Three and a half years ago, Ashley Farland had never turned on a sewing machine. Now she runs a company that makes handcrafted throw pillows from surplus designer fabrics. Two hundred of them adorn beds and sofas at South Fork Lodge in Swan Valley, Idaho, the historic fly-fishing retreat that late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel bought three years ago with professional angler Oliver White.

Farland's pillows provided a finishing touch for a complete renovation. The designer's request was spare: He wanted high-quality tweeds and suit materials in shades of green, "kind of like a fish," Farland said. "So that was fun, because I had total creative control ... other than the palette color."

She hand-cut every pillow and mixed and matched plaids and solids and tweeds from Zegna, Loro Piana, Kiton and Ralph Lauren Purple Label. Then she and the two women who sew for her stitched them together. "We had it done in, like ... three weeks," she said.

The pillows shipped in May. Farland hadn't even quit her full-time job sewing at Burlington's Fourbital Factory.

Her new company, DandyLion, opened its first store in Hinesburg on Saturday. Starting with artisan textiles and wooden kitchen accessories, Farland is building a lifestyle brand committed to expert craftsmanship, quality materials and sustainability. It's named for — and inspired by — the "dandies," 18th- and 19th-century gentlemen whom DandyLion's website describes as "the original statement-makers, with extraordinary attention to quality, presentation, and flair."

Besides textiles such as pillows and throw blankets, DandyLion has a wood line — carving boards, rolling pins, a bread box and a sausage slicer — that Farland developed with South Burlington woodworker Jeremy Ravelin. Everything is built to last.

"We have to stop thinking about things as They're fine for the moment," Farland said. Consumers may think they are getting a good deal at discount stores, she said, but that is often "perceived value," because if goods are cheaply made, they don't wear well and get replaced. The fashion industry has trained people to want a fresh look each season.

"We have to adjust the way that we're approaching our expectations and consumerism," Farland said. "We have to rewire people."

All DandyLion textiles are made with "deadstock" — surplus fabric from home furnishings and apparel companies that may have ordered too much or retired certain colors and weaves.

Each year, the apparel industry generates $288 billion of deadstock, surplus-use advocate Stephanie Benedetto said. Once destined for the runways of Milan and Paris as well as consumers' closets, it ends up sitting in a warehouse, buried in a landfill or burned.

The waste cuts into corporate bottom lines and comes at an environmental cost. Disposal causes pollution, as does making new fabric. Dyeing, rinsing and other treatments release toxic chemicals into the water supply that can't be removed, Benedetto said. By some accounts, she said, the textile industry is the second-biggest polluter of water globally, Benedetto said.

Every yard of deadstock kept in circulation saves up to 700 gallons of water and prevents the release of chemical pollutants and greenhouse gases that accompany textile production, according to Benedetto, cofounder and CEO of Queen of Raw, a New York-based company that matches buyers and sellers of surplus fabric and provides software for textile companies to manage excess inventory. Demand for deadstock is growing, she said.

Designers like it because it is readily available at a discount. "And it also has an environmental, sustainable story to tell," she said. "So it's a win-win-win to work with deadstock."

Farland has used more than 1,000 yards so far, she said. For her Couture line of pillows, she buys men's suit material from tailors who get it from mills and from manufacturers such as Loro Piana, Zegna and Kiton. For her Luxe line, she buys alpaca bouclé, cashmere-silk velvet and mohair from two companies, including luxury home furnishings maker Holly Hunt.

Though the fabric is discounted 50 to 70 percent, it still costs Farland between $50 and $100 per yard. With inserts filled with down and feathers, DandyLion's pillows start at $250. They're not for everyone, Farland said, acknowledging that her own Hardwick farmer ancestors would "turn over." But similar pillows sold by designer companies start at $800, she said.

Farland has created two less expensive lines: her eclectic Studio and her wool Rustic pillows. Constructed with designer fabrics and the same down-and-feather inserts, they start at $108. Farland doesn't offer those lines to other retailers, she said, so she doesn't have to worry about undercutting them with the lower price point.

DandyLion represents a radical life change for Farland, a 46-year-old Essex native and New England Culinary Institute graduate. She worked as a chef in New York City for 15 years, with stints at restaurants Le Cirque 2000, Gramercy Tavern, L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon and Marea. She was also a private chef for, among others, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and Revlon billionaire Ron Perelman and his wife, she said.

During her last years as a private chef, Farland lived in Stowe and her employers flew her back to New York each week. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she was asked to move to there.

"And I just didn't want to do that," she said. She liked the families she worked for, she added. "But you do give your life to that family. It's an absurd world that you live in."

So Farland moved back to Vermont full time to explore her love of textiles and home furnishings. Not content simply to curate a store, she wanted to design and make things, she said, "but I didn't know how to sew. So I was like, Well, you'd better learn."

She took private quilting lessons and produced three quilts in four months. Then she spent a year making shoes at Queen City Footwear in Williston. Owner Matt Renna, a friend, started her out as he would any new employee, he said, sewing linings and the internal seams that no one sees. By the time Farland left, she was doing topstitching.

Next, she spent six months training and six months working at Fourbital Factory, the Burlington apparel company. Additional mentoring came from entrepreneur accelerator LaunchVT, which selected her for its 2023 program.

Meanwhile, Farland was moonlighting with her own business. She took more sewing lessons from Pat Santner of Middlebury, who taught her how to make a pillow. Santner continues to sew for DandyLion. Farland works fast, Santner said, and she's always thinking about the next thing she wants to make. "Nothing daunts her," Santner said.

The fledgling entrepreneur started marketing the old-fashioned way: She packed her pillows into hockey bags, flew out west and dropped in on boutiques in ski towns. Orders came in, and she left Fourbital in the spring to build DandyLion full time.

Her pillows are now sold in Vail, Avon and Aspen, Colo.; Bozeman, Mont.; and Park City, Utah. A store called Mountain Dandy in Jackson, Wyo., ordered 400 over the course of eight months.

The store has used DandyLion products in its interior design projects and will continue to order them, owner Christian Burch said in an email. "Her pillows have been a huge hit."

Farland made a cold call at Burlington Furniture in September. "And we were like, 'Yes, we have to have this,'" sales manager Maria Samara said.

The store now stocks DandyLion pillows and blankets. It's a member of the Sustainable Furnishings Council, and the store managers appreciate quality materials, sustainable practices and Vermont manufacturers, Samara said.

Customers apparently do, too. "I had somebody come in last week that wanted to take a whole kit and caboodle for her home," Samara said.

So far, Farland has self-funded her company. She sold her house and traded her Audi Q5 for a "workhorse Subaru." She lives in a room in a friend's home in Starksboro and cooks for the family in exchange for free rent. She plows all DandyLion profits back into the business and works as a caregiver a couple of days a week to cover her personal expenses.

"I literally have stripped down my life," she said, "but it's worth it."

Farland dreams of a line of boutique hotels called the Dandy — but she doesn't want to run them, just to create the aesthetic. "I can see it being, like, the look for a hotel group," she said. "That's what I'd like. And then I just continue to keep creating fun stuff."