5 Minutes with a Friend: Jade Ogden of The Handloom Room

On the high ridges of the windswept Mendip Hills, Jade Ogden is at her loom. Her studio, The Handloom Room, is a place where wool from nearby flocks becomes cloth, and the slow, steady rhythm of weaving echoes the cycles of the land. Scarves, cushions, and woven artworks emerge from her hands, each one carrying the colours of the Somerset landscape: undyed fibres, soft plant tones, and the gentle marks of season and place.

Wildflower Scarf, handwoven with regeneratively farmed wool. The colours are the natural shades of the sheep, plus a naturally dyed inclusion of rhubarb root.

Jade came to weaving through a winding path: a BA in Creative Arts at Bath Spa, an MA in Community and Participatory Arts at Goldsmiths, and finally the moment in a London studio when she felt the pull of the loom. What has kept her there is not only the craft but its rootedness: wool farmed regeneratively less than ten miles from her home, from sheep grazing in shifting patterns that allow wildflowers, insects, and birds to thrive. Woven into her scarves, cushions, and artworks is this quiet act of repair — biodiversity stitched back into the countryside. That sense of renewal extends into her wider practice too, as a member of the South-West England Fibreshed, a community of growers and makers working together to expand the production of home-grown textiles and garments as part of a healthier, regenerative ecosystem...

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Image Credits:

Lead: Vobster Scarf, handwoven with lambswool by Jade Ogden using local regeneratively farmed sheep wool from high on the Mendip Hills. Some of the wool has been hand dyed with plants, including madder root, weld and coreopsis flowers. Image courtesy of Jade Ogden, The Handloom Room.

All other images as credited and courtesy of Jade Ogden, The Handloom Room.