Margaret B. Russell is a self-taught handweaver with over 40 years of experience and a lifetime appreciation of making items by hand.  She grew up in a home where, what could be handmade, was handmade.  From clothing to furnishings, her parents were constant examples that spoke to the satisfaction of making something, anything, almost everything yourself.

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Margaret was also greatly influenced by stories told of maternal ancestral weavers and wool workers. Her 9X great grandfather, Francis Plumer, arrived in New England with a company from Newbury, Berkshire, England and was a First Settler of Newbury, Massachusetts in 1635.  He was a linen weaver by trade. William Truland (Trulan), 3X great grandfather, traveled from Ballymoney, County Antrim, Northern Ireland and settled in Margaret’s native upstate New York early in the 19th century.  Troy city directories of the time listed him as a carpet weaver, working out of his residence.  Antrim Handweaving, Studio and Study, is named in tribute to William Trulan(d).  Several members of the Walker line of her family were textile workers in Bradford, England in the mid-19th century, when it emerged as the international center of the wool industry. Margaret takes great pride in these connections with her forebears, and her weaving reflects a desire to uphold tradition.

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Vintage Macomber looms and aged Singer sewing machines fill a private home studio and study in Byfield, part of the same small coastal town of Newbury, in northeastern Massachusetts, where Francis Plumer set foot almost 400 years ago. Margaret’s public studio and study is in the historic Shapley Townhouse, c.1814, a Federal double house built by Captain Reuben Shapley, whose ships often carried hemp and cotton.  The property is owned by Strawbery Banke Museum, Portsmouth, New Hampshire. More of Margaret's Macomber looms and her beginning weaving classes can be found at Factory 3, a makerspace in Portland, Maine.  For more information on current offerings, contact Margaret or visit factory3.org 

 

 

“My looms and I have an infatuation with the fibers we spend our days and nights with.  I am a texture weaver, to my core.  It is the robust fibers – the raw and untethered, the unsung and rebuffed – who make this heart beat even faster.  We are simply a love story. Every piece we create is clearly a progeny of our committed union.  When they emerge from this embrace, each piece is a life force, eager to tell its story. Visually and textually absorbing, they call on you to come closer.”

                                                                                     - Margaret

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