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SINCE 2016
Ruth Ashworth trained as a weaver before she started Thrum in 2016. She bought a run-down mill on the edge of Todmorden, kept the stone walls and the tall windows, and put a cutting table where the looms used to stand.
The first pieces were linen shirts and dresses, made in small runs for women who wanted clothes that lasted. Word travelled through the mill shop and the makers journal, and the workroom grew by one or two people at a time.
Thrum works in three fibres only: linen from European flax, wool from British fleece spun in Yorkshire, and organic cotton woven in northern Portugal. Plain fibres are easier to wash, easier to mend and easier to recycle than blends.
Every piece can be posted back to the mill for mending for a flat £15 plus postage. Ruth still darns the samples herself, and the mending table sits by the window where the light is best.
“I wanted a shop where a shirt could be worn for ten years, then mended and worn again. Everything we make is judged against that.”
RUTH ASHWORTH
01
Cloth is laid on the long table and cut by hand in small layers, so the weave is not stretched or pulled off grain.
02
Our workrooms in West Yorkshire, Leicester and Porto sew a few dozen pieces at a time, then check every seam.
03
Send any Thrum piece back to the mill and we darn, patch or re-hem it for £15 plus your postage.
