Marina Pérez Rodríguez

Marina Pérez Rodríguez

artisans,asturiasmap

1992

iain

Asturian,Spanish

Artisan

672

current,43.2049206177269,-5.993868917107711;

Spain

Pérez Rodríguez, Marina

https://www.laflorcerval.com/

TEXT

Marina Pérez Rodríguez was born in 1992 in Pruvia, a village in the municipality of Llanera (Asturias). She spent her childhood in the countryside, on her grandparents’ organic farm. They were pioneers in introducing organic horticulture in Asturias, and Marina spent much of her time there.She studied Fine Arts at the University of Salamanca, where she met Rodrigo. The couple later moved to Pontevedra and eventually settled in Oviedo, where they worked in the tourism sector. In 2018–2019, they moved to Tene, in the municipality of Quirós. It wasn’t a planned decision—they were looking for a rental home in a rural area and found a reasonably priced house there. Their first child, Antón, was born in Tene, and Marina began developing her craftwork in the textile sector. A few years later, they acquired their current home: a cabin on a large mountain estate, where they raise a flock of xalda sheep. Marina lives there with her family, cares for her children, and pursues a lifestyle based on craftsmanship, self-sufficiency, and harmony with the natural environment. In 2022, after the birth of her third child, Marina attended a course for women entrepreneurs in rural areas, organized by Camín Real de la Mesa, the local development agency for the region that includes Quirós. This course was the seed for her project and the business model she has developed as a craftswoman. Until then, she had been spinning her own wool at home, but she began outsourcing the spinning to a mill. Her production was very small, and she was still in a learning phase. Today, her work as a textile artisan has become well established, and she produces a variety of products under her brand La Flor Cerval.

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Marina did not come from a family tradition of working with wool. It was her sister who received an old spinning wheel from Germany as a gift from someone she had cared for. Shortly after, she gave it to Marina, and that marked the beginning of her experimentation with wool. Although Marina knows that her great-grandmother used to spin wool by hand in her village—like many rural Asturian women did until not so long ago—she never saw her grandmother spin. There were no sheep at home, nor was wool ever worked. She learned to knit thanks to her grandmother, her mother, and her stepmother. The latter, daughter of Spanish emigrants in Switzerland, taught her different ways of working with yarn, and Marina gradually developed her own technique. As a child, she remembers seeing sheep in nearby fields and feeling a special fondness for them. Being born in a rural area, in a family deeply rooted in their place of origin—Pruvia, in the municipality of Llanera—allowed her to be in close contact with traditional culture and agriculture from a very young age. Her relationship with older people also gave her valuable knowledge that later proved useful, both in her hometown and in the village where she now lives, Tene. One of the reasons she began her craft was motherhood. After having her three children, she started knitting clothes for them and wanted to make use of the wool from the sheep they raised—a flock of xalda sheep, a native breed of Asturias. Her craft emerged naturally at home, alongside other domestic and farm tasks. Her learning process was based on experimentation and sharing experiences with other knitters. For Marina, the satisfaction of creating her own garments from the raw material she produces is deeply meaningful—wearing something she has long desired, and making clothes for her children, is a source of pride and fulfillment.

Marina has received several proposals to lead workshops, both from associations and individuals, and she has conducted a few of them. However, she does not have a dedicated workspace, which means she would have to use her home. If she had access to a suitable venue, she would be open to organizing short courses—for example, on sock knitting. Nevertheless, her focus is currently more on production than on teaching. She has not delivered formal training, nor specific courses aimed at other artisans, and she has never had apprentices. Still, if she had an appropriate space to host workshops, she wouldn’t rule out the possibility of offering training related to the world of wool. That said, teaching is not her main goal. She believes her potential audience should be young people interested in learning to knit by hand with needles, and who would then apply the technique at home. In contrast, she considers learning to spin wool from one’s own flock to be more complex and impractical for most people.

