Custom yardage
Small-run woven cloth developed around end use, hand feel, colourfastness and realistic minimums.
Small-batch woven cloth · natural dye lab
Colour with a memory.
We develop woven cloth whose recipe can be read backwards: fibre, structure, dye bath, finish, maker and intended use.
Swatch 069-A
Madder / flax / twill
About / what the mill believes
A fabric is a chain of decisions you can still touch.
Rill & Loom is a fictional micro-mill for designers who need material specificity rather than anonymous yardage. We sample slowly, document everything and make short runs legible enough to reproduce.
We buy traceable yarn where practical, keep bath records, test wash behaviour and archive approved strike-offs. The point is not rustic imperfection; it is accountable craft.
Offerings / cloth bands
Four ways into the loom.
Natural dye lab
Recipe development using plant and mineral colour systems with recorded mordants, temperatures and wash tests.
Archive reproduction
Measured reconstruction of historic stripes, checks and dobby structures from reference fragments.
Material consulting
Sampling for interior, fashion and cultural projects before committing to a full production run.
Process / from brief to bolt
1
Brief
End use, width, hand feel, palette and budget.
2
Strike-off
Small dye tests reveal achievable colour range.
3
Loom draft
Structure, sett and yarn order become a readable plan.
4
Sample
A short woven length is washed, measured and reviewed.
5
Run
Approved cloth is woven, finished, labelled and archived.
Projects / commission cloth
Commission 24-07
Harbour House upholstery
A salt-resistant linen-wool stripe for a coastal guesthouse: softened indigo, narrow rust pinline, 148 cm width and abrasion testing before production.
24-03 / archive study
Mission blanket reconstruction
Measured from a fragment and rebuilt as a contemporary double-cloth rather than a facsimile.
23-11 / fashion yardage
Rainline check
Lightweight cotton-linen check developed in three plant-dyed colourways for a capsule collection.
Proof / material record
126
approved swatches archived
4.3%
average width shrinkage logged
92%
commissions approved by second sample
11
active dye recipes
People / hands behind the cloth
A four-person mill.
Mara Dube
Dyer & colour archivist
Madder, indigo, tannin systems
Jon Ellis
Weaver & loom technician
Dobby structures, finishing, maintenance
Lindi Pato
Material developer
Sampling, client briefs, wash testing
Eva Meyer
Studio producer
Yarn sourcing, scheduling, dispatch
Insights / mill notes
Notes from the dye shelf.
Why the approved swatch lives in a dark drawer
Light exposure changes natural colour before the client ever sees a full bolt.
Width is a design decision
Loom width changes waste, repeat, seam placement and sometimes the entire garment pattern.
Variation needs a tolerance too
How we describe acceptable colour drift without pretending hand processes are machine-flat.
FAQ / commission questions
Before we wind the warp.
How small is a small run?
Most woven commissions begin around 40–60 metres depending on yarn, width and loom setup. Sampling can begin much smaller.
Are natural dyes perfectly repeatable?
No. We target an agreed range and document each bath. Variation is part of the material language, but uncontrolled drift is not.
Can you match a Pantone reference?
We can work toward a visual target, but plant dyes have their own spectral behaviour. We provide physical strike-offs for approval.
Do you supply finished garments?
No. Rill & Loom supplies cloth, swatches and technical notes. We can coordinate with a client's cutter, upholsterer or maker.
Contact / material brief
Bring us the room, garment or object first.
Tell us what the cloth must do before choosing a colour. We reply with feasibility, likely minimum, sampling path and the questions that need answering.
cloth@example.com traceable recipes physical approvals fictional studio