Feeona and Troy Baalham are in the knitwear business. Together, since 2009, they have been designing and manufacturing blankets, throws, soft homewares and accessories out of their knitting mill in Thornbury. They operate under the name Uimi, supplying over 100 national stockists. This couple has started a local knitting revolution, and it seems we can’t get enough.
‘We have continued to grow, to the point where we had to knock a hole in the wall and take over the factory next door!’ explains Troy. ‘With double the factory size, we’ve been able to fill even more knitting machines!’
Each Uimi product is made in-house out of Uimi’s Thornbury factory, even the yarn itself is carefully selected by the couple, who exclusively use locally sourced Australian merino and baby alpaca. ‘It’s admittedly a harder path to go down, but it gives us so much more creative control, and allows us to be very responsive to our customers needs’ says Troy.
This week, Uimi’s winter collection ‘Hideaway’ is being released, a range Troy says embraces ‘the feeling of hunkering down and cosying up when the colder weather hits’. For this collection, Troy and Feeona were inspired by the look and feel of the 1970s, with patchwork, crochet and scalloped edges appearing throughout the range.
Uimi’s latest collection launches at Life Instyle in Sydney this weekend, and is also available through their online store.
