One of our favourite designs is our Ebb Tide pattern. It’s a shadow weave that reminds us of the rivulets of water winding their way across the sand when the tide goes out. We’ve used it for scarves, shawls and baby blankets, and for a long time we’ve wanted to weave throws with it too. But scaling the design up to that size on our pedal powered looms is a major technical challenge. We’ve been scratching our heads for years about how to do it, and finally we’ve cracked it. Here’s how …

In a pickle with pick repeats

This might get a bit technical, but we’ll try to keep it simple. Our looms are Griffith Rapier Handlooms, built by Griffith Textiles near Newcastle. They were originally designed for weaving Harris Tweed – something we can’t do because we’re not based in the Outer Hebrides – but they’ve been serving us faithfully here on Skye for many years.

Each of our looms is set up to weave patterns with a 16-pick weft repeat maximum. In plain language, that means after every 16 weft threads going across (the ‘picks’), the same lifting sequence of warp frames repeats. This has nothing to do with colour, but with the structure of the cloth – how the threads cross and interlace. For example, a herringbone pattern looks intricate but is actually only a 4-pick repeat.

Our Ebb Tide pattern has a 16-pick repeat and works beautifully for lighter fabrics. But using the same 16-pick structure for a throw or blanket would have made the fabric too tight and stiff, not soft and flowing as it should be. To fix this, we decided to double up the weft threads and weave a hopsack variation of the pattern. That meant the repeat had to expand to 32 picks – but our looms were only ever built to handle 16 at most.

Doing without a dobbie

For years, we’ve been puzzling over how to get around this limitation. Many modern looms, even handlooms, use an electronic system called a dobbie to lift the frames in different sequences. But we love that our looms are pedal-powered, driven entirely by our feet – no electronics, just mechanics.

In our case, the pattern is controlled by a tappet chain – a loop of shaped metal pieces (tappets) that lift or leave down the warp frames in a set order. For a simple 4-pick herringbone, for example, the chain would tell the loom to lift frames 1 and 2, then 2 and 3, then 3 and 4, then 4 and 1 – and back to the start.

To weave the 32-pick Ebb Tide throws, we needed a chain eight times longer than a herringbone repeat. So, we built an extension to carry the extra weight and added more tappets and fittings. Craig, a very kind and resourceful local high school teacher, redesigned the part that guides the chain through the mechanism and 3D printed a new version for us. It can now carry the much heavier chain – and works beautifully.

On a roll

After all that effort, the modified loom runs perfectly. We’ve already woven several rolls of the new Ebb Tide throws, and the first ones (in grey and white) are already in the shop – and flying off the shelves! We’re now working on a blue and grey version too.

Whether or not you’ve followed every bit of this technical story, we hope you enjoy the results. These throws aren’t just beautiful – they’re also woven from 100% local Isle of Skye wool, making them something we’re truly proud of.

Get a closer look at the process in our short video below. And see the finished product in the Throws & Blankets section of our online shop.

Weaving Ebb Tide Throws

Colour is all around us, and it’s easy to take for granted. But when it comes to weaving, there’s a lot more to colour than you might think. Our new Skye Wool Bell & Ling Tweed is a great example of how colours, and the way they are created, can shape the entire look and feel of a fabric.

Creating colours

We often get our Skye Wool colours custom dyed to achieve the exact effect we want. We work closely with specialist yarn dyers in the Scottish Borders and Yorkshire, who bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to their craft. They dye for some of the world’s biggest fashion houses but fortunately they’re also happy to work with small artisan producers like us.

When it comes to dyeing wool there are essentially two methods: in the fleece, before spinning; or on the cone, after the yarn has been spun. We use both types depending on the effect we’re looking for.

The new Bell & Ling Tweed is a great example as it combines both methods. For this design we set out to re-create a typical Skye summer hill scene:  two species of heather, Bell and Ling, intermingled amidst deep green leaves.

Cone dyeing

We had the purple Bell and Ling heather colours specially dyed for us using the cone dyeing method. To begin with I took lots of photos of the two types of heather. I then sampled the different colours on the computer and sent them to the dyers to reproduce the two chosen shades on yarn.

Getting the yarn colour right isn’t easy as different base materials (e.g. paper or wool) have a big impact on the final appearance. Light conditions have an effect as well. It takes a lot of skill to weigh up everything and achieve the best possible result. We usually need a couple of samples – a small amount of spun and dyed yarn – before we’re there. Once we’re agreed then the dyers make up a dye vat and immerse the required quantity of yarn in it on special cones. When it’s dyed the yarn is rinsed and wound onto regular yarn cones. And importantly, the dyers will keep our unique colour ‘recipe’ for any future orders.

For our Bell & Ling Tweed we added another layer of colour complexity by twisting together the bright and pale purple yarns. Bell and Ling heathers often grow closely together, and we wanted to re-create that ‘intermingled’ effect by combining the colours before weaving.

‘In the fleece’ dyeing

The green yarn in our Bell & Ling Tweed, representing the leaves of the heather, was dyed for us ‘in the fleece’. For this method the fleeces are first scoured, which teases them apart into smaller tufts of wool. These are then dyed.

