With her knuckles covered in soap suds, Nanny Glerup rolls two clumps of raw wool onto what looks like a bamboo placemat. More white soapy foam oozes out onto the table as she squeezes the bundle, rolling it back and forth, adding water with a basting tool. Between the friction and hand-shaping, the fibrous pieces are joining together to look like one big, gray sock.
On this particularly muggy afternoon in June, Nanny, 82, is giving me a demo on felting. “When you put water on it, warm it up, and move it, the fibers become one fiber,” Nanny tells me. This slow and mindful process was how Nanny made her signature 100% wool slippers for the first years of Glerups, which she and her husband, Ove, started 30 years ago just down the road.