Schuyler Mansion in Albany, NY. Photo by Rabbit Goody.
A Window into the Past BY SOPHIA BENNETT Thistle Hill Weavers in Cherry Valley, NY, owned by renowned textile historian Rabbit Goody, has built a niche weaving cloth that is perfect for older homes, museums and 21st-century clothing designers. “We work more like the 18th- and 19th-century weavers who were jobbers,” she says, where people could bring small, specific manufacturing projects that fit a certain need. Besides supplying textiles to tradespeople, Goody has put her deep knowledge of traditional styles and décor to work by designing and installing historically accurate window treatments—something she has done for private homes as well as some of the country’s most famous monuments for the last 30 years.
In the Beginning…
Goody was part of the “back to the land” movement that took off in the 1970s. She moved to upstate New York intending to build her own house, grow her own food and make her own clothes. She quickly developed a talent for spinning and weaving. “It’s something I describe as innate,” she says. “The same way some people can pick up a musical instrument and play without a lot of formal training, I was able to do that with weaving.” In addition to making cloth for her own clothes, Goody had a line of high-end wool and silk scarves she sold to major department stores. She did all of the work by hand—something she hid from her clients because she feared they would question her ability to keep up with production. She had her own worries about whether she would be able to continue to run a viable business based solely on her body’s
ability to sit at a loom for hours at a time. She put those worries—and the business—on hold to work as the head of the weaving department at The Farmers’ Museum in New York. She later became its head of domestic arts and assistant curator of textiles, then moved to the now-closed New York State Historical Association, where she was the curator of textiles. By the late 1980s, she was ready to stop managing old textiles and go back to making new ones. This time, though, she had a different business model in mind. Mills in New England were going out of business because they could no longer compete in the international market. But Goody believed there was a place for someone who could do small-batch, specialized production. She started acquiring equipment from the defunct mills, and Thistle Hill Weavers was born. Today, her clients include the film industry, architectural firms, clothing designers and local sheep farmers looking to have their wool turned into value-added products. The mill works mostly with natural materials such as hemp, mohair, silk, worsted, alpaca or exotic fibers (although its architectural clients are more likely to specify products made from synthetic fibers). Goody also works with several clothing designers who are looking for eco-friendly fabrics that are hard to find elsewhere.
Designing Historically Accurate Window Treatments
For historic projects, Goody’s work often goes beyond just making
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