The tufts of wool can all be dyed one colour, but more often several colours are used and then the fibres are blended to create the overall desired effect, as we did here.

To start off with I sent the spinners a mood board to show the effect I was trying to achieve. They mixed up colours in different proportions to give me a range of samples showing the colour blends.

After a bit of back and forth we took the necessary leap of faith and settled on a recipe made up of five different colours. The exact combination is secret (even to us!) but as an illustration, 300kg of green yarn might comprise 100kg dark green, 100kg blue green, 50kg light green, 25kg pale red and 25kg tan.

Blending these fibres essentially involves blowing them around in a big chamber to mix them up. This mixture is then fed into the carding machine where the colours get properly blended and equalised. While the final blending creates a more uniform look, the different colour components are still visible in close-up. This gives the final fabric more depth and a three-dimensional feel.

We were thrilled with how these yarns turned out and think the finished tweed perfectly captures the heathery scene. The wool for this tweed is all from local Skye sheep and we liked to think of them wandering the heather covered hill while we were weaving it. It is perfect for garments, curtains, soft furnishings, and upholstery – or anywhere you’d like a hint of Skye’s summer hills in bloom.

We liked this yarn so much we also made it into a ‘plain’ green tweed (though it’s far from plain), called Heathland Tweed.

A word on natural dyes

We’re sometimes asked whether we use natural dyes. The answer is yes, we do! We’ve worked with Skye-based natural dye company Shilasdair and have really enjoyed using their colours for specific projects. We’re planning to do more of this in the future.

However, for the scale we typically work at – dyeing yarn for whole bolts of fabric – natural dyeing isn’t currently feasible. For those larger volumes we work with larger British dyers, who follow the strictest environmental standards. This commitment to environmental responsibility is essential in all dyeing processes, whether natural or synthetic.

Colour is just one of the elements of our tweed design and production journey. You can find out all about all the various processes in our Sheep to Tweed story. To get a closer look at all our tweeds and order samples visit our online shop.

We love making products with local island wool. We’ve shared a few stories about the start of the process – shearing the sheep – and lots about the weaving side of things. So we thought it’s time to shine a light on what happens in the middle: getting from Skye fleece to Skye Wool yarn.

The local sheep are clipped (sheared) in June or July. You can find out more about that in our Summer Clip blog. We use a mixture of white wool from Cheviot sheep, and brown which mainly comes from Hebrideans, Black Cheviot, Zwartbles or Ryeland.

The first step is to collect the fleeces, or people drop them off with us. We buy from more than 30 local crofters and farmers from all around the island. It can involve quite few scenic trips with the trailer, best done on a fine day …

The fleeces then have to be graded. This involves carefully examining each fleece to select the best wool to be spun into our special yarn. Last year we invested in a spacious new shed so we can grade and store all our local fleeces on the croft. It’s big but still fills up fast!

Wool grading is a lengthy but essential process. We’re looking for wool that has a soft handle and good ‘crimp’ to it. Crimp is the fibre’s natural waviness which makes the wool springy and creates pockets of air, great for warmth. The best wool tends to come from the sheep’s side shoulders and the top of the hind legs. The white wool we buy comes from one-year-old sheep, called hoggs, and the brown wool comes from both hoggs and older ewes. The younger the sheep, the better the fleece – so less needs to be removed.

We’ve been learning this ‘on the job’ and getting quicker at it every year, which is good because we’ve steadily increased the amount of wool we’re buying. It’s hard work but I love getting ‘hands on’ with the wool.

We grade out everything that’s not good enough quality.  We remove the ‘kempy’ wool – brittle, coarse, hollow fibre usually located at the lower hind legs (britches). We take out wool that’s heavily coloured with marking paint or tangled with heather, grass or other vegetation. We also remove the belly wool which has short fibres and can be discoloured, and the grotty bits (technical name, ‘daggings’) around the sheep’s bottom. Nice.

None of this goes to waste, mind you. It’s a brilliant mulch on the veg patch. We’re also experimenting with getting some thick, hard-wearing yarn spun for us for use in floor mats.

When we’ve finished grading it’s time to start packing the wool – another long job. We graded over 2000 kilos of wool last year, resulting in a total of 20 bags. No wonder Roger looks happy when it’s done.

The next step is to send the graded fleeces off for washing (also called scouring), carding (separating into individual fibres) and spinning into yarn. We can’t do this locally for the quantities we need so we send it off to a spinning mill in Yorkshire. They do a great job.

Four months or so later the Skye Wool yarn arrives back in Skye, ready for weaving. It’s always an exciting moment! We create four natural shades of by blending white and brown wool in different proportions: all white, all brown, 85/15 white/brown to get a light grey, and 60/40 to get a mid-grey. This gives us a lot of potential for patterns even before getting any of the yarn dyed. Then it’s time to get weaving…

Want to see what we create with this yarn? Have a look at our current Skye Wool products in the online shop and find out more about Skye Wool.

See more in our Fleece to Yarn video

This month’s blog takes a look at a traditional tweed process that is an important part of Scotland’s cultural heritage: waulking.

