Wild and woolly designer at home in Gordon

INSIDE Elise Cakebread’s rural studio is a woolly wonderland.

As the textile designer behind seven-year-old brand, Cakebread, she crafts soft furnishings, including cushions, and sculptural installations for homes and businesses across Australia, from her workspace in Gordon.

Often recycling end-of-production yarns from Melbourne mills, she can access “beautiful quality” wool to make goods without buying wasteful amounts.

“My design practice and art practice are very interconnected. Sometimes I’m designing products, other times I’m working on more conceptual, art-based pieces,” Cakebread said.

“I use a hand powered knitting machine from the 70s to construct a lot of my pieces, which I use in unconventional ways. I have spinning wheels and yarn swift… and the standard sewing machines and overlockers.

“All of my sewing is done by ethical non-profit, Social Studio, which works with refugees and asylum seekers, then everything comes back to the studio for a hand-finished element, embellishment or a panel constructed on the knitting machine.”

Learning to sew and knit as a child, Cakebread graduated from RMIT eight years ago, and has produced commissioned, texture-focused pieces for Canberra’s Hotel Hotel and Dulux.

She is currently working on a waste textile project funded by a Creative Victoria grant.

“That will feed into all different areas of my practice, looking at a way to reengineer the way I work and design without the expectation of using new materials.

“That’s started to weigh on my mind more and more,” Cakebread said.

Two years ago, her young family moved from Melbourne to Gordon. It’s a “creative community” that’s boosted Cakebread’s practice.

“There’s so much space to create, and I find a lot of inspiration out in nature. There’s strong overlap in interest in craft and design, and opportunities for collaboration, so it’s really cool.”

Visit shop.elisecakebread.com.