Zalingai is a one woman business created by textile artist Sue Clow.
I started Zalingai in 1999 as part of my attempt to live a sustainable lifestyle in the mountains of West Wales. My aim was to combine my hobbies of patchwork and quilting with recycling to earn a living compatible with being a mother and educating at home. Over the years I have sold my work on market stalls, in shops and galleries. I have taught workshops on textile recycling and rag-rug making and arts and crafts for children. I have also been involved with organizations trying to promote sustainability and my work has had great success at the Centre for Alternative Technology near Machynlleth, Powys.

My desire to live a sustainable lifestyle has been heavily influenced by extensive travels in my youth. I lived in Middle Eastern and African communities who were to a large extent self-sufficient; making crafts and growing food, living in harmony with the Earth, treating her gently and with respect. I learnt great lessons in recycling in Africa where every tin can was made into something both useful and beautiful and nothing of any use was ever thrown away. Zalingai is named after a small town in Western Sudan which epitomized these qualities and of which I have very fond memories.
Of course until recently most people in Britain would also have lived a more sustainable lifestyle, with less waste and more enjoyment of the traditional crafts of recycling such as patchwork, quilting and rag-rug making. In West Wales I have had an overwhelming response to the rag-rug making; 50 years ago in Ceredigion almost everyone made rag-rugs and now we have a wealth of wonderful fabrics and colours to work with. Rag-rug making is a great example of recycling as an art form, the prodded method which I use is simple to do but has unlimited potential for original designs.

My work is very varied because I try to recycle everything that comes my way and greatly enjoy that challenge. Recycling can preserve memories; old clothes we loved and wore out, the kids' old clothes. I have made denim bags for people from completely worn out jeans which they could not part with and my wallhangings often incorporate the tiniest pieces of material too flimsy to use on a bag and too precious to throw away. So please enjoy my website and join us in discussions on the forum. Many thanks to all the friends and relations who have helped with this website. My son Joe for being my computer wizard and my daughter Ruby for her constant encouragement and design ideas. Jessica Holt for the photographs. Hazel and Iris for modelling. Hazel Couch for proofreading and Janice Pike for all her enthusiasm and ideas.