Waulking (in Gaelic luadh) is an age-old method of hand-finishing newly woven tweed to thicken and soften it. In the Highlands & Islands this work was traditionally done by groups of women, working around a communal table or other flat surface while singing rhythmic ‘waulking songs’ (òrain luaidh). This activity survived in parts of the Hebrides – including in the Minginish peninsula on Skye – until the mid-20th century. Today, though, it is all done by machines.

Many waulking songs have been passed down through the generations, and you can often hear them performed by contemporary Gaelic musicians. Some passionate enthusiasts are taking things further. Sgioba Luaidh Inbhirchluaidh, the Inverclyde Waulking Group, is a remarkable group of women based on the west coast of Scotland. They believe it’s important not only to preserve these songs but to ‘work’ them to bring them alive.

The group gives regular performances combining singing with waulking demonstrations. A good dose of improvisation and gossip are an important part of the mix too. Very occasionally they will ‘work’ a proper raw tweed, which is where we come in. More on that later – but first, what is waulking exactly?

The waulking process

When woollen tweed is fresh off the loom, the weave is quite loose and the fabric can be stiff and rough. The purpose of waulking (or fulling) is to make it softer, thicker and more airtight.

The cloth is first soaked in a liquid called maistir to help set the dye and soften the cloth. Traditionally this would have been stale urine – but Sgioba Luaidh assure us that warm water mixed with ammonia does the job for them!

The wet cloth is then spread around a communal table for waulking. Women sitting around the table pass the cloth around while rhythmically beating it. The songs help keep the rhythm going. There are different songs for different parts of the process. The cloth is always moved clockwise, as anti-clockwise is considered bad luck. Each woman pulls the tweed towards her and then passes it slightly to the left before pushing it back, thumping the cloth on the table at the same time. 

The process takes around three hours, so it’s not surprising that music and gossip is an important element. As co-founder of Sgioba Luaidh Inbhirchluaidh, Frances Dunlop, says: “The whole process was – is – very therapeutic. In the songs you can express your every emotion; the hypnotic thumping of the cloth on the table helps to release all your tensions and frustrations; in the company of your friends you can have a good gossip, and talk over problems. It’s great ‘female bonding’!”

Once the cloth has shrunk by about 20% and the texture feels thick enough, it is time to wash and rinse it.

It’s then squeezed out before going back to the table to be rolled up on to a board. The women work the tweed as they roll to ensure it is straight. This part of the process is accompanied by another set of songs. After one day rolled around the board it is rolled again the other way to ensure it lies flat. Then the tweed is dried properly.

Waulking at Auchindrain Township

We’ve been lucky to collaborate twice with Sgioba Luaidh Inbhirchluaidh, and hope to do more in the future. The most recent was last year at Auchindrain Township in Argyll, where the pictures above were taken. With its restored longhouses, outbuildings and visitor centre this historic farming township is a beautifully preserved evocation of 19th century Highland life.

Sgioba Luaidh Inbhirchluaidh agreed to hand-finish a 10 metre length of our Skye Wool tweed. I was lucky to join in the process, though I admit not for the full three hours. I also excused myself from the singing! It was a very special experience. Working alongside these amazing women in a hands-on process that truly involves all the senses, I felt a powerful connection to the past.  

Have a look at our video to see the journey from raw tweed to finished roll.

Our previous collaboration was a few years ago when the group gave a waulking demonstration with one of our first ever lengths of Skye Wool. Our short film of that event is one of our most popular videos – watch it on YouTube.

Our hand-waulked tweeds

For obvious reasons it’s not practical to hand-finish the bulk of our tweeds today. Today this job is done for us by Schofield Dyers and Finishers in the Scottish Borders. You can find out about the process in the ‘sheep to tweed’ section of our website.

So the small lengths of hand-waulked tweed that resulted from our two collaborations with Sgioba Luiadh Inbhirchluaidh really are special. We knew we had to use them to create something exceptional – but what?

We struck on the idea of using them to make hand-fasting ribbons.  Hand-fasting is a traditional Celtic ritual that symbolises a couple’s commitment to each other and is now a popular addition to many Scottish wedding and civil partnership ceremonies. Imbued with tradition, and very limited edition, our hand-waulked tweed seems the perfect way to ‘tie the knot’.

We’ve created two versions of the handfasting ribbon – the Green Herringbone version you can see here, and a Natural Diamond Twill version using the tweed from our earlier collaboration.

If you’d like to hear some traditional waulking songs have a browse through Tobar an Dualchais / Kist o Riches, a rich online resource dedicated to audio recordings of Scotland’s cultural heritage. And to find out more about waulking,  Sgioba Luaidh Inbhirchluaidh’s website is a great place to start. Even better, check out their forthcoming events to watch Sgioba Luaidh Inbhirchluaidh in action!

“But what do you do in winter?!” That’s a question we often get asked by our visitors during the summer months. And the middle of January seems a good time to try and answer it!

Winter can be challenging here as anywhere, but there are plenty of compensations. It’s actually Roger’s favourite season – he was definitely designed for northern climes. Being surrounded by sea we don’t get as much snow as the Scottish mainland but things do generally ice up for a week or two each year. This can be a bit tricky when it comes to manoeuvring up and down our drive.