Santiago Rodríguez Pérez

female

incomer

Great technical skills or knowledge are not required—what matters more is sensitivity toward what you produce, the environment, and its meaning. For Marina, understanding and caring for the landscape, the role of small livestock such as sheep, and an awareness of biodiversity and grazing animals are essential. It’s not just about using resources to clothe people, but also about how to continue caring for the landscape. It’s less a technical skill and more an ethical commitment to the land, culture, biodiversity, and the value of craftsmanship as a way to improve people’s lives.

The primary material Marina uses for her creations is wool from xalda sheep. Almost all the wool she works with comes from this native Asturian breed, as she believes that without it, her project would lose its meaning. She also uses some natural dyes, although she mainly works with raw sheep wool. No other additional products are used. For labeling, she uses string and paper, and her creations do not require plastic packaging or synthetic materials. Xalda sheep wool is very rustic and tough. For Marina, its high resistance is an advantage. There is no standardized production of wool from this breed, nor are there classifications in terms of quality (such as fine or medium-grade). That’s why she and her team decided to work in their own way. One of the main strengths of xalda wool is its rustic nature. While the market today tends to favor the fineness of fibers—measured in microns—Marina finds it valuable to have diversity in fiber types, and appreciates having access to a coarse, durable, and resilient material like the wool provided by xalda sheep. Historically, Spain has used merino sheep wool, which came in various grades: fine wool, often exported, and medium-grade wool, used domestically. In Asturias, wool from native sheep breeds was also traditionally used. For Marina, it’s important to highlight and give value to this material. While many customers may not pay attention to the origin or type of wool, her goal is to connect with an audience that appreciates the quality of native and locally produced wool. Xalda sheep produce wool in three colors: dark brown, white, and cardina (gray). The latter is especially prized and is obtained through careful selection of the fleece. The main colors she works with are gray, brown, and white. Most of the wool produced is black, while white wool accounts for about 20% of the total.

part-time paid job

Marina sources part of the wool from her own sheep, and another part from xalda sheep breeders. These are medium-sized farms raising native sheep, located across various areas of Asturias, including the municipalities of Quirós, Teverga, Gozón, and Belmonte de Miranda. Each farm typically has at least 60 animals. The native sheep breed of Asturias is known as oveya xalda, a variety that was once on the brink of extinction. This is due to its rustic nature, low meat and milk production, and coarse wool. However, the breed has seen a recovery in recent years, and Marina and Rodrigo chose it as the foundation for their project. Among its advantages are its adaptability to mountainous terrain, ease of lambing, and minimal need for veterinary care. According to local residents, flocks of xalda sheep were common in the area in the past. Marina receives the wool as a gift and does not pay for it, since for the farmers it is considered a byproduct of meat production. She usually attends the shearing sessions in person, selecting and weighing the wool on site. Although she offered to pay for it, the farmers preferred to give it away, as they saw it as a nuisance. Some used to burn it, while others simply threw it away. Collecting small amounts of wool from smaller farms is not cost-effective. Moreover, the spinning mills Marina works with—such as minimills like Wooldreamers—do not accept small batches, so she must gather a significant quantity of raw material before sending it for processing. In the past, wool was more valuable than lambs, but today the situation is reversed. The traditional figure of the wool buyer no longer exists, and while wool used to be purchased directly from the shearer, nowadays it is barely collected. This is the reality in Asturias, and wool is also facing a difficult time in other parts of Spain.

Marina generates very little waste from her work, both in spinning and knitting. The leftovers from spinning are reused, for example, as cushion filling. There are no surplus materials that require special management. The only residuals she receives are the unspun wool scraps returned from the spinning mill, which she plans to use as padding for garments.

