Goodbye 2024 - Hello 2025!

An eventful year is coming to a close at the Icelandic Textile Center!

We are thrilled by the increasing number of inquiries and collaboration requests. Journalists, politicians, and makers have heard about the Textile Center and are eager to learn more. “What is the TextileLab? What exactly are you doing? Are you a museum, an exhibition space, or what?” 

Makerspace and creative hub 

The Icelandic Textile Center is a makerspace and creative hub. A place where designers, for example, can gain knowledge, develop projects, and connect with a like-minded network. We focus on everything related to textiles. Our primary goal is to create opportunities in textiles and contribute to the development of a sustainable textile industry in Iceland.

Why? Because textiles are one of the most polluting industries globally and the fourth-largest environmental factor for individuals after housing, transportation, and food. Over 90% of textiles in Iceland are imported and then discarded. There are many opportunities in local production, utilizing Icelandic raw materials, and fostering knowledge where traditional craftsmanship and new technologies intersect. For instance, if we can find ways to create new materials from leftover textiles or dye wool with bacteria instead of chemicals, we can produce eco-friendly products and create jobs for entrepreneurs, including sheep farmers who make and sell their own yarn or designers who find new uses for wool.

Sustainable textiles

To develop solutions, we need to learn new methods, experiment, and create prototypes. This requires space, access to experts, and specialized equipment. The Icelandic Textile Center provides all of this.

We employ experts in crafts and digital textiles. We manage textile research infrastructure, known as the Textile Lab, a facility equipped with specialized tools like digital knitting machines, digital looms, and felting machines—not available elsewhere in the country. We host and guide students, entrepreneurs, and textile artists. In 2024, over 80 artists from 16 countries, including Japan, India, Taiwan, Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil, stayed with us. Entrepreneurs like Hanna Dís Whitehead from Iceland and innovative designers like Signe Emdal from Denmark have come here to develop new wool products.

We also actively participate in research and collaboration projects both domestically and internationally. In current projects such as “Tracks4Crafts” (funded by Horizon Europe 2022) and “Threads” (funded by Interreg), we work with European partners to tackle challenges like textile waste and educate future generations in both traditional crafts and new technologies. The Tracks4Crafts annual meeting was held in Amsterdam in May, and the Threads kick-off meeting with representatives from Finland, Norway, Ireland, and Sweden took place in Blönduós in October.

School or no school? 

The Icelandic Textile Center is located in so-called "Kvennaskóli", the former Women’s School in Blönduós. It's a historic building, over 100 years old, with a rich history that inspires us and everyone who stays here. The name sometimes confuses people, who think the Textile Center must be an educational institution. But the center itself is not a school and does not offer formal education or credits. That said, we do have an agreement with Iceland’s Ministry of Higher Education, Industry, and Innovation, which includes supporting higher education and facilitating university exams as part of our formal responsibilities.

We also collaborate with schools and universities, such as the Iceland Academy of the Arts and the Reykjavík School of Visual Arts, welcoming their students and teachers to learn both digital tools and traditional crafts. Additionally, we host field schools and educational programs, including the Fabricademy and the Iceland Field School, organized by Concordia University in Montreal, whose participants stayed with us throughout June 2024 for the third consecutive year. Students from the College of the North Atlantic and University College Copenhagen also visited this year to learn embroidery. In 2024, we offered workshops and courses in digital weaving, e-textiles, as well as many different handcraft sessions during the Iceland Knit Fest, "Prjónagleði". 

We see many opportunities in this field that could also boost tourism in Northwest Iceland. 

Looking forward!

Building a creative hub and knowledge center in rural Iceland is a challenge. Honestly, we sometimes feel like Don Quixote fighting windmills. However, concepts like “creative hub” and “social enterprise” (organizations focused on solving social, environmental, or community issues) are becoming better understood in Iceland. Recently, the Textile Center secured funding to hire a staff member for the Textile Lab, enabling us to continue operations next year.

Our current major goal is a collaborative project with the municipality focused on collecting, sorting, recycling, and reusing textiles.

We look to the future with optimism and wish you all a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year!