Of course the winter is when the mountain scenery really comes into its own. Seeing the first snows on the Cuillins is always a wonderful moment. As we love getting into the hills we always keep an eye on the weather and try to make most of the sunshine. Being the quieter season in terms of visitors means we have a bit more flexibility to go for it when we see a weather window and the perfect patch of snow. 

Short days mean long nights – not so great for walking, but brilliant for getting on with the weaving. The workshop can be quite the hive of activity after dark. Photographer Andrew Tobin captured this perfectly when he visited us recently for his book ‘Skye At Night’. Here’s a peek at some of his photos, to be published next year.

 

 

As weavers we can’t write a blog about the winter without mentioning the best bit: it’s a chance to wrap up in woolly warmth. Our local sheep know a thing or two about keeping cosy in the cold and we love dreaming up new ways of using the gorgeous warm fleeces they provide us with every year. Have a look at our Skye Wool page to see how we work with local farmers to make the most of this natural and renewable resource.

If you’re tempted by a winter visit to Scotland have a read of this Visit Scotland article for some hints and tips. Andrew Tobin’s book will be published in 2025 with the profits going to Skye Mountain Rescue. Find out more on the Skye At Night website.

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!

Sign up to our newsletter for more tartan updates.

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!

It’s hard to believe it’s ten years since we first set up our pedal powered loom on Skye. We may not be quite as fresh-faced as we were then, but looking through old photos we’re amazed at how much has happened over the past decade. There have been lots of infrastructure and weaving developments of course, but what’s been most important has been the people we’ve worked with and the connections we’ve made through our weaving. We feel so lucky to be doing what we do, and to be part of a supportive community of neighbours, colleagues, suppliers – and of course customers.

It’s impossible to summarise the past ten years in a blog, but we’ve dug out a few pictures from the archive to give a flavour.

Early days

We bought our loom in 2011 on the Isle of Lewis, where it had been used to weave Harris Tweed. At that point we were still living at Ardalanish Farm, on the Isle of Mull, but had already decided to move to Skye. Our colleagues at Isle of Mull Weavers were a fantastic support in getting us going and we wove our first three rolls of fabric in their scenic bothy on a hilltop above the farm.

Besides getting to grips with the loom, the most important thing we did in this first winter was to build our warping wheel. This wouldn’t have been possible without the support, knowledge and ingenuity of our friend and mentor Bob Ryan. Bob and Roger started with the metal wheels off an old tractor grass rake and added a miscellaneous collection of mostly repurposed components. Next to the loom, the warping wheel is the essential piece of equipment for a double-width weaver. We still love working with ours ten years on, not least because it reminds us of Bob.

Arrival in Skye

It was February 2012 when we moved from Mull to Skye, setting up a permanent base in Roger’s family croft house.

Our first task: build a shed, and install a loom.

We soon started weaving and it was very exciting to sell our first products in the craft fairs at Armadale Castle and Glendale Village Hall.

Meanwhile we were making improvements in the technical department. At first we would wind our cones using an adapted electric drill. Acquiring a proper cone winder in our first year was a great leap forward. It came from a mill that closed down in Halifax. It took a bit of brainpower to fit together.

Collaborations and connections

After starting with fairly straightforward checked blankets and scarves, our designs swiftly got more ambitious. We soon got involved in our first collaboration with local creatives, working with jeweller Heather McDermott and photographer Phil Gorton on our Periwinkle Shawls. You can read about the project in an early blog. Another early collaboration was the ‘Hunting for Lost Crafts’ exhibition at Inverness Museum & Art Gallery. We worked with natural dye company Shilasdair to create a tweed inspired by Scotland’s herring fishing tradition, which was then made into a jacket for the exhibition. We wrote a blog about that too.

As a small company we particularly appreciate being part of a wider community with shared enthusiasms. It was lovely to welcome the passionate and knowledgeable editors of Scandinavian weaving magazine VÄV to the workshop in 2015. The visit even resulted in our first front cover feature!

Team and technical upgrades

While staying small scale and artisan we are always trying to improve the technical side of our business. In 2015 we installed a new creel in the warping shed, assisted again by the ever-helpful Bob Ryan.

In 2017 we purchased a second loom, brand new this time. It was a major investment but has enabled us to give our creativity free rein by producing more ambitious weaving structures.

By now our team was expanding, though we choose to remain a very small business. Paul joined us in 2015 and continues to impress with his pedal power prowess and eagle eye for spotting trouble. Angie has contributed her zestful energy and sewing skills since 2017.  At different times we’ve also loved working with Alexander, Diana, Christine and Danielle. Our suppliers and business clients are an important part of the mix too. Visits to the loom manufacturers and our finishers Schofields have turned into interesting road trips.

Local tradition

It was 2016 when we took the first steps in our long-held ambition to weave with local wool. Working with local farmers we took part in our first clip (shearing) that summer and received the yarn back later that year. It was an exciting moment when we sent our very first Skye Wool Tweed off to the finishers. We are so proud that Skye Wool now makes up a significant part of our product range.

