Christmas present-buying time is here again and if you're one of those people who hates even to contemplate the shopping process, let alone make out a shopping list, there's an unusual avenue open to you this year.
How about a unique handwoven present of a baby's booties, an adult's bedroom slippers, dolls, toy sheep or horses? How about a rug or a wall-hanging?
These are among the products produced by Weaving Dreams, an offshoot of An Cosan, a multi-purpose educational project located in Jobstown, Tallaght, at the foot of the Dublin mountains. The hand-felted products are unusual in that virtually every process involved in their production is carried out in the Jobstown workshop, largely by mature women, but also some men, who have returned to learning and working, and are using either skills they already had or skills newly-learned since they joined the project.
The wool comes from a herd of Jacob sheep - the black and white ones with the curly horns - that graze in Glenasmole.
THE FLEECES are combed and carded in the workshop before being pressed in warm soapy water. They are repeatedly hand-rolled to produce a sturdy felt which will retain the colours, oils and lanolin of the original wool.
Dried, cut and stitched into the final products, the process is labour-intensive but results in an item that looks and feels wonderful. And the entire process is environmentally-friendly as recycled materials are transformed into quality items.
For example, only the best of wool is used in the wall hangings, which take their inspiration from the lush nearby mountains and yet retain their practical and functional role as decorative and noise-diminishing interior furnishings. So impressed with them was the Office of Public Works that it commissioned 25 for its buildings in Dublin's Lower Mount Street.
But best of all, Weaving Dreams has created opportunities for local people to use their talents, develop their skills and become economically independent, both as workers in the Tallaght facility and in their own homes.
For further information, contact Rosemarie McGill or Siobhan Saunders at (01) 462 8488, fax (01) 462 8496.
