About The Brown Cow

The Brown Cow Saddle Blanket Company is flourishing. Doriane is an accomplished barrel racer and recent college graduate, and Brown Cow has passed away after an incredible 36 year life, 24 of them spent with our family. But we're proud to keep his name as a good luck charm for our company and our store - as proud as we are of the unique, durable custom weaving and beadwork you'll see in the pages of this catalog.

The Brown Cow Saddle Blanket Company specializes in custom, hand-dyed, hand-woven saddle blankets and matching hand-beaded head-stalls and breast-collars. What distinguishes The Brown Cow Saddle Blanket Company is Christina Bergh; owner and master-weaver. Her bi-level weaving studio hosts nine multi-harness looms, three of which are computer-driven. At the studio, over industrial stoves, each customer's order begins by dyeing virgin wool and mohair in large, steaming vats. Hand-dyeing produces colors and hues otherwise unattainable and gives each customer's special order a unique, one-of-a-kind look. Next to Christina's studio are her horse stalls where she cares for her seven horses.

The more discriminating saddle blanket aficionados, working with Christina, create their own specialized, custom designed, hand dyed colors to be woven in a one-of-a-kind pattern, often combined with their ranch's brand or the owner's initials or logo.

And this is what makes ordering a saddle blanket from The Brown Cow and Christina special -- and fun: she creates what you want, in the style and color you want. At the weaving studio, your custom saddle blanket yarns (ranging from pure wool to pure mohair) are hand-dyed in large vats and each saddle blanket -- from start to finish -- is a work unto itself: unique, customized and one-of-a-kind.

A breast collar or headstall can be adorned with matching beadwork, also hand done. This beadwork can compliment and enhance the beauty of any saddle blanket you may design. The same flexibility and creativity in customizing your saddle blanket can be brought to bear when adding to your order a matching head stall or breast collar.

Biography of Christina Bergh

Christina Bergh’s abiding fascination with Textile art dates back to her early years as a child and her grandmother’s extraordinary home in northern New Mexico where one of Santa Fe’s foremost Spanish Colonial collections – of both Textile and hand-crafted furniture – was on display.

At age twelve, in this home, starting with a primitive Nambe loom, a bundle of wool and cotton, Christina embarked upon a career of art, fabric and timeless beauty drawn in large measure from the surrounding colors and starkness of New Mexico’s famed cliffs, sand-ladened arroyos, and external vistas. At age 13 she began weaving for Alice Parrott at her Santa Fe studio on Canyon Road. This apprenticeship lasted though college. During the summers, at the Santa Fe Folk Art Museum, she studied weaving with a variety of noted textile artists such as Pear Sunrise, Kay Sakemachi, Gerhardt Knodel and Michelle Lester.

Inspired by Alice Parrott to dye her own yarns with Vegetable and chemical dyes, Christina set up her own studio and dyeing kitchen on Old Santa Fe Trail. Her Custom weaving business flourished.

While attending Geogetown University with a major in Russian language and history, she also worked at the Smithsonian in the Textile division under Rita Adrosko. Her loom was never far away. After graduating, and with the encouragement of Santa Fean Nathanial Owings of Skidmore Owings and Merrill, she continued to weave custom tapestries and rugs for residences, corporations and banks. Her godmother, and grandmother’s best friend, Dorothy Skarritt Mckibbon (the “Gatekeeper of Los Alamos in 1943”) were also instrumental in their support of Christina’s work.

Another very close friend of Christina’s family was Gustave Baumann. Many afternoons were spent with the Baumanns making bread and enjoying the sunny Santa Fe summer days. Ann Baumann, Gustave’s daughter, was the first to inspire her to weave Gustave’s work as tapestry. This began a fifteen year project which is now well developed with the Fine Arts Museum in Santa Fe. Christina’s Gustave Baumann tapestries are woven on a rare, custom built Jacquard hand-loom.

In her Santa Fe studio, Christina, an avid horsewoman and competitor, weaves custom tapestries, rugs and saddle blankets. Her yarns are hand-dyed and designs are exclusive to her studio. A lifetime of work in wool, silk and cotton.

Our Santa Fe studio full of projects in progress!