We have always been fascinated by Skye’s weaving heritage so in 2018 we were thrilled to take part in an exhibition about the island’s ‘lost’ weaving heritage. As part of the programme at Minginish Village Hall, Sgioba Luaidh Inbhirchluaidh (Inverclyde Waulking Group) gave a demonstration of waulking (part of the finishing process) using some of our local tweed, accompanied by traditional Gaelic song. We later welcomed them to Glendale to see the finished cloth. You can read more about the ‘Lamb to Loom’ exhibition in our blog.

Continuing the exhibition theme, in 2019 we were pleased to take part in the ‘Textile Art from Skye’ exhibition in Portree. We enjoyed collaborating with others who are passionate about weaving and share our sense of connection to the landscape. You can read interviews with all those who took part in our blog.

Ten years on …

Who would have guessed that just a year later we were all in lockdown, Skye had closed to visitors and we were sewing scrubs for our local NHS. The past few years have been challenging for everyone and we are grateful to everyone who has helped see us through tough times.

Fast forward to 2022 and we are still warping, winding, pedalling, sewing and much more beside, with lots of new creative ideas in the pipeline. Looking forward to the next ten years!

Watch our 10 Years video on YouTube

Summer seems a long way away as we snuggle up for the winter under our Skye Wool blankets. We haven’t forgotten that back in August we promised to write a blog about the annual clip (shearing) and fleece sorting – the essential first step in creating all our local wool products. That wool has now been washed and will move on to be spun soon, so it’s nice to look back at where it all came from.

This year we sorted a record 2300 kilos of fleece. That’s a lot of tweed and throws. Much of our Skye wool comes from the Glendale Estate and nearby Uiginish Farm. We’re also very happy to work with local crofter Adrian, whose sheep graze the hills right outside our gate. You can’t get much more locally sourced than that – and it gives us great satisfaction to know exactly where our wool comes from. We love the fact that we can look out of the window and see our woolly suppliers growing next year’s raw material.

As well as our three main suppliers, we also buy fleeces from about a dozen small producers spread out all over the island.

If you’ve ever tried to clip (shear) a sheep you’ll know it’s a tough and highly skilled job. We’re privileged to be able to watch these guys in action (and it has always been guys, though there must be some female clippers out there), admiring their skill, care and endurance. Somebody once told us it’s like a dance with a sheep. Both sheep and shearer are in constant motion and every movement has been practised thousands of times.

The clip is always so busy it’s tricky to find time to take photos. We did manage a few this summer, though, and hope they capture some of the atmosphere of this important part of the farming – and weaving – year. We’ve made a little video at the end, too.

After the sheep are gathered off the hill they are moved into the fank (handling pen) or shed ready for the clip. The sheep in the pictures below belong to our Glendale neighbour Adrian.

The shearers usually come with a trailer that holds all the shearing equipment. They may have to drive for a couple of hours before their long shearing day begins. On a busy day they might shear 200 or more sheep, and economy of movement is crucial.

Sometimes shearing takes place inside a big shed. This is the Glendale Estate clip.

The shearers aren’t the only ones who have to work quickly. We sort through each fleece personally to select the best wool to be spun into yarn.

Once all the clipping’s done the sheep can enjoy their new fleece-free freedom.

We store the graded wool in the Glendale Estate’s shed before sending it off to be spun into yarn. We don’t have a local spinning mill, so our wool goes off to Yorkshire to be first washed (scoured) and then spun by long-established family firm Lightowlers Yarns. It’s always an exciting moment when our Skye wool arrives back with us on the island.

If you’d like to see what we make with this wonderful yarn take a look at the Skye Wool pages of our online shop. Products made from last year’s Skye Wool are nearly all gone now, but there will be more coming in the spring!

All our Skye Wool has a story behind it – and if you come to Glendale you’ll see much of next year’s fleece grazing in the glen. But this story is a bit special. It’s the tale of the amazing Maisie, who survived and thrived against the odds after she was fostered by our colleague Angie.

Maisie came into Angie’s life in March last year when she was just one day old. She’d been found by a walker on the edge of Loch Mhòr near Neist Point, and her mum was nowhere to be seen. The flock belongs to local farmer Sam, who didn’t think she would survive – one of her ears was flopping down, which is a sign that a lamb is very poorly. But Sam also knew that if anyone could bring this abandoned creature back from the brink it would be his neighbour Angie. For as well as being a talented artist and Skye Weavers needlewoman, Angie has a knack with ailing animals.

Angie took her in, creating a cosy home in the kitchen next to the heater in a re-purposed dog carrier. For the next four weeks she hand-reared Maisie, bottle-feeding her with lamb milk formula until she was strong enough to move out into the garden. “At the beginning it was touch and go whether she would survive,” says Angie. “Looking after a small lamb is pretty exhausting – they have such small stomachs they need feeding about every four hours. So it was a round the clock exercise at first.”

Once Maisie was ready to go outdoors she rapidly gained in strength. She soon became firm friends with the resident chickens as well as Rockie the dog and Alfie the cat. “Maisie loved coming on walks with me and Rockie,” says Angie. “She would happily trot along beside us on our daily rambles up the glen. She soon became part of the animal family and would bound up to greet me outside the door when I came in from work.”

