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HOW IT'S MADE MATTERS
Our Process
Step 1
Source strong wool
Quality always starts at the source.
Our products’ journey begins in the wide-open fields of New Zealand. We’ve grown long-standing relationships with established wool growers and exporters to source the highest quality fibre. Our high specs for whiteness, strength, length, and diameter make sure our wool meets our stringent quality standards.
Step 2
Clean the wool
Grown strong and resilient in New Zealand’s natural environment, freshly shorn wool needs to be thoroughly cleaned or ‘scoured’. The raw wool goes through a series of washes, removing any farm vegetation and lanolin, while retaining all its natural qualities. Beautifully clean, white fibres allow us to achieve better colour quality in our finished creations.
Step 3
Dye the wool
With an artful eye, highly skilled dye technicians create colours to match the vision of our designers. Cleansed bales of wool are dyed in vats, and meticulously circulated in our premium dyes for perfectly even infusion. Vats are gently heated to fix the dye into the fibres, locking in lasting beauty.
Step 4
Blend the wool
Blending brings together different wool lots to create unique designs. Master blenders combine multiple shades, for their desired look and feel across the batch. A Heather is blended from two different colours, or a coloured and undyed wool, creating a melange effect as in our Kensho and Wainamu ranges. A classic Berber blend has ‘neps’ added to produce flecks of colour in the finished carpet.
Step 5
Card the wool
Carding transforms wool from its naturally curly form. Dyed and blended wool lots are carded to align fibres in the same direction. Like a giant de-tangling hairbrush, carding rollers gently tease out the wool fibres to produce a long and luxurious sliver, ready for spinning.
Step 6
Spin the yarn
Carded slivers of wool are spun into single ply yarn. Each sliver is expertly controlled during every meticulous degree of twist in the yarn by adjusting the delivery speed to the spindle. Wool’s natural qualities make it the most versatile fibre for creativity at the spinning stage.
Step 7
Twist or felt the yarn
Depending on the design, single ply yarn can be wound and twisted with other yarns to increase strength or bulk. Our famous felted yarns give scope to even more interesting textural design and colour. Felting uses hot water, agitation, and wool’s natural scales to lock fibres together to craft a thicker, stronger, and more luxurious feel.
Step 8
Tuft the carpet
Tufting yarn on to a backing is where the carpet takes shape. Yarns are wound onto large reels known as beams. These beams are then moved to their designated tufting machine where the yarn is skillfully hand-tied to the tufter. As the yarn is fed through the machine, about 1200 needles stitch it into place on a primary backing. Every metre that rolls off the tufting machine is quality checked by eye.
STEP 9
Apply the backing
After the carpet has been tufted to the primary backing, it gets a secondary backing of jute, bonded together by a low VOC latex. This prevents any tufts from coming loose, giving the carpet stability so it will hold its shape for years of unmatched comfort and good looks. We back every carpet with multi-year guarantees too.
