Meet the Makers

Inside a sun-filled Pelham Parkway studio filled with yarn spools, vintage machines, and colorful fabric art, artisan Sahara Briscoe moves between spindles, swatches, and samples that trace three decades of making. Her company, Super String Theory Design, has been part of New York’s creative ecosystem since the early 1990s—a hybrid sample house and design practice that bridges industry and craft, innovation and intimacy. “I’m a fabric developer,” she says. “I do commission work for artists and designers, and I also have my own practice that centers blankets made primarily for protection—whether it’s spiritual or beyond physical comfort.”

That idea of protection—of making objects that hold both warmth and meaning—threads through all her work. With advanced training as a weaver at Parsons and a longtime tech and production designer, Briscoe designs and develops textiles that blur the boundaries between art and production. She works closely with dyers, weavers, and a mill in Upstate New York to produce capsule collections and commissioned projects. “I can move pretty rapidly towards simplicity,” she says. “Especially helpful when I have clients with way too many ideas.”

Sustainability, for Briscoe, isn’t a slogan—it’s a studio practice. Over years of knitting and weaving, she noticed that crafters often accumulate far more yarn than they can use. So she began designing custom craft kits that teach people how to create without overconsumption. “I’m doing is looking at ways you can craft without having to buy a lot of equipment or pay for a lot of lessons,” she explains. “I’m not a paywall princess.” Her kits are built around reuse and accessibility, encouraging both beginners and seniors to keep their hands moving. She’s currently developing pre-printed embroidery sets, using elastic to accommodate arthritic hands. She says, “I want to take the pain out of hooping. When it’s easy to do, the more you do.”

Around the studio, every object seems to carry a story. Hanging in a neat row, a piece of woven silk glows next to a yarn of hand-spun dog hair. “This is Samoyed,” she says, lifting a small skein. “It’s eight times warmer than wool.” When a client asked her to make a hat from their show dog’s fur, she researched and found a method that melted the wax at the follicle and removed allergens. “People with allergies came in and said, ‘How come I’m not sneezing?’” she laughs. Each discovery, she says, opens a new path for material imagination.

Briscoe’s Dinner Guest Trivets—large, vivid, hand-hooked mats made of her own recycled yarns—embody her philosophy of connection. “I buy fiber and hand-dyed yarns from many women-owned farms and companies,” she says. “It feels like inviting all my friends to a dinner party.” The colors represent the businesses and the casserole-sized trivet is a map of the attendees. “It’s a conversation starter,” she adds. “Everyone’s a guest.”

Her practice is also a living archive of technique. At one corner sits a drum carder layered with roving; on another, a laptop uses Garment Designer, design software developed in the mid-80s. “I still have the program,” she says proudly. That software helped her produce textiles for international artist Jennifer Tee’s dance performances at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo—a milestone that linked her handmade ethos with global stagecraft.

Yet her favorite stories are rooted in New York. Sahara remembers walking home from school through the South Bronx as a child and peeking into a dye house. “I looked inside and there were like ten giant pressure cookers below ground,” she recalls. “The lids were open and I saw cones of white yarn. Then an alarm went off, the lids closed, and when they rose again the room was full of color. I was transfixed.” She laughs. “I knew I’d be grounded for being late, but it was worth it.”