But it was never the intention that Maisie would be a permanent pet, so eventually it was time to move in with the rest of Sam’s flock. A little over-friendliness ensued, however, as earlier this year it became evident that Maisie was going to have a lamb of her own. “Ewes don’t normally have their first lamb until two years old,” says Angie, “so I was very worried about this ‘teenage pregnancy’. However she was so big and healthy by this time that I’m pleased to say both mother and lamb did absolutely fine.” Maisie gave birth in April, and Angie and Sam are making sure that the new lamb is fully integrated into the flock. No names or bottle feeding for this girl!

But Maisie will always be a bit special. And when it came to clipping (shearing) time this summer, Maisie wasn’t going to be just one of the flock – Sam gave her a special taxi ride in his trailer. She repaid the favour by yielding us a cracking 2.2kg of fleece.

So if you buy one of our Skye Wool products next year there may well be a little bit of Maisie’s fleece in your throw, tweed or scarf. If you’d like to know when the new Skye Wool collection arrives, just sign up to our newsletter.

And if you’d like to see what else the talented animal rescuer Angie gets up to, pop down to the Glendale craft market (every Tuesday in the Community Hall) or have a look at her lovely online shop, Art at Eight.

Although our designs are usually inspired by Skye, we sometimes go a bit further afield. So for our latest range of scarves we’ve been travelling (metaphorically) over the sea to Orkney – and way back in time.

It all started with a trip to Edinburgh’s National Museum of Scotland a couple of years ago. Wandering around the Neolithic collections I was transfixed by a carved stone. It had incised patterns of zigzags and chevrons between sets of parallel lines. I immediately thought of weaving (it’s never far away from my mind!) and I visually filed it away for future reference.

This winter as I was playing around with some pointed twill on the sample loom, I realised that I had found the perfect weave structure for ‘my’ stone. Wanting to know more, I contacted the National Museum and their super-helpful Senior Curator, Dr Hugo Anderson-Whymark, filled me in. It turns out that the ‘Brodgar Stone’, as it is known, was found in the Ness of Brodgar on Orkney in 1925. At the time it was believed to be part of a Bronze Age burial cist, but since then archaeologists have found out that it is much older.

The Ness of Brodgar is in fact a major Neolithic settlement. The first activities there have now been dated back to more than 5000 years ago. Excavations at the site began in 2003 and are ongoing. It’s one of Europe’s most exciting archaeological sites and the deeper the archaeologists dig, the more complex the site turns out to be. There is evidence of human activity here over a period of at least 1200 years, and over 30 structures have now been uncovered. The spot where the Brodgar Stone was found turns out to be not a burial cist but a large stone building (‘Structure 8’), constructed c. 3000 BC.

The Brodgar Stone’s incised patterns are typical of late Neolithic rock art in Orkney, with straight lines, chevrons, zigzags and crosses. Over 900 stones with similar decorations have been found at the Ness of Brodgar site. The meaning of the symbols – if any – is unclear, but it’s understood that stones were often decorated in several stages over a long period. This made me think of graffiti being added to a wall over time and somehow made me feel closer to our ancestors.

I was also interested to learn that the Neolithic period was full of colour. We tend to think of the ancient past in monochrome but there is evidence at the Ness of Brodgar of the use of colours such as ochre and haematite, an iron oxide.

Back on the sample loom, I set about trying to translate the stone’s patterns into weave. I had great fun experimenting with different pointed twill variations that would work well on our 8 shaft loom. Pointed twill is a structure that creates diagonal lines in the same way as regular twill, but as the twill threading is reversed after a number of warp threads the weaver can create chevrons and zigzags.

The final weave, which we are using to create scarves, has five parallel lines of different geometric patterns running along its length. For colours we decided to have one ‘stone coloured’ and three other more colourful variations. While not aiming to copy the Brodgar Stone exactly I hope the pattern might evoke something of this magical and mysterious place.

If you’re interested in the fascinating developments at the Ness of Brodgar site you can follow their blog and find our more on their website. There’s a good little video too. Sadly I’ve not seen the Ness of Brodgar excavations myself as I visited Orkney just before the discoveries. There were still plenty of other ancient sites to explore there though; I loved the way the ancient stones and monuments sit among the living landscape. I very much hope to return before too long.

Meanwhile, the scarves have turned out beautifully and you can now buy your own bit of Neolithic neckwear in our online shop.

We talk a lot about the inspiration for our weaves and the creative design process behind them. But we wouldn’t get anywhere without the cogs, chains, wheels and winders that make everything happen. So we thought it’s time to let some of our technical challenges – and fixes – take centre stage.

When we started out we built some of our own equipment which was certainly a good way to know it inside-out. We’re especially proud of our warping wheel, which we made from an old tractor rake and various other bits and pieces. It’s still going strong.

When our equipment’s not hand-made it’s often got an interesting back story. Our creel was salvaged from an old spinners in Yorkshire (replacing our original hand-made one). We bought our first loom second-hand on Lewis; and our button-holer is a 50-year-old classic. (A Reece 101 for any button-holer fanatics out there!)

