Carpet design - weaving in progress!

Just over a year ago I posted about the non-profit social business Node and the great fair trade project they've set up with Kumbeshwar Technical School in Kathmandu, Nepal, which I visited when I was there last year. Basically, Node in their own words "work with the worlds best designers and illustrators and convert their images into the highest quality hand-made fair trade carpets", providing training and employment for disadvantaged people, mainly women.

I decided when I visited the school that I'd like to support the project and have a rug woven to my own spoecification, but it took me a few months to come up with a design I was totally happy with. (Because the thread that they use is Tibetan wool which is hand-dyed, there's a specific palette of colours available, and also, any lines within the design have to be a minimum thickness so that they can be translated effectively into the woven design).

Because the rugs are carefully hand-woven, and because all their rugs are made to order, it takes a while to produce each one. My design's currently in production and Chris Haughton from Node has just sent me the photos below of the rug being woven. It's looking great, and I can't wait to receive it - obviously I'll post photographs of it when it arrives.

Other beautiful rugs woven through this fair trade scheme (by design and illustration luminaries like Chris Haughton, Sanna Annukka, Lesley Barnes and Donna Wilson) are on sale from the Design Museum Shop.