The first step in the process is shearing the sheep’s wool. In the beginning, Marina sheared her own sheep using scissors, manually selecting the best parts of the fleece. At first, she did it by hand, then with an electric blade. As her flock grew, she had to rely on a professional shearer—she could only shear three sheep a day, and with her family responsibilities, it became unmanageable. In Asturias, there are several professional shearers, and one of them now handles the shearing of her flock. Marina also visits other farms during the shearing season to select the wool on-site. Wool selection is perhaps the most labor-intensive part of the process, along with knitting: collecting the wool from farms, transporting it, and sorting it. Only part of the fleece is usable, as some sections are damaged or dirty—up to 50% of the raw material is discarded. During the spinning process, after washing and carding, there is an additional loss of 40–50%, due to dirt, short fibers, or material left behind in the washing vats. The next step is washing the wool to remove all residues and part of the lanolin. Initially, Marina washed the wool by hand, but over time she began sending it to professional wool washers. She started working with facilities in Val de San Lorenzo (León, Spain), a town with a long tradition in the wool textile industry dating back to the 19th century. However, she needed to gather a large volume of wool to make shipping worthwhile. In recent years, she has been working with Wooldreamers, a spinning mill in Cuenca (Spain) that handles the entire process: washing, carding, and spinning. They send her the finished yarn, ready to work with. Marina has been affected by the decline of Spain’s wool processing industry, which has nearly disappeared. Over the past 50 years, most small-scale wool washing facilities have closed, along with many spinning mills and textile factories. Nevertheless, some small-scale projects have emerged, such as Dlana (https://dlana.es/nosotros/). Marina designs many of her pieces herself, based on her personal needs (shawls, jackets, etc.). She then continues with the production of garments and items such as wool toys. Her main technique is hand knitting with needles, through which she creates a wide variety of items: socks, sweaters, jackets, dolls, and more. To speed up production, she sometimes works with knitting workshops, to which she sends her raw material. She also has a knitting machine (tricotosa), which helps her produce more efficiently. In the past, the municipality of Quirós had more than 20 traditional wool looms, owned by individual women who practiced the craft at home. However, this domestic trade has completely disappeared.

Marina uses a variety of tools in her work. When she spins wool herself, she uses a manual carder and a wooden spinning wheel. For winding skeins of wool—cadexos, in Asturian—she uses a manual wooden swift. She also owns traditional hand-spinning tools, such as spindles and old spinning wheels, but rarely uses them because they significantly slow down the yarn-making process. Her knitting needles are partly inherited from her grandmother and partly purchased. Nowadays, it’s easy to find needles of all kinds, suitable for various types of wool work, thanks to the global resurgence of knitting. Initially, she used the long, thin needles that were common until a few years ago. Now, she mostly uses circular needles—shorter and connected by a cable—which can be held comfortably with the fingers. She also uses short needles specifically for knitting socks. There is a wide variety of knitting needles available, depending on the item being made (socks, sleeves, large pieces, etc.). These tools can be found in local yarn shops or haberdasheries. Marina also owns a knitting machine—a tricotosa—which she bought second-hand online. It’s a valuable tool that helps speed up production. One of the most appealing aspects of working with knitting needles is the flexibility it offers: she can knit anywhere, even while tending to animals in the pasture. This task is easily compatible with other daily activities. However, many machines have now been incorporated into knitting work, and some tasks—like yarn production—have been outsourced. Doing the entire process by hand is not economically viable, as the final sale price would be too high. In traditional systems, this was sustainable because women worked continuously and unpaid in their homes, producing gradually to meet their needs and fulfill orders, but at extremely low costs.

These are simple tools, but they offer many possibilities. For Marina, one of the great advantages of knitting tools is that she can work outdoors while caring for her children or tending to the animals. A pair of simple wooden needles allows for countless creative possibilities, anywhere. She can even knit while breastfeeding her youngest child. For her, it’s essential to be able to take her work anywhere and to create different pieces without relying on heavy machinery or a large workshop.

Her main source of energy is manual labor. However, for certain processes, she requires electricity, which she obtains from a solar panel installation with battery storage. The six solar panels, along with the batteries, allow them to power all aspects of life in the house: lighting, cooking, and appliances such as the washing machine, refrigerator, and freezer. To heat both the workshop and the house, they use a wood-burning stove, which also serves as a cooking appliance.