We’re always thinking about how we can improve. It was a big day when we upgraded our cone-winding system from a hand-held drill to a proper winding machine. And we have Roger’s cousin Phil to thank for devising a bespoke motor to take some of the back strain out of warping.

But most of our upgrades are small scale and somewhat improvised. Roger likes to say our attitude is like that of the British cycling team – going for the incremental improvements or ‘marginal gains’ that can together make a big difference. Well, it certainly worked for them.

People often ask us how much time we spend maintaining our equipment. We keep the chains oiled but otherwise there is surprisingly little day to day maintenance. But what does take time (and brainpower) is fixing the things that go wrong.

If you’re a weaver you’ll know how temperamental looms can be – whether at hand loom level or industrial scale. In a big mill you’d have someone called a loom tuner whose job it is to look after the equipment and fix problems. But here, it’s down to us.

Paul and I are pretty good at spotting and diagnosing a problem, but it’s Roger who is our real Mr Fixit. So I’ll hand over to him for this bit:

Roger says: “Often problems are quite hard to diagnose – especially when the weaving is going full tilt. So I often film it and slow it down to work out what’s going on. Often, the part we need doesn’t actually exist, so I have to create it myself.

“I spend a lot of time fiddling around in the workshop. I think it’s something I must have inherited from my Dad, who spent countless hours in the shed here and would never give up. Sadly he’s not with us any more but I treasure his many ‘bodged’ items around the place.

“Pretty much every day there’s a something unexpected to get your head around. It might be threads not picking up, an alarm not going off or, like the other day, weird clunking noises emanating from the loom. But I do like a technical challenge and it certainly keeps things interesting.”

We also sometimes get asked about our biggest disasters. We’ve had pedals fall off before which isn’t great, but probably the worst thing is when the rapier comes flying out of the warp. We used to call it a ‘shark attack’. If you’ve seen how the rapier tears its way through the warp threads you’ll know why. Fortunately we’ve found a way to stop that happening now.

It has to be said though, we don’t make life easy for ourselves, or our equipment. Our two looms were designed for weaving simple widths of Harris tweed, but we like to push them further. We’ve modified them so they can do longer pick repeats and we’ve also added lots of extra lenos (the threads that secure the edges) so that we can weave several scarves across the loom.

We also love experimenting with new weave structures. We’d like to continue to increase the complexity of our weaves this year. We’ll need bit of improvisation and no doubt we’ll meet lots more technical challenges along the way – but it will be fun trying.

If you’d like to learn more about what goes on behind the scenes follow the Sheep to Tweed story on our website.

This Valentine’s Day, a romantic getaway will be just a dream for most of us. But one thing’s for sure – when it comes to dream destinations, Skye is top of the list for many loved-up couples. So much so that our island has become something of a mecca for those wanting to tie the knot.

Skye wedding photographer Lynne Kennedy is someone who knows more about this than most. We’re big fans of Lynne’s evocative and intimate photos in stunning settings. So we asked her if she would share with us some of her secrets from behind the lens.

SW: More and more people are choosing Skye as a wedding destination. Why do you think so many couples fall in love with our island?

LK: Skye has always been a romantic and magical place. But social media has undoubtedly played a big part in its recent surge in popularity. On Instagram and Facebook, people see beautiful photographs of couples getting married outside in these epic landscapes, and it has a big impact. There’s another reason too: getting married in Scotland is not difficult, and you can do it pretty much wherever you want. So people who live in countries where the only choices are a church or a government office do find the Scottish option quite refreshing.

SW: You specialise in ‘elopements’. For those of us more accustomed to traditional weddings, what is an elopement exactly?

LK: In years gone by, couples eloped from England to Gretna Green (the first town across the Scottish border) when they were otherwise not allowed to marry. If they were too young or the parents did not approve of the marriage, they did it in secret and ‘eloped’.

These days, while there are many couples who do keep it secret, others just want to keep it small. They do inform their parents or family and just say, ‘Look, we don’t want a big wedding for whatever reason, so we’re going to elope, just the two of us.’

A true elopement is just two people with strangers as witnesses – usually that’s the photographer and perhaps a piper. But sometimes a couple will bring some friends or their parents as witnesses, or they may want their immediate family to be there. So in the wedding industry, we now use the word ‘elopement’ for anything up to around 10 people. After that, when you have say 10 to 20 or 30 people, it would probably be called an intimate wedding. And last year, as a result of Covid, people coined a new term: micro wedding.

Elopements are very intimate. The whole focus is just on you and your partner, and you don’t have to worry about anyone or anything else. You can be 100% present in the moment, with no distractions.

SW: All your work is outdoors. What are the challenges of working in the Scottish weather?

LK: The weather is definitely the biggest challenge of being an elopement photographer and the most used app on my phone is the XC Weather app! On occasion, we have moved a ceremony from morning to afternoon, or vice versa, if the weather isn’t looking great for the planned time. On very rare occasions we’ve moved the ceremony to the day before or after, but that is in extreme circumstances. Most of the time you just have to go with the flow. And if a couple is choosing Skye or the Scottish Highlands in general, they are usually very aware that the weather could turn a little wet and windy.

