fabrics for
interiors that she began to think about using
them. She started with headboards and soon
people began commissioning for hotels and
bigger projects, and she started to think
about making fabrics that were more suitedto that. Durability is hugely important for
upholstery and interiors fabrics. “We have just
made our fi rst rug out of recycled bottles. It’s
a wool imitation and it feels nicer than some
of our wools,” she says with enthusiasm. That
was woven in India, though she uses mills in
the UK wherever possible. “I’d like to see more
decorative cloth woven here,” she says. “The
decorative mills I know of make gorgeous silks,
but not durable ones, nothing you could use
for upholstery. Even in India weaving is in
decline. It’s rare to fi nd weavers under 50 now.”
How does she approach commissions? Her
signature style is so strong, and yet it has been
incorporated into pieces by so many diff er-
ent brands. “If you continue to make things
yourself, no matter how many things you try
your signature will stay strong. You can’t get
away from it really. I like to have texture on
texture, pattern on pattern, little stripes on
little stripes. I guess I’m a maximalist. I try
hard to do neutral, but my neutrals have about
12 colours in them.”
Ultimately, she simply enjoys working with
yarn, any construction of yarn. What next
for Margo Selby? Predictably, it’s all about
the looms. “This year, I want the looms to be
working all the time,” she says.
margoselby.comcan unpick it.” She encourages me to have a go
and it’s quite physical: fi rst you pull the beater
towards you and push it back, then you push
the foot pedal and throw the shuttle carrying
the weft thread through the warp structure,
and then repeat: pull the beater again and so
on. It’s a rhythm and I can imagine continuingwants to keep the craft alive, and because
she just loves it. “It’s a bit of a dying craft, it’s
a slow process and one that’s easy for people
to forget so we feel like we’re keeping it alive.”
She also mentors younger weavers through a
Crafts Council scheme.Margo Selby for Bert Frank
I LOVE EXPLORING HOW
COLOURS AND THREADS REACT
TO ONE ANOTHER WHEN I PLACE
THEM TOGETHER
HOME_Spring19_MARGO SELBY.indd 37 01/04/2019 16:04