The waste generated by Marina through her knitting work has minimal environmental impact. The discarded wool can be used as fertilizer. The spinning mills she works with, such as Wooldreamers, do produce some waste, including the water used to wash the wool and remnants from the processing. This company has a waste management program in place. While the waste is not hazardous, it includes dirty water from washing vats, yarn scraps that are too short to be used, and similar materials. Marina requests that the factory send her both the spun yarn and the leftover material. She repurposes the latter as cushion filling, among other uses. In the future, she plans to use felted wool for padding vests or creating garments with interior insulation. Companies like Wooldreamers, where Marina processes her material, are working toward circularity and waste recovery, including initiatives such as producing fertilizer pellets from wool.

Marina’s workshop is located in her own home, an old two-story cabin situated nearly one kilometer from the village center of Tene (Quirós). These types of cabins are typically found away from towns, in grazing areas for livestock. They usually have two floors: the lower level was traditionally used as a stable for animals, and the upper level for storing dry grass and winter fodder. Marina and Rodrigo have adapted the cabin into a home, keeping the lower floor as a stable for their sheep. The upper floor has been converted into a living space with a kitchen, living room, bedrooms, and a bathroom. Marina’s workshop is set up in one area of the living room, where she stores her tools and wool. In the attic, she keeps raw materials, yarn, and finished products in plastic boxes (to protect them from moths), ready to be sold. The workshop is warm and welcoming, fully integrated into the home and shared with the rest of the family. From her workspace, Marina can keep an eye on her children and watch them play.

Marina produces knitted garments made from her own raw material: wool from xalda sheep. She is not a textile designer; her designs have mostly emerged from the need to meet her personal requirements. That’s how items like bonnets for her children, shawls, and jackets came to be. She believes that, as in traditional contexts, garments should serve a clear purpose—something that is being lost today. Nowadays, we can easily buy clothes in stores or large retail chains, but for living in a rural environment like hers, traditional clothing used to meet specific needs. While she values aesthetics, practicality is her priority. For example, she designed her jackets to be open, suitable for transitional seasons, and comfortable for breastfeeding. Each garment was designed based on her own needs and what she considered most versatile. Among many other items, she produces: •Raw wool yarn in three natural colors, as well as skeins dyed with natural pigments •Children’s socks •Bonnets •Shawls •Jackets •Woolen toys and dolls for children

The main objective of all this production is its sale, either directly or through local marketing channels aimed at consumption. It is one more activity within their farm, complementary to sheep livestock production.

He has an online store, which is one of his main sales channels. He also attends traditional craft markets and Christmas fairs. In the latter case, he highlights the LabShop market in Gijón, where he sells a significant portion of his products. Although some customers have occasionally come to his home to buy directly, this is not common practice. He also distributes his products to a few local shops, which sell them to the public. He does not have a physical store at home or a space open to the public. At one point, he tried to find a location in the village to open a workshop and a store, but due to tourism and rising prices, it was impossible. Most premises are either sold or rented to outsiders, making it unfeasible. Nevertheless, he would like to have a sales point in the village.

She has also considered offering weaving workshops, but the situation is not easy. Firstly, because her workshop is very small — it is located in her own home — and not easily accessible: it is 1 km on foot from the center of Tene, along an unpaved track with a 200-meter elevation gain. She has conducted some workshops and courses, but the lack of a suitable space and limited availability of time have made it difficult. She could host workshops at her home, but finds it exhausting, as she would have to act as a host and prepare her house for visitors. Currently, she is more focused on textile production than on offering workshops.

Yes, she even receives orders by mail for garments that need repairs. She fixes them and sends them back. For her, maintaining a certain closeness with the consumer is important—something that a label or certification cannot provide. If there’s a problem, customers can communicate it directly. She considers direct contact with the client essential. Unlike a conventional store—although she does have a website and an online shop—she also offers a more personalized service based on trust.