From a photography point of view, unless it’s seriously torrential rain, you can still shoot. Indeed some slightly rainy and windy shots can be great for adding drama. Another challenge, believe it or not, is full sun. As you are outside, there is no hiding from it and the sun can cause issues with harsh shadows. So I normally prefer to shoot earlier or later in the day – which has the added bonus that there are usually fewer people around. To be honest, if I had to choose one or the other, it would be for an overcast day rather than a sunny day!

SW: You’ve been photographing weddings and elopements for almost 14 years. Any unusual requests in that time?

LK: Nothing too bizarre but I’ve had a cat as a bridesmaid, and lots of dogs as ringbearers. And recently, in Elgol, a lively little horse decided to join in the ceremony!

SW: And finally, do you have a favourite Skye wedding location?

LK: Yes, I do – and it’s somewhere that so far has remained very quiet so I’m not going to say where it is! But to be honest, pretty much everywhere on Skye is going to guarantee a great picture. Sometimes you’ll just be driving along the road from one part of the island to another and the light becomes spectacular. So you get out and do a picture right at the side of the road, and the light at that particular time just makes it a wonderful shot.

Check out Lynne’s beautiful website for more stunning Skye weddings captured on camera. And if you’re planning your own special day, you might just find that our Skye Wedding Shawl comes in handy – wherever you choose to tie the knot!

It’s Question Time at Skye Weavers!

One of the nicest things about having visitors to the workshop is the chance to chat and answer people’s questions. We’ve not been able to do that so much this year, so for this month’s blog we thought we’d share our answers to some of the questions we often get asked.

Have you got a wool or weaving question? Post us a comment on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and we’ll do our best to answer.

How many miles do you pedal a day – and does it make you fit?
We reckon about 20 miles (32 km) a day – no hills, no wind, no rain. It takes about a mile of cycling to weave a metre of tweed, and on a good day we can weave up to 20 metres of tweed or about 10 throws. Sadly though, it’s not sufficiently aerobic to really enhance our fitness levels – not like cycling up our brae anyway!

Is all your wool from Skye?
We’re really proud of our Skye Wool range, which is made entirely from local fleeces, and this makes up about 40% of our product range. Different types of yarn are suited to different types of product, however. The sheep here (mostly Cheviots) are experts at surviving the cold, and their yarn is perfect for warm throws and hard-wearing tweeds. For garments worn next to the skin, such as scarves, we often use lambswool from other breeds of sheep; and for items such as baby blankets we use ultra-soft Merino.

How many sheep does it take to make a throw or blanket?
Rather neatly, it pretty much equates to one sheep per blanket. A Cheviot fleece weighs about 2-3 kg. About 40% of this gets lost through grading and processing, leaving about 1.5 kg of yarn per sheep – the approximate weight of a blanket.

Is there a history of weaving on Skye?
Traditionally, people all over the Scottish islands would have woven woollen fabric at home for their own use. There was no commercial weaving on Skye, however, until after the First World War, when Harris weavers were invited to set up a weaving community in Portnalong. ‘Port-na-Skye’ tweed, as it was called, lasted until the 1970s and it’s a fascinating story. There was also a spinning and weaving mill in Portree until the 1970s, and other weavers at work in Kilmuir and Portree at that time. You can read about ‘Skye’s forgotten weavers’ in our blog.

How do you compare to Harris Tweed?
Like most Harris Tweed weavers we use pedal powered Griffith looms – in fact we bought our first loom second-hand from a former Harris Tweed weaver. We couldn’t call our products Harris Tweed though as it is a strictly protected cloth (identified by its ‘Orb’ trademark), meaning that all processes have to happen in the Outer Hebrides. Most Harris Tweed weavers are self-employed but they tend to work for one of the three spinning mills on Lewis and Harris, to agreed designs. However there are some independent weavers who create their own designs and sell direct, like us. The joy of running our own business is that we can basically do whatever we like! We particularly enjoy challenging our looms (and ourselves) to create inventive weaves and different products such as scarves and throws.

Is everything made in Skye?
It’s really important to us that we keep things local and rooted in Skye. Everything is designed, woven and sewn here in our workshop on the croft, with the exception of our tweed caps. Hat-making is a specialist process so these are made for us by long established British manufacturers Olney Headwear, using our tweed.

Where else do you sell your products?
We like to have a direct relationship with our customers and primarily sell direct to the public. In a normal year about 80% of our sales are through our small shop on the croft (though of course that has been very different this year), with the rest online. We do also occasionally do special commissions for Skye’s boutique hotels such as The Bosville, Monkstadt House and Marmalade. You can even find us in London, adorning the luxury bedrooms of One Aldwych. But while we love working with these creative clients, we strictly limit these collaborations as we don’t want to overwhelm our small business.

What inspires your designs?
We’re lucky to live in a stunningly beautiful part of the world, providing an inspirational backdrop to everything we do. The landscapes and seascapes are magnificent of course but actually it’s often the small details – such as lichens, heathers, pebbles and moss – that provide the most direct starting point for our weaves. I take a lot of photographs too, and these provide a valuable reference point when we’re planning a new design. If you’d like to know more have a look at our recent blog about the design process.

How did you get started?
We didn’t originally intend to be weavers – it was something we came across by one of