Yuli Somme

Yuli was born in Norway and although she has lived most of her life in Devon, the traditional weaving and knitting heritage of Norway has deeply influenced her since she was old enough to hold needles to knit with.  She has always had an affinity with wool in particular.

Throughout the 1970’s to 1990’s, Yuli built her skills as a weaver.  For some years she worked at Coldharbour Mill Working Wool Museum, researching the history of wool as a cottage industry, demonstrating powerloom weaving and teaching spinning and weaving.  She turned to felt making in the traditional wet method whilst at Art College in the late ‘80’s and joined Make Southwest in 1990.  Through this organisation she has been an active teacher of felt making and textile understanding in schools, and is part of the Green Maker Initiative.

An Arts Council grant in 1999 enabled Yuli to travel to Turkey to work with traditional master feltmakers, and it was there that she started thinking about a “lifetime” garment made of felt, inspired by witnessing the making of a ‘kepenek’, a felt cloak traditional to Kurdish shepherders.  Working with these traditional feltmakers and learning about the ancient connections with early felt making settlers at Catal Huyuk, central Turkey, made a profound impression on Yuli.

 As a lifelong environmentalist, Yuli believes that growing food and fibre within localities in an integrative, eco-friendly way, should be our aim as a society, divesting ourselves of high-tech industrial scale intensive farming.  This will lead to more worthwhile employment opportunities and resilience.  Rather than sending fibres to far flung corners of the world for processing, we should be investing in processing facilities, once again, in the UK.

Yuli is a member of the South West FibreShed – a growing community of fibre and dye growers, processors, makers and manufacturers across the South West whose aim is to produce home-grown textiles and garments in a more healthy, resilient and regenerative textile ecosystem. This group is affiliated to the international FibreShed group.