She has all kinds of clients, both local and international. However, her audience tends to have a special interest in organic and locally sourced textile products, values artisanal work, and is willing to pay a relatively high price for it. Many customers discover her through social media. Marina mentions Instagram as an important showcase where she presents her products and communicates her philosophy. She also sells a lot at craft markets, but many people already know her beforehand and are looking for a specific product. It’s less common for her to sell to strangers at these markets, as most people go directly to her knowing what they want (pp. 17, 26). Generally, customers come specifically looking for her products, which they’ve usually discovered through social media. Although she hasn’t conducted a formal market study, she has identified several customer profiles. One group consists of women aged 50 to 60 who enjoy knitting. Older women tend not to buy her wool, as they associate it with a rural or impoverished past. Most of her buyers are women; male customers are rare. Many clients also seek garments that reflect a commitment to the environment, sustainability, or the preservation of traditional landscapes.

She does not have any label or certification that guarantees the quality of her product. She believes these may be useful in large-scale commerce, but not for a small producer—they simply don’t make sense to her. What matters most is the level of trust built with the people who buy from her, through direct contact with the consumer. She doesn’t see the need to use labels on her products, as her customers usually know her beforehand and are already familiar with the production process (entirely carried out in Spain with locally sourced materials), so a label or certification wouldn’t add much value. However, the spinning mill she works with for wool yarn production (Wooldreamers – https://wooldreamers.com) does have OEKO-TEX certification. She also doesn’t hold an artisan license or accreditation, as artisanal work is just one aspect of her life. At home, she also carries out other rural tasks, such as tending to her flock of sheep, maintaining a vegetable garden, and more. Nevertheless, she is registered as a self-employed worker.

She does not participate in activities directly related to tourism and, in fact, is somewhat reluctant to do so. Although she has considered it on several occasions (p. 23), her previous experience in customer service was not positive. In her former job at a hostel located in an apartment in central Oviedo—where she managed bookings, cleaning, and room service—she experienced firsthand what working with the public entails, and it was not something she enjoyed. She acknowledges that many people enjoy new experiences, but in her case, she finds it difficult to organize activities to entertain visitors, as well as to market them. In her experience, knowledge has traditionally been passed on without any economic transaction, and she believes that the most valuable information she received was given freely. She also feels that many of the people who attend the occasional workshops she offers are unlikely to use a spinning spindle again; they participate for entertainment, often with little genuine interest. For this reason, she does not find it fulfilling to offer activities focused on the tourist experience. She is not opposed to tourism, but she also recognizes that it often leads to issues such as gentrification and limited access to housing for young locals—especially due to second homes being purchased by foreigners. Her main activity is the production of sheep wool yarn and the creation of garments made from it, and this is the work she finds most satisfying.

“Yo no estoy en contra del turista. Eso ya ye un aporte. Mejor algo de vida que ninguno. ¿Qué pasa, qué lado oscuro tiene esto? Que las casas se revalorizan, nosotros tenemos que vivir aquí [en la cabaña] pero no nos hubiéramos podido permitir comprar una casa en el pueblol, lo que sería lo normal. ¿Por qué? Porque unos chavalinos de veinte y cuatro, veinte y cinco, que eran los años que teníamos cuando vinimos aquí, nunca van a poder pagar el estándar de precios de uno que viene de Madrid, o de Holanda. Me parez que el 40% de las casas de los pueblos véndense a extranjeros. Porque ellos pueden pagalo. ¿El turismo qué hace? Subir los precios, subir el pan.

