Fabricaal – Alentejo Wool Mill

Wool blankets have been woven around Reguengos de Monsaraz, in the Évora district, for centuries: shepherds wore them as cloaks against the Alentejo winter. In the 1930s António Durão gathered masters and apprentices into a single workshop, which later became the Fábrica Alentejana de Lanifícios and won a gold medal at the Brussels world exhibition of 1958. The Dutch craftswoman Mizette Nielsen took over the mill in 1977 and kept the craft alive for four decades. Since 2020 it has been run by three Portuguese partners, who kept every loom and every weaver and shortened the name to Fabricaal.

Everything is still woven by hand on wooden treadle looms that have hardly changed over time: the weaver works the pedals with the feet and sends the shuttle across with the hands. The yarn is merino wool, a natural, renewable and recyclable fibre from the breed of sheep long kept on the Alentejo plains. The patterns are built on two old motifs, the ear of wheat and the lozenge, combined in hundreds of ways. Alongside the traditional blankets and rugs, the mill now makes cushions, pouffes, bags and stools covered in the same cloth, and pieces can be ordered in the size, colours and pattern the customer chooses. New weavers learn the craft at the mill itself.

The mill is in Rua dos Mendes, in the town of Reguengos de Monsaraz, and has a shop and a small museum room. Visits to the weaving hall take place on weekdays and should be arranged in advance. The company also keeps a shop inside the walled village of Monsaraz, by the church square, a short drive away. Reguengos de Monsaraz is around forty kilometres south-east of Évora by the N256 road, close to the Alqueva reservoir.