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Tartan patterns are often about telling the story of a place. And more often than not it’s topographical features that inspire the designs. So here is our visual story of where we live: the Glendale Tartan.

We’ve been wanting to design a local tartan for a while. We finally started working on the design this spring and it’s been very exciting to see it come to life in its woven form. We’ve used the pattern to weave scarves in two colourways to begin with: Glendale Summer and Glendale Winter. But I’m sure the pattern will re-emerge in other variations and products before too long.

Design inspiration 

The starting point was the environment around us that we are immersed in every day: the glen. We first thought about how to define its visual features. We agreed on five key elements: the Hamara river, fertile fields next to the river, the two roads lined by houses either side of the glen, the hill beyond them, and the sea.

Of course there’s a lot more to Glendale than this short list – most importantly, its people and its fascinating history. We decided to focus on the visuals, though, because anyone coming into the glen is stopped in their tracks (often literally) by the amazing view you get coming over the brae.

Viewed from above, the glen looks pretty symmetrical. (You can check this out by climbing Macleod’s Tables; or you could just look at Google Earth!) There’s the Hamara river along the centre of the glen and fields either side of it, lined by the Fasach and Homisdale roads, and above that the rougher hill grounds. Towards the north-west Glendale borders onto the sea, or more precisely Loch Pooltiel.

I started putting these elements into a little drawing.

I then translated these ideas into something we can weave. I did this first on paper and then using a computer weaving software we work with.

Seasonal variations

We decided to weave a summer and a winter version of the pattern. While the glen and the hills look very green with heather in the summer, in winter the green fades and the yellowish-brown hills become more dominant. The two pictures below show what we had in mind with our colour choice. The sea is a strong presence throughout as well, so we gave it quite a lot of space in our design.

Here’s how those pictures translated to our computer weave plan.

Fast forward a few months, and here they are: Glendale Tartan Scarves in the online shop.

Watch our short video to see the scarves on the loom and find out more about the design.

It was such a pleasure to work on this design and to attempt to weave our locality into a textile. We hope the Glendale Tartan evokes a sense of this very special place.

We love an excuse to talk about the fantastic qualities of wool. (And share a picture of our favourite sheep of course.) And what better time than October, which is officially Wool Month!

Why wool?

We love working with wool, wearing it and living with it. Here are just some of its wonderful attributes:

• It is 100% natural.
• It is a renewable fibre – sheep re-grow it every year for us.
• It keeps you warm and cosy in the cold weather, even when it is a bit wet.
• It is highly breathable and adjusts to changes in your body temperature.
• It is resilient and elastic, always returning to its original shape.
• It is resistant to staining and odours.
• It is fire retardant – ideal for home furnishings.
• And at the end of its useful life, it is biodegradable.

Not convinced yet? You can read more about wool’s qualities on the Campaign for Wool website.

Campaign for Wool

The Campaign for Wool is a global promotion initiated by its patron, the former Prince of Wales. Since 2010 it has been raising awareness about wool and its amazing attributes. It also works hard to highlight the versatility of this planet-friendly fibre. From fabric to furnishings, flooring to fashion, and even home insulation, it seems there is little that wool cannot do.

The campaign encourages collaborations between wool growers, manufacturers, retailers and designers. It also embraces the craft sector and artisan community, and we are proud to be partners in the campaign.

So this October, why not wrap yourself up in your favourite Skye Weavers scarf or blanket and join us in celebrating nature’s performance fibre. And let’s not forget the sheep who grow it for us every year. Natural, biodegradable, renewable – you’ve got to #ChooseWool!

Tartan is big news this year. A major exhibition at V&A Dundee has put tartan in the media spotlight and we recently went to check it out. Highly recommended!

All this tartan talk has also inspired us to revisit some of our own patterns of the past, and dream up some new ones as well.

More on that later … but first, what is tartan exactly?

At its most basic, tartan is a checked pattern made up of at least two contrasting colours. In weaving terms it’s normally woven in a 2/2 twill structure, with the alternating colours of warp and weft creating a grid pattern. But tartan moved beyond the loom a long time ago. From shortbread tins to wallpaper and lots more besides, tartan is the ubiquitous symbol of Scottishness.

Tartan at the V&A

The exhibition in Dundee takes ‘a radical new look’ at tartan, and it’s a fascinating visit. Its approach is to see tartan as a cultural phenomenon as much as a textile. Rather than focusing on the relationship between tartan patterns and families or clans, it looks at the wider global, cultural and political context. It examines how tartan has both become an instantly recognisable symbol of Scotland and been adopted by other causes and groups all over the world.

The exhibition unpicks tartan’s contradictions as both a cloth of the establishment and a symbol of subculture. There are some iconic items on show, including Vivienne Westwood’s bondage trousers and garments from Alexander McQueen’s controversial 1995 ‘Highland Rape’ collection, evoking the tragic history of the Highlands.

Themes such as ‘Tartan and Identify’ and ‘Tartan and Power’ cut across time and place – so you can find fragments of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s plaid alongside Bay City Rollers trousers, football scarves and Jackie Stewart’s racing helmet.

Although there are thousands of tartans in existence it seems there’s never a shortage of new patterns. And tartan is constantly being reinvented for new needs and desires. We were particularly taken by the tartan Xbox cover! It was created by kiltmaking supremos Gordon Nicholson who we have had the pleasure of collaborating with in the past.

