PORT LUDLOW — In 1971, Gary and Rachel Swett turned their backs on a steady paycheck and set out on an quest — to find a life’s work that would satisfy their creative spirits while sustaining a family.
They found what they were looking for in a medieval Spanish city within the shadows of the walls of a Moorish palace.
The Swetts operate their cottage industry, Fireside Looms, out of a shop on their 5-acre property north of Port Ludlow.
Now, they are retiring and looking for new owners for their custom loom-making business, which started in a medieval Spanish street and grew to produce a nationally-known product.
“It’s the top-of-the-line in this country,” Gary Swett said.
“People trade up to our loom. They are buying something they expect to use for the rest of their lives.”
Search for vocation
It was the search for a vocation that led the couple to cut their ties and take off for Europe in 1971.
Gary, who is Quaker, had already traded his corporate job with a Montgomery Street company in San Francisco to work for the American Friends Service Committee’s vocational center.
“We counseled people who flooded into San Francisco in the 1960s,” Gary said.
They also wrote a book, “Working Loose,” that was originally a report for the Labor Department, about different ways that people discover what is important in their lives.
“It’s about choosing a vocation, not just getting a job,” Gary said.
Inspired to make their own voyage of discovery, the Swetts rented out their Marin County house, and with 2-year-old daughter Andrea in tow, traveled to the East Coast.
There, they set out for Europe on a freighter with a car, a tent and a plan — to look for a place where people practiced Rachel’s craft, hand weaving.
Disembarking In Yugoslavia, they found that people were prouder of how industrialized the weaving industry had become than they were of their handcrafts, Rachel said.
A discovery in Spain
So the family backtracked to Spain, and in an old quarter of Grenada, found the shop of Nicholas Perez.
“He was selling rugs and curtains in the traditional Andalusian colors — green, yellow, black and red,” Rachel said.
“There was a workshop with a couple of dozen looms, the men weaving and the women doing the finishing work.
“We sat and watched.”
The shop, called the Al Fombra, was located on a narrow street near the walls of the Alhambra, the ancient mosque turned Moorish palace.
In addition to producing hand-woven items, Perez also built looms in the traditional Spanish way.
