The Birth of the Workshop
It was an accident of war that brought Gerd to settle in Ireland in 1947. By 1949 Gerd had established what would one day become her beloved Mourne Textiles, the design workshop at Killowen on the side of the Mourne Mountains overlooking Carlingford Lough. Inspiration, for Gerd, lay in every direction.
Gerd‘s initial intention had been to set up a Textile Design Studio designing fabrics, which were to be woven elsewhere by machine. As it turned out, she was unable to source the appropriate production and so ended up training some of the local farmers' children to hand-weave her designs.
Gerd soon found herself immersed in the hand-weaving workshop, importing looms and textile machinery from Norway. One loom was crafted by the local coffin maker to her specifications; she called this the Chinese Loom as its design was influenced by the looms she had used while travelling in the Far East.