ABOUT
pacie grews.
The Human Behind It.
In a positive, profoundly unexpected consequence of the pandemic, pacie grews slid headfirst into being.
Haphazardly founded in 2021, pacie grews has grown to encompass a range of bespoke fibre art designs, retail staples, market appearances, and in-person macrame workshops.
I still can't quite believe that the things I make with my hands support my life. There's something very simple, very honest about that.
But it wasn't always so...
In Another Life...
I was a freelance content writer, working solely online. It was a glorious time that afforded me the chance to prance around Southeast Asia for 5 years, but after swapping the bikini for a big wooly jumper and moving back to my home in West Cork, the online thing felt as though it had run its course.
It's a hard thing to articulate, that feeling you're left with at the end of a day of connecting with other humans exclusively through a screen. Or the end of a year of it. Or several.
I was deeply craving meaningful connections with real people. A physical community. Tactile experiences. And in my total millennial, Piscean, kinda anti-capitalist, privileged way, I was desperately in pursuit of a kind of work that felt like it meant something.
It was Meant to Be.
Mix all that with the year that was in it: lockdowns, closures, major reassessments. A growing global community that - guys - I truly believe is sick shit of speed consumption and cheaply made everything. A cultural resurgence of craft. And boom. The couple of tasters of macrame I'd enjoyed a handful of years ago came hurtling back into my life in a big way.
If you're here, reading this, supporting my small business, then you're playing a part in me living the life that 8 year old me would have gone absolutely bananas for - and I think that makes you pretty awesome.
A Note on Sustainability.
The materials I use are all either recycled, upcycled, or completely natural and biodegradable. I work in large part with recycled cotton, which is a new material spun from giant vats of waste fabric from the fashion industry, thereby disrupting its journey to a landfill. Where recycled cotton isn’t suitable for a piece, I'll use organic EU grown cotton, jute, raw linen, or salvaged fishing rope along with natural elements like driftwood and storm felled branches.
I constantly seek to create designs that are zero waste, for example by forgoing a straight trim at the end of a wall hanging and instead finishing it off with some a-symmetrical barrel knots, or by using my offcuts to complete smaller projects (scraps that are too small to use are composted). If I need to incorporate a piece of hardware in a design, I’ll always look for a second hand option before turning to virgin material (upcycling broken antique furniture with macrame has become a big interest of mine).
Meanwhile, PacieGrews packaging is minimal, plastic-free, and fully recyclable. While shipping is a necessary evil in terms of emissions, I was excited to partner with a company earlier this year that organised the carbon offsetting of a large shipment of orders. This is something I’d like to explore more.
Though still far from perfect, I am forever seeking ways to improve the sustainability of all aspects of PacieGrews and welcome new eco-friendly ideas with curiosity and gratitude.
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