A Trip to the Loom Room

For months, Mr. N’s mum, Naomi, has been telling me about a good friend of hers here, Prue Oxley, and the gorgeous weaving she does.  Now, I know absolutely nothing about how you weave, but I love seeing and admiring the finished project.

So you can imagine my excitement when I heard that Prue had invited us around for lunch so I could see some of her work and the new weaving room she’d recently had put on her house.  Prue just started weaving four years ago and produces lovely table runners, pillow covers, rugs and tea towels.  In fact, she just won the Domestic Textile Award at Creative Fibre NZ‘s National Exhibition!

Prue’s new loom room is a dream craft space.  Bubble gum pink with squishy wool carpeting and big windows to let loads of sunlight in, I can’t think of a better place to while away hours crafting.

Prue has an enviable eye for color and was kind enough to let me take photos of some of the beautiful pieces she has around.

The loom, of course, takes pride of place in the center of the room:

And a lovely sewing table/workspace is nestled by the wall:

Everything about the space has been so thoughtfully done, and this is especially true of the to-die-for storage that Prue’s created for her craft books and yarn: two glorious rows of shelves, with the front row on runners to allow access to the back!  She’s amazingly organized — those binders are filled with her notes and color swatches of every project she’s made, organized by date!

That we should all be so lucky to have such a craft storage system!

Prue’s also an accomplished knitter and showed me some of the beautiful fair isle work she’s done:

To top it all off, we had a lovely lunch with great conversation.  It was a really special afternoon, and I’m ever so grateful that Prue was kind enough to let me poke around, take pictures, and share them here.  It was wonderful to hear about and see her passion for weaving and color.  She doesn’t have a website, but if you want to be in touch with Prue about her lovely weaving, she can be contacted by email at prue.oxley@gmail.com.  Thanks again, Prue, for such a lovely day, and to Naomi for arranging it!  I came away with this lovely tea towel, heaps of inspiration, and admiration for the stunning work that Prue and other weavers are doing!  Now, where can I get a loom …?