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By Mary Bergman Writer on Nantucket history and the craft behind the island’s treasures.

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Nantucket Loom’s textiles and hand wovens are quite literally part of the fabric of island history. In the 1960s, Nantucket Looms co-founders Bill Euler and Andy Oates created a year-round production weaving studio and gift shop to support the local community. Before coming to Nantucket, Andy studied at two of the country’s finest art programs, first at the Rhode Island School of Design, then training at famed Black Mountain College under Anni Albers, a modernist weaver and writer who studied at the Bauhaus.

In the 1960s, Andy was hired by the Nantucket Historical Trust to oversee the production of handwoven fabrics for the newly restored Jared Coffin House. When they opened Nantucket Looms, Andy trained weavers while his partner Bill managed the shop. Under Andy’s direction, Nantucket Looms produced many fine handwoven fabrics, ranging from silk slub wall coverings to the wool tweeds used for CPO jackets to brushed wool and mohair throws, still a staple of Nantucket Loom’s signature offerings today. Being a bespoke business, Nantucket Looms could offer smaller yardages than large mills, and customers were able to purchase material designed to their specifications.

Nantucket Loom’s fabric had a robust clientele of interior designers, architectural firms, and homeowners. Over the years, fabric made by weavers at Nantucket Looms has traveled to the rooms of the President Lyndon B. Johnson Memorial Library in Austin, Texas; executive boardrooms of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC; on private jets for companies like Mobil Oil and IBM; to fashion houses including Chanel; and in private homes around the island and across the country.

Nantucket Looms still works with designers to produce high-quality, custom fabrics, sometimes re-creating the archival textiles Andy Oates designed decades ago.

Such was the case inside the Carriage House, a unique property on Liberty Street, originally built as a utilitarian carriage house in 1834 and transformed in 2002 into an open, modern living space by award winning architect Hugh Newell Jacbosen. New owners wanted to replicate the linen and ramie fabric Andy had created decades ago, used to upholster sofas.

Rebecca Peraner, Master Weaver and partner at Nantucket Looms, who has been working at the Nantucket Looms for more than three decades, worked with her team of weavers to weave fabrics by hand for the restored home.

Becky could not get the same degree of ramie yarn (an eco-friendly fiber used in ancient Egypt) that Andy used, so she designed a cotton rib weave to mimic the original. A tuxedo sofa in the living room was upholstered with a linen/cotton, plain-woven tabby fabric in taupe. Window seats were upholstered in ivory cotton slub fabric in a basket weave pattern, all designed by Becky and made upstairs at Nantucket Looms.

Natural fibers and simple weave structures are the hallmark of the pieces that have been made for decades here at Nantucket Looms. “The simplicity of the end textile, that is the statement,” Becky says, “Just like the landscape of Nantucket: the beach, the sky, the water, there is an elemental quality to our handwovens.”

There is an exceptionally high level of quality control that comes with a product made by hand. Nantucket Looms’ handwovens are made by artisans who are deeply inspired by the beauty of the island.

Nantucket is an island known for its history, but the tradition of weaving fabric at Nantucket Looms is very much alive. Whether this is your first visit to the island or you’re a native, a trip to the weaving studio on Main Street is a unique opportunity to watch Nantucket Loom’s rich legacy come to life.