A workshop in Kathmandu, and a family that carries it to America.
Himalayan Bliss Crafts Pvt. Ltd. makes wool felt, hemp and glass bead goods in Nepal and supplies them direct to retailers and customers in the United States.
Himalayan Bliss Crafts began with a simple objection. Almost everything sold abroad as Nepali handicraft had passed through three or four hands before it reached a shelf, and almost none of that margin had stayed with the people who actually made it.
So we built the short version instead. Wool, hemp and beads are sourced in Nepal. The work happens in our own workshop in Kathmandu and with artisan families we have worked alongside for years. Finished goods ship from Kathmandu to the customer, a retailer in Texas, a nursery in Oregon, a yoga studio in Vermont, with nobody in between.
What we do with our hands
Wool felt
Raw fleece from highland flocks is washed, carded and dyed with azo free dyes. From there it goes one of two ways. Wet felting, which is hot water, soap and hours of friction, produces the seamless shells of our cat caves and crossbody bags. Needle felting, where a barbed needle is punched into loose wool thousands of times, produces the animals: yaks, geese, sheep, dinosaurs, each one sculpted individually.
There is no mould involved in either process. That is why no two pieces are quite the same, and why we cannot promise an identical repeat of a photograph.
Hemp
Nepali hemp grows in the hills without irrigation, fertiliser or pesticide. It is cut, retted in river water, stripped, spun by hand and woven on treadle looms into a cloth that starts stiff as cardboard and turns soft and drapey after a season of use. We cut our backpacks, totes and waist bags from it and line them in cotton.
Glass beadwork
Roll on bracelets are crocheted, bead by bead, onto elastic cord. Several thousand Czech and Japanese glass seed beads go into a single bracelet, roughly two hours of work each. The pattern is counted by eye. That is the whole reason they look the way they do.
What we will not use
No plastic. No wire armatures. No glue. No synthetic filling. No plastic safety eyes. This rules out a number of shortcuts that would make our felt animals cheaper and faster to produce, and it is the reason the nursery range is safe from the first year onward rather than from three.
Fair trade, specifically. Our artisans are paid per finished piece at a rate they set, not an hourly wage set by us. Most work from home on their own schedule. Several have been with us since the first year.
Where to buy
Retail orders go through our Etsy shop, which carries buyer protection, tracked international shipping and a 5.0 rating across every order we have shipped. Wholesale and custom orders come direct to us.
A label that means something.
Every hemp piece carries a woven label: Himalayan Hemp, THC free, made in Nepal. It is stitched in, not printed on, because a printed tag is gone in a year and the point of the label is that the buyer can still read it in five.
On wholesale orders we will happily replace it with yours, or leave the bag unbranded so you can tag it in store.
Questions about a product, a material or a custom run?
We answer everything ourselves. There is no support desk between you and the workshop.