Alumni Spotlight: Meghan Kelly- Kelbourne Woolens

Kelbourne Woolens: An Interview With Meghan Kelly

"Meghan came to Kelbourne as a part-time intern in 2012 soon after moving to Philadelphia to obtain a masters degree in textile design. She fit seamlessly into the team and stayed on as an intern/part-time employee throughout the rest of her education. After graduating, she kept eluding to the many head hunters contacting her after graduation, so we made it officially official and hired her full time before anyone else could steal her away!

Most shop owners and managers know Meghan, as she is the one who organizes orders, calls for shipping and payment information, manages the warehouse and packing schedule, and assists with inventory management. Over the last year, Meghan has also been directly involved with the latest chapter of Kelbourne Woolens as we worked to move away from being an exclusive distributor to bring in new brands to the N. American market and develop our own line of yarns. 

A big part of last year's behind the scenes work was designing and developing Mojave, fondly referred to around the office as "Meghan's Yarn". I thought it would be fun to ask her some questions about the process of designing Mojave, the collection that accompanied the release of the yarn, and her love of crazy color."

-Kate Gagnon Osborn

Bodie in Kelbourne Woolens Mojave: seafoam green

"By nature, I run hot so I'm always on the lookout for nice cotton or linen clothing. I also knit year round and it is really hard to sit and try to knit wool in the sweltering heat of July. These preferences led me to want to develop a yarn that was both comfortable to knit with and to wear. Cotton yarn is notoriously hard on your hands because of its low elasticity so the other part of the puzzle was to make a cellulose-based yarn that was also easy on the hands. After a lot of back and forth with the mill, we were able to develop a yarn made of several tiny plies that are smooth and soft. The blend of cotton and linen is perfect for summer sweaters and evening cover-ups. I'm really happy with the feel and drape of the resulting fabric and knitting with it doesn't feel like a gym workout for the hands!" -Meghan Kelly

Full Online Interview:

http://kelbournewoolens.com/blog/2018/6/an-interview-with-meghan-kelly


Mojave Collection:
http://kelbournewoolens.com/blog/2018/6/mojave-collection-the-designs

Meghan designed the complete Mojave Collection.