Back in the weaving shed …

After our Dundee tartan immersion and back on the croft, it was time to get creative. We’ve started working on an exciting new Glendale tartan – more to be revealed on that soon. We also decided to revisit our Xanthoria tartan throws, making the design a bit more elaborate and compatible with two additional colour themes.

Here’s our new interpretation of an old favourite: lichen on the rocks…

… and a short video of us weaving the throws.

Our second colourway is inspired by a view of Skye’s shoreline from below the water surface. The bright green colour evokes a delicate algae called sea lettuce. It looks amazing when it sways in the water with rays of sunshine lighting it up from above.

Our third colourway adds another layer of Scottishness  – it’s inspired by the thistle. 

We hope you have enjoyed this little tartan exploration as much as we have. The V&A exhibition continues in Dundee until January 2024, and our tartan throws are due in the online shop end of July. We suggest you don’t miss either!

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Our island environment provides much of the inspiration for our weaves. Often it’s the details (particularly lichens!) that get the creative juices flowing. But our latest designs are inspired by Skye at a somewhat larger scale.

Neist Point Scarves

Our local beauty spot, Neist Point, provided the inspiration for this new range of scarves. The dramatic headland here is made up of distinctive Dolerite rocks, with vertical columns criss-crossed with horizontal fissures.

We love the graphic lines of these rocks and thought they would translate rather well to a geometric block pattern scarf. We really enjoyed weaving them.

We really like the grey of the rock but thought we would branch out into a few other colours as well.

If you like the look of these you can browse all our scarves in the online shop.

Pooltiel Sunset Throws

Even closer to home, one of our other recent weaves is inspired by sunsets in our local bay.

For a couple of weeks in spring and autumn the sun sets directly over Loch Pooltiel, the bay we look over from our croft. If the weather’s right we can see gorgeous colours in the sky and sea loch – caught perfectly in this photo by our neighbours at The West Nest.

Here’s a look at them in the warping wheel and on the loom.

We’re delighted with the final throws, evoking one of our favourite views.

We hope you can imagine the peaceful scene as you snuggle under.

We’ve been talking about putting together a fabric archive for quite a while. OK, ten years! So this winter we finally sorted through our miscellaneous collection of swatches and put them in a couple of books. Leafing through them all was a bit like looking through old photographs, with the added dimension of touch and texture.

We got a few new ideas from looking through our woolly past. We’ve also been reminiscing about the many stories behind our weaves. They might be linked to the landscape, or something personal, or sometimes a technical challenge we set ourselves. So for this blog we thought we’d pick out a few of our favourites from a decade of design.

Hyla Check 

This throw has a rather personal story. It’s based on an old blanket that once belonged to Roger’s father, Hyla. He’d kept it since his schooldays in the 1930s and Roger found it gathering dust in a cupboard. We loved the pattern so set about working out how to re-create it.

When we installed our new loom in 2017 we decided to weave this throw on it first. It felt a a very fitting inauguration.

Misty Macleod 

The history of the Macleods on Skye goes back nearly eight centuries. Just a few miles away from us is the clan seat, Dunvegan Castle, Scotland’s oldest continually inhabited castle. When we heard about a Macleod clan gathering there in 2014 we thought it was a good time to weave our version of the traditional MacLeod Dress Tartan. We really like the pattern, but decided to weave a muted, or ‘misty’, version of the original bright yellow, red and black tartan.

Of course the name is also a reference to Skye’s ‘Misty Isle’ moniker – and the cloudy conditions that are not uncommon on our nearby hills, the Macleod’s Tables.

Coral Beaches

Further up Loch Dunvegan, beyond the castle, is another local landmark: the Coral Beaches. From a distance the stunning white ‘sands’ look almost tropical. But get up close and you see that the beaches are actually made up of tiny pieces of coral-like material in different colours. It’s not in fact coral but a type of dried and bleached algae, known as maerl.

In this weave we wanted to recreated the multitude of colours found in the ‘coral’ sands. We originally used the design for baby blankets. We’re thinking of weaving it again this year, so watch this space …

A love of lichen

If you’re familiar with our textile designs and inspiration it will come as no surprise that we wanted to include a bit more lichen in here! One of my favourites is the vibrant yellow of Xanthoria parietina, which we find growing on rocks around our shores and on the hills. We had yarn specially dyed to match the colour. We love using this with natural grey Skye Wool which sets the yellow off beautifully.

Another favourite is a design we called Asymmetric Lichen Throws. These were inspired by ochre coloured lichens in the Cuillin hills.

And if you love lichens too, have a look at our Learning about Lichens blog.

Technical challenges

These next throws were a first for us in many ways. Not only were they our first Skye Wool throws but they were also the first complex weave we created on the new loom.

The design made good use of the new loom’s eight frames – we couldn’t have created it on our original loom – and comprised a wavy pattern within a check.

Bauhaus to Brodgar

It’s hard to stop when picking favourites as there have been so many over the years! But we’ll sign off with just two more particular highlights.

The year 2019 marked the centenary of the Bauhaus and it was great to see the work of the textiles workshop highlighted in several events and exhibitions. We had great fun playing around with geometric patterns and textures to create our own Bauhaus inspired designs. You can read about them in our blog.

A couple of years later we travelled a lot further back in time for our Brodgar scarves. These were inspired by a Neolithic stone from Orkney. The incised zigzags might be ancient but their geometric patterns don’t seem a million miles away from the Bauhaus several thousand years later. You can read about the design genesis in another blog.

It’s been great fun looking back over past designs and very satisfying to start building an archive. But we’re never short of inspiration so looking forward to the next decade and beyond!