About Antrim Handweaving

Margaret B. Russell is a handweaver with over 38 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 furniture, her parents were constant examples that spoke to the satisfaction of making something, anything, almost everything yourself.

Margaret was also greatly influenced by stories told of maternal ancestral weavers and wool workers. 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) traveled from Ballymoney, County Antrim, Ireland and settled in Margaret’s native upstate New York early in the 19th century. City directories listed him as a carpet weaver, working out of his residence. Antrim Handweaving, Studio and Study, is named in tribute to William Truland. 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 pride in these connections with her forebears, and her weaving reflects a desire to uphold tradition.

Vintage looms of many sizes fill a personal 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. Her public studio and study is in the historic Shapley Townhouse, c.1814, a property owned by Strawbery Banke Museum, Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Private and semi-private weaving lessons are offered in the Federal period double house built by Captain Reuben Shapley, whose ships often carried hemp and cotton.

All of Margaret’s pieces are woven exclusively of natural fibers, with a focus on the pure and timeless beauty of simple functional design. She is continually inspired to educate herself and others about the wonders of handweaving.

Co-founder and member of -

NOBO (NOrth of BOston) Handweavers, Newbury, MA.

Member of -

Handweavers Guild of America, Inc., Weavers’ Guild of Boston, The Livestock Conservancy, and Rare Breeds Survival Trust, UK.

Margaret has written for Handwoven magazine, The Journal for Weavers, Spinners, and Dyers – a quarterly journal published on behalf of the Association of Guilds of Spinners, Weavers, and Dyers, UK, and Wild Fibers magazine

"Weaver of Organic Fiber" – Earth Trustee Environmental Award, Earth Society Foundation, Peace Bell Ceremony, United Nations Headquarters, New York City.

© 2019 Antrim Handweaving – all rights reserved

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?

- Cicero

Photographs by Margaret B. Russell