Spotlight: MacAusland's Woolen Mill

• Posted on 5 December 2016
• By Zach
• Posted in Meet The Maker, On Our Shelves
• 0

Macausland's is a 146 year old (!!!) sawmill-turned-woolen-mill operating on Prince Edward Island, Canada. We're talking wayyyy up there on the Atlantic Coast, past Nova Scotia, in an area that was first colonized by the French back in the mid-1700's. The mill is now in its fourth generation of family ownership and has been producing impeccably soft, cozy, 100% virgin wool blankets since 1932.

The mill uses all vintage machinery and the skills of its weavers have been honed over the years to produce some of the absolute finest blankets around. Truly a local operation, the wool used is sourced from P.E.I. and the neighboring province of Nova Scotia to make up the yarn used in each blanket. Here at The Foundry, we love finding small, artisan operations to bring you things you may have never come across before or otherwise. In that spirit, we are obsessed with MacAusland's. That and they're so dang cozy!

The entire work of the mill—from the production team to wholesale, from shipping to design, is all accomplished by a handful of wonderful people out in Bloomfield, P.E.I. People you can actually get on the phone. If you gave them a call to say "Hi" or to rave about how much your lap appreciates the top-notch blanket during these Minnesota winters, Helga would answer and she would absolutely LOVE to hear it.

Helga communicates exclusively by phone (no text messages or emails, and maaaaybe the occasional fax). We can almost picture the tangly cord winding around spools of fragrant wool skeining. She is someone we love chatting with and look forward to our chats at the end of every summer (when we pick and choose from the all-natural array of undyed woolen yarns and the subtly lovely pigmented ones). If you're in the neighborhood, come grab a blanket and join Ruby on her pillow for a little snuggle. We're pretty sure you'll love them as much as we do.