Ritva Puotila, artistic director of Woodnotes, founded Woodnotes with her son Mikko Puotila in 1987, basing the company on the concept of paper yarn. Puotila says that paper has properties that differ fundamentally from the other fibres she use: its lightness and rustling, its clean natural colour when unbleached, its whiteness and the glow of colour. Ritva Puotila has raised the status of this traditional Finnish material to a new level, that of designer textile. From the start, the Woodnotes collection consisted of a broad range of interior textiles, from carpets and blinds to upholstery and small objects for the home. Woodnotes' foray into this new field was rewarded immediately during its founding year with the French Oscar Prize, continuing with further recognition in subsequent years.