Susan Manson

LAURA WILLIAMSON

Living a creative life, Susan Manson said, "is very much cutting the coat to match the cloth. Sometimes you have enough to have fun, sometimes you don’t.”

That Susan used a cloth metaphor to describe the financial vagaries of making ends meet working in the arts is appropriate – her current business, Fully Woolly, revolves primarily around creating creatures from used woollen blankets, mostly the tartan ones we all remember from grandparents’ houses and childhood baches.

Her most successful products are woollen mounted deer heads, pieces that are, frankly, adorable, just the right mix of realist and whimsical, the sort of art anyone can enjoy.

Susan is one of those rare Wanaka locals who really is a local. Her father’s family moved to the area in the thirties. "They were involved in setting up a lot of things,” Susan said, including the library, fire brigade, Guides and a playcentre. Her grandfather built the first swimming pool in town: an outdoor affair, it was at the Dinosaur Park.

Susan was born in Cromwell, in what is now the Ripponburn retirement home, which used to be the Cromwell Maternity Hospital. She attended Wanaka District High School, which changed over to Wanaka Area School she was in about third form, a process she called "a bit of a shambles”.

"They couldn’t get enough teachers, so the principal taught us for a year. He had to supervise through the intercom – we learned to get into trouble quietly.”

At the time, there were only three options available at the school: French, typing or technical drawing (graphics). She wanted to do graphics, but was told she couldn’t, because she was a girl. Then she was told she couldn’t do typing, because she was too smart – so French it was, something she laughs about now. "I showed them, I got 30 percent.”

Susan said she was always interested in the arts, especially fibre, which in her family "runs in our veins”. Her great grandfather was a Paisley weaver (from Paisley, Scotland, the weavers were famous for their technical and artistic skill) and she has aunts who do embroidery and doll-making. She also gives credit to her high school art teacher, Truda Landreth, who she called an "awesome, motivating teacher.”

Susan started out making a lot of different things before deciding she wanted to stick to wool – "I want to be fully woolly” she told her mum, which is where the name of her company comes from.

At first, it was all spinning and knitting, Susan explained. She even won a couple of national awards from Creative Fibre (formerly the New Zealand Spinning, Weaving and Woolcrafts Society) for knitwear design.

She’s been trading as Fully Woolly for about 15 years, but it was three years ago, when she hit on the idea of the deer, that the business really started to take off – she mostly makes the deer now, plus a few toys, including monkeys, unicorns, bunnies and kiwis.

She uses re-purposed blankets and knits for her work, sourced from op shops, TradeMe, friends and donations – a nook in the hallway at her home is piled high with them. "The fabrics have a history and a memory already; it gives them a second life,” she said, adding that people often say they remember a certain pattern from the family caravan, or that they got the same blanket as a wedding present. Susan said the older blankets are also softened down and felted up, so they have a nicer feel than a new fabric might.

Susan sells her work online (click on MORE below), at the markets in Queenstown and Wanaka, in 11 shops and galleries from Wellington south (including on Stewart Island), as well as in Wanaka at Ritual and the Coffee Shack.  

Each deer has a "blanket name”: an orange tartan one is called Pumpkin Spice, then there’s Envy ("because he’s green with …”), Bluegreen (a blue and green version), Porange (he’s pink and orange), not to mention First Class, who was made from an Air New Zealand first class blanket.

Online, she sells her creatures all over the world, from Mexico to England. Once, a French guy based in Greece bought an owl for his girlfriend. Unfortunately, the couple broke up after the owl had left New Zealand. The broken-hearted Frenchman wanted to know if his ex-beloved had received the present, so Susan sent her a postcard, signed by the owl, asking if she had received it, but the woman never replied.

About once a month, Susan will also give away a deer for a good cause – recent donations to fundraisers have included Santa’s Grotto in Wanaka and the Invercargill Oncology Nurses fundraiser.

As for the growth of her business, "it’s kind of happened to me, not by me,” Susan said, calling it an organic process that involved a bit of blind luck, and hitting on the idea of the deer at the right time.

When she started, she said, she bought the D-rings for hanging the deer ten at a time. Now she orders them in batches of 400.

The deer are obviously a great idea, but Susan is humble about her success, crediting local support in part for helping her get to where she is, including from her friend Julia Larkin, who has helped her with graphic design, Julia’s husband, who did Susan’s first pro photographs, and a "really supportive community” at the markets – she sold her first deer to a fellow stallholder.

Find Susan in Wanaka at the Wanaka Sunday Craft Market, which runs every Sunday from October through April at Market Corner in Pembroke Park.

PHOTO: Wanaka App