When these heirlooms finally do wear out, Swans Island Blankets stands ready to replace them with a new, finer generation of summer blankets. The Maine company, based in an 18th-century clapboard farmhouse on US Route 1 in the mid-coast town of Northport, makes pure wool coverlets in solid white with pink stripes or checks and other subtle hues and combinations. The blankets, which are woven by hand on wooden looms, are made from the fleece of Corriedale sheep raised in central Maine.
Corriedale sheep were first bred for their wool to be used in blanket making on New Zealand's South Island in the 1860s. The breed's fleece has a natural crimp.
"The fibers are very curly and have a springy quality," said William Laurita, co-owner of Swans Island Blankets. "That gives the blankets their lively summer weight."
The company carries the name of the Maine island where a Massachusetts couple founded the business more than a decade ago. John and Carolyn Grace, who practiced law in Boston and spent summers on Swans Island, treasured their own hand-me-down blankets and saw their potential as a unique product.
John Grace apprenticed with a Maine weaver and studied at the Rhode Island School of Design before he and his wife gave up their legal careers and moved to Swans Island in 1994.
On the island, located six miles off Mount Desert Island, the Graces used only the finest grade of fleece from a local flock of Shetlands and other Maine sheep to make their blankets. They developed a palette of rich colors, mostly from plant dyes, to complement the natural wool shades of white, black, and brown. Teal, for instance, comes from the osage tree and indigo plant while pink is derived from the cochineal beetle's shell.
Two years ago, the Graces retired and entrusted the business to Laurita and Jody Spanglet. The couple, who worked as Waldorf School educators in Charlottesville, Va., before moving to Maine, have kept up the artisanal tradition and standards. They select their fleece from flocks in the town of Starks and on Nash Island, a tiny, treeless islet east of Penobscot Bay. The wool is then scoured with organic soap before being spun.
