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Nantucket Yarns
Nantucket Island wears many shades of blue—nautical blue, sunny sky blue, deep-water blue, colonial blue, hydrangea blue—and Claire Murray has captured them all in her new line of needlepoint pillows. These blues serve as backdrops, foregrounds, and accents for the island’s iconic images: its lighthouses, rose-covered cottages, famous brick mansions, historic harbor, sleek catboats, and prominent downtown church steeple. After years of selling her needlepoint kits and Nantucket yarns to a core group of loyal followers, Claire has recently revived the name and company that started it all for her:
Nantucket Needleworks.
Inspired by the rekindled interest in needlework, Claire is drawing on the sites of Nantucket island and the sea images so dear to her, and has designed over a dozen new needlepoint kits. “For years I have been creating this for my own customers, but because of the resurgence of interest in the needle arts by the younger generation, I have decided to reintroduce these fabulous yarns and kits to a broader market.”
Claire is not only responding to expanded interest from customers as far away as Australia and as close as Canada, she also wants to preserve the yarns created by Marianne Beinecke—the six-ply, long staple Nantucket Cable and the long-staple Nantucket Twist. And, while many of New England’s dye houses and spinning mills have disappeared, a half dozen have survived, and with an increased demand for quality yarns, they may once again ride a rising tide.
Read more
In the Fall issue of La Vie Claire Magazine |
