Recycled Wool Ornaments - Is wool the perfect textile?

Green remains an “in” adjective as every day we learn more about how we must decrease carbon dioxide emissions, clean up the oceans, quit overfishing, quit throwing cigarette butts on the ground, and in general get our world in shape. At the Red Elephant Gallery, we believe in green as we’ve said in previous blogs and we continue to support the artists who believe as well.

One such artist is Heidi Leuger who makes fantastic items from primarily reclaimed wool. Her goal of zero waste, is more than admirable, it’s necessary, vital, and really cool. Her embroidered ornaments have an interior core made from 100% recycled wool including sweater scrap, bits of yarn, waste roving, and wool fibers. Each year she recycles hundreds of pounds of post-consumer wool sweaters for the core material. The exterior is covered with virgin wool felt roving she buys directly from American shepherds, farms, and processors and is traditionally wet-felted, then embroidered in two patterns, a star pattern or an "X" pattern. What’s great about this process is that Leuger uses very little glue, if any, and nothing goes to the landfill. It’s art with a conscience. Very beautiful and very green.

In her words:

“My artistic vision is to explore and discover how these things (indeed, all human-made creations) can be created in a caring, responsible and thoughtful way when our relationship and interdependency to each other, the earth and its life forms, as well as our “self”, are included in the making process,” Leuger says. “We need beauty in our everyday lives/everyday stuff, but right now beauty needs to be sustainable, and I don’t believe art or craft gets a “pass” in this regard.”

‘nuff said. Go see her work at the Red Elephant Gallery. The ornaments are as beautiful as they are eco-friendly.

--Michael