THE JOURNEY OF WOOL AND THE RUG BORN FROM IT

By Hanna Suominen & Outi Puro

Photos Markus Vikainen, Stone Films

In spring 2019 Outi, mum of Mum’s travelled to meet the artisans in Northern India. She was accompanied by a filming crew, who is making a document of MUM’s sustainable way of making things.

Far in the countryside a bumpy road leads to a village where MUM’s artisans live and work from home. Main idea for Mum’s is to employ artisans close to their home. Textiles are woven by both women and men, with time consuming, age old, traditional handicraft techniques. While adults weave Mum’s textiles kids may be kids: play, and go to school.

Wool for our rugs does not travel on trucks but on bicycles. Material, weather it is wool or recycled cotton is always local and sourced from local shepherds. We could name our sheep if we wanted to, but instead every artisan signatures our rugs made of local wool. Sheep are sheared by hand. It is time consuming, not firstly “efficient-kind-ofbusiness”, but slow, takes time and is costly. But we want to stick with the values rather than a lot of profit. Mum’s is kind for animals too. Absolutely no mulesing technique is allowed. It is painful and harmful for the animal. Efficient though, but we work in different, softer and kinder way.

The families living in the village gather into the separate building to weave the rugs. Home waits only a few meters from their workshop. This allows the families to be together, save in travel costs to work, and also take care of their families while working – this gives a touch of love into Mum’s textiles, we think. The hand craft skills used to weave the rugs are inherited from the ancestors and some of the looms are up to 300 years old. After a rug is woven it is then washed carefully. Textiles gather fine fine dust while weaving and during the transportation with bicycles. The men in the village pour water on the rug and wash it. Textiles need a sunny day to dry, as sunlight is so strong it completely dries heavy textiles in one day. Sometimes, if there is no sun our freight leaves later than expected, as we cannot pack moist wool. It would be damaged on the way to Finland, home of Mum’s. In that case we just need to wait for a sunny day to come. Mum’s works in a fair and visible way. And just as a mention, we are printed in a college book as an example of ethical design since 2006. We still have the same values as in the beginning. That’s

our secret, that’s our heart.

MUM’S FAMILY

In India we drive for two hours from Varanasi. We have Atif with us. Atif is Outi’s main collaborator in India, the person who handles all communication, sampling, quality control, payments, hands out the work, visits artisans every week, takes care of everything. Atif is Mum’s treasure. We are on our way to a small village where our artisans live. It is a community, where people take care of each other. We pass a very large blue building. It is Ikea’s rug

SEE A VIDEO OF OUTI'S TRIP ON OUR BLOG:

In India's rural villages, it is usually the men who weave rugs when women take care of children. Women help by doing finishing steps of the rug making process for example. This is possible, when work is close to home and families can share work and childcare responsibilities.

factory. Atif tells us that their working hours and conditions are decent and someone is there to check the working conditions every month. We keep driving.

In the village kids run to us. Most women take care of kids, as there is no nurseries in the area. That is why most of the textiles are woven by men, though women do take part in the work and usually do the finalizing steps. Families work around eight hours a day and they get at least 12, sometimes 15 times the minimum wage in the area. Mum’s artisans also gain pension and weekends are free. Indians also have many sacred holidays during the year, most well known is Ramadan.

A little baby is introduced to us. She is just two months old. Her family wanted Outi to hold the baby and later on the baby’s eyes were painted with black makeup. Hindus believe it protects the baby from all evil. MUM’s Koko Iäksi rug is hung on a red brick wall.

That is where the family with the baby lives. They say it has hung there for years, as they like it. “I draw all your maps. I drew that too” says a man with beard, translated from hindu by Atif. Then man’s name is Bamboola. He really draws each and every of our designs on a weaving map, by hand. And he is proud of what he does.

We are grateful.