She does not belong to any artisan group or association. While she maintains relationships with others in her field, these are not through any formal platform. Through her work, she also has strong professional ties with breeders of Xalda sheep, from whom she sources her raw material. She collaborates with various companies and artisans. One of the most significant partnerships is with the Nuedu project (https://nuedutextiles.com/), led by artist Irene Trapote (https://laboralcentrodearte.org/es/residentes/irene-trapote-5/), to whom she supplies wool for different artistic proposals as well as for handmade garment production. She also provides wool to artisan Denise Ochoa, who runs the project “Boriando Knits” (https://www.instagram.com/boriando.knits/). Another ongoing collaboration is with dye artisan Almudena Cerezo, a Navarre native based in Galicia, who leads the project Materia Botánica (https://materia-botanica.com/about ; https://www.instagram.com/materiabotanica/). This project explores the possibilities of natural dyeing using waste materials, agricultural residues, and plants. Their collaboration involves creating a scarf made from her wool, dyed with natural pigments. She is also working on a proposal with the Basque brand Boinas Elosegui (https://www.boinaselosegui.com/), for whom she is developing yarn with a specific thickness required to produce a medium or small batch of berets made from Xalda sheep wool. She has received collaboration offers from well-known fashion brands in Spain, but has declined some of them, as she couldn’t find a way to align her vision of wool craftsmanship with the commercial approach of those brands. In some cases, the brands contacted her through their marketing departments, showing particular interest in her image and in becoming part of the universe she has created around her work. Regarding public institutions, she has collaborated with the Ethnographic Museum of Quirós and with La Ponte Ecomuséu. She has also worked with local councils, such as those of Quirós (where she lives) and Grau/Grado, participating in craft fairs like the La Flor festival (Grau/Grado). Although she hasn’t established formal collaborations with academic institutions, she has worked with PhD students.

One of the biggest challenges is the crisis in Spain’s wool processing industry. There are hardly any washing facilities or spinning mills that work with small quantities of wool. The Spanish textile industry is currently in decline, and this affects her ability to collaborate with companies and process raw materials. As a result, costs for small producers are very high. To process a small amount of wool (in three colors), each color is treated as a separate batch, which increases the cost significantly. Producing wool from Xalda sheep is particularly expensive, and this impacts the final price for the customer. Although she has a large amount of raw material, the cost of processing makes the final product more expensive. Another major challenge is the housing crisis and the effects of tourism, which prevent many young people like her from accessing affordable rentals or reasonably priced homes in rural areas. In recent years, they have had to compete with people from across Europe, which has significantly driven up housing prices. Additionally, she faces the typical challenges of rural life, such as limited access to basic services.

[Speaking about idealizing rural life] ¡Idealizándola también! ¡Hay que tener una sobredosis de enamoramientu pa hacer frente a las dificultades! [of living in a village]

Álvarez, B. (2022, november 17). Lana de oveya xalda para vivir en Quirós. La Voz del Trubia. https://lavozdeltrubia.es/2022/11/17/lana-de-oveya-xalda-para-vivir-en-quiros/ Cabellos, T. (2023, november 16). Marina Perez of La Flor Cerval on Valuing Xalda Wool. Love Wovember. https://lovewovember.com/marina-suarez-of-la-flor-cerval-on-valuing-xalda-wool/ Continente, G. (2024, november 9). La Flor Cerval: Un proyecto textil que reivindica la producción sostenible y la vuelta a los orígenes. Vogue España. https://www.vogue.es/articulos/flor-cerval-proyecto-sostenible González, A. S. (2023, september 19). Lana que teje territorio. El Comercio. https://nuestrocampo.elcomercio.es/lana-que-teje-territorio/ Harabagiu, R. (2024, november 28). La Flor Cerval: Abrazando la simplicidad en la montaña. Raluca Harabagiu Blog. https://ralucaharabagiu.com/marina-perez-historia-de-la-flor-cerval/ Hidalgo, M. (2022, december 22). Marina Pérez, La Flor Cerval. Poner en valor la lana Xalda. Fusión Asturias. https://fusionasturias.com/asturias-empresarial/empresarios/marina-perez-la-flor-cerval-poner-en-valor-la-lana-xalda.htm Liedo, C. (2022, october 31). Producir hilo de lana de oveja xalda de forma industrial, el hito de una emprendedora de Quirós. La Voz de Asturias. https://www.lavozdeasturias.es/noticia/asturias/2022/10/26/producir-hilo-lana-oveja-xalda-forma-industrial-hito-emprendedora-quiros/00031666807278320435715.htm

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