Pendleton Woolen Mills Heritage

Pendleton is well known for a long-standing tailoring expertise, and for designing quality sportswear, outerwear and western wear in a wide range of styles and fabrications. 

As a world-leading, vertically integrated wool manufacturer, Pendleton uses sophisticated information systems to ensure a balanced flow of raw materials through production and on to finished products available at top retailers across the globe.

Pendleton wool products begin to take shape during the planning process. The next step is the purchase of raw wool. Pendleton wool buyers shop world markets, but much of Pendleton's wool still comes from the United States. Variety, quality and quantity of wool fibers are essential to produce fine Pendleton woolens.

Next comes the production of fabric. Pendleton owns and operates weaving mills in Oregon and Washington. While noted for apparel fabrics, Pendleton mills also produce a variety of fabrics for upholstery and home furnishings. Fabric production includes many steps: dyeing, carding, spinning, weaving and finishing. Pendleton's state-of-the-art dye technology features computer-controlled systems for water, dyes, heat and flow pressures, ensuring exact duplication of colors and material consistency. The carding process combs and aligns fibers in preparation for spinning. During spinning, strands of fibers are extended and twisted to form yarns. Then, high-speed looms interlace the yarns into woven cloth. Due to the unique felting property of wool, this woven cloth goes through a fulling process that uses controlled shrinkage to produce a softer, more compact fabric. The material also passes through other finishing procedures such as washing, shearing, pressing, napping and inspection before production is complete. Near the end of the production cycle, blanket fabrics are cut and finished as authentic Pendleton heirlooms.

Since the early days, care has been taken by pattern designers to learn about the traditions, mythologies and design preferences of Indigenous customers. In the earliest years, Joe Rawnsley, who was considered a gifted talent on the jacquard loom, spent time with local tribes in northeastern Oregon and the American Southwest to understand preferences of colour and design. He would then interpret the ideas into blanket designs using modern technologies that could express patterns in much greater detail and in more vivid colourations than could be expressed by traditional weaving methods.

Prior to the introduction of mechanised weaving techniques, traditional blankets were made from hides or pelts of smaller animals which had been sewn together or woven from wool, feathers, down, bark and cotton; and, in some areas, shredded cedar bark.

Eventually the durable nature of wool blankets led to their having great value in trade – and the brighter the better. While most early trading blankets were plaids and block designs, jacquard loomed blankets with brilliant colors and sharp details became very popular within the Indigenous community and integrated into everyday and ceremonial uses.

Navajo writer and artist Rain Parrish has documented the cultural significance of these branded prized possessions in various works. “We welcome our children with a small handmade quilt or a Pendleton blanket,” writes Parrish in The Language of the Robe: American Indian Trade Blankets. “To honour [a couple’s marriage], the woman’s body is draped with a Pendleton shawl and the man’s with a Pendleton robe.”

Today, Pendleton blankets continue to play a significant role in Indigenous communities across North America.

The College Fund provides educational opportunities for students and disburses approximately 6,000 scholarships annually. A portion of the proceeds from American Indian College Fund blankets goes to help tribal colleges make a bigger impact. To learn more about the fund, call 1-800-776-3863 or visit www.collegefund.org.

National Park Blankets

The National Park Foundation receives a royalty from the purchase of each national park blanket. Pendleton and our partners have donated more than $700,000 so far to support critical restoration projects in US national parks.