Welcome to UMBRUMA Atelier
Hello everyone, and welcome. I honestly cannot believe I am writing this right now.
If you are reading this, it means the website is live, the blog is up, and Umbruma is finally, officially, out in the world. I have been waiting for this moment for a long time. And I mean a long time. so bear with me while I try to put into words what this actually feels like.
Spoiler: it feels really, really good.
How it all started
Let me take you back to 2019. Covid hit, the world shut down, and like a lot of people I suddenly found myself wondering what the hell i was gonna do. I had always known, since I was a kid, that I wanted to create and design. I grew up looking up to designers, fascinated by the way they could take an idea and turn it into something real and wearable and beautiful. But I never found my thing, my way in, my catalyst, until I picked up a crochet hook.
I don’t even remember exactly how it happened. But I do remember that once I started, I couldn’t stop. There was something about it that felt completely right. The rhythm of it, the fact that you are literally building something from a single thread, the way a piece of fabric appears out of nowhere stitch by stitch. I was hooked. Literally. (aaaaaaaand special mention to the moment i learned what frogging was )
That was six years ago. And in those six years, a looooot has happened.
Six years, four years, and a lot of learning
I have been crocheting for six years. But Umbruma as a project, as a brand, as a thing I have been building with intention is four years in the making.
Six years of learning. And I don’t just mean learning to crochet better, although that too, (there’s a million stitches out there to learn). I mean learning to spin yarn on a spinning wheel (I’m the proud father of two beautiful spinning wheels that I will talk about more in upcoming posts). How to dye fibres with natural plants. Learning to source materials directly from shepherds and small producers. How to build a website (yes, this one, which nearly killed me took foreeeeeveeeer). Learning about sheep breeds, about transhumance, about so many different types of fibres, where they come from, how they are processed and what makes each one unique (small teaser, i was gagged when i learned there’s natural colour cotton as in beige, brown and green)
I came in thinking I was making crochet pieces. I ended up building something much bigger than that. And honestly, I couldn’t be more excited about it.
The Name and Logo
Umbruma ? what does it mean ?. I get asked about this a lot.
The name was found by my dad, towards the end of 2022, beginning of 2023. One day, completely out of nowhere, he just said “what about Umbruma?” And that was it. We knew immediately.
We always wanted just one word. Something that didn’t exist, something that felt like it could only be ours. And what my dad came up with was more perfect than anything I could have invented myself.
U for Uriel, my brother. M for Mateo, that’s me. And Bruma is a rework of Della Bruna, our family name.
One word. A whole story.
The logo , is based on my hands holding a crochet hook so when you see the logo , you see my hands ( love that)
A Dedication
This first post is also a dedication. To my family and my friends, who have been there through all of it, through the excitement, the doubts, the late nights, the moments where I wondered if this was actually going to happen. You know who you are, and you know what you mean to me.
This one is for you.
What’s to come
This blog is going to be my journal. My behind the scenes. The place where I talk about the processes, the materials, the ideas, the mistakes, the discoveries. Where I share what it actually looks like to build something like this from scratch. From sourcing a skein of wool from a shepherd in Extremadura to the finished piece.
I am so beyond excited for you all to accompany me on this journey. There is so much to come. More collections, more projects, more things I have been working on that I cannot wait to show you.
We are just getting started !!!!!
Mateo 🙂
