Best of British

A weaver who still uses thousand-year-old techniques

Weaving magic

MARIO SIERRA STARTED to weave at just four years old on a small Indian handloom. His mother had learnt the craft using the same loom and Sierra has since taught his own daughters, Liliana, 16, and Saskia, 13, on it too.

Sierra’s grandmother, Gerd, bought the loom while she was living in Calcutta during the Second World War. Originally from Norway, Gerd had studied hand-weaving in Oslo and later settled in Killowen, a village on the side of the Mourne Mountains in Northern Ireland, where in 1949 she established the family weaving business, Mourne Textiles.

Later, Sierra’s mother ran the business, and in 2012 he took the reins. But, worried about its future, he set about transforming it, starting a website and social-media accounts to bring it into the modern world. He also applied for funding from organisations including the charity The Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust (Qest), which he used to invest in more looms and train apprentices. ‘I always felt a strong responsibility to keep the workshop alive and train a new generation,’ he says.

Sierra, 45, divides his time between a studio in London and the original workshop in Killowen. He now employs a team of 15 and sells rugs, placemats, cushions and blankets, along with the fabrics. He has also relaunched a traditional ‘handwoven mended tweed design’ that was originally created by Gerd in 1956. ‘When handwoven, it has a very different appearance than when it is woven on a power loom,’ he explains. ‘It adds a twist to the already lumpy texture.’

The mended tweed is made from two merino wool yarns of different weights. One length of yarn is known as ‘warp’ and the other is ‘weft’. The weaver interlaces the two using a handloom, pressing foot pedals to move the warp up and down, while flicking the weft horizontally across it using a wooden tool called a shuttle, and weav- ing the two together. ‘This process gives the cloth its structure,’ explains Sierra. ‘It hasn’t changed for thousands of years.’

Once the length of tweed is woven, the fabric is cut out of the loom and scoured. ‘This is where the oils and residual dyes are washed out of the yarns,’ he says. To ensure it does not shrink, the cloth is dried on tenterhooks.

‘It’s a physical job,’ says Sierra. ‘As soon as people come into the workshop, they see the man hours that have gone into the blankets. The skills we employ are traditional and I’d like to see them continue.’

Clockwise from top Woven fabric alongside finished cushions in Mario Sierra’s workshop; the shuttles; Sierra in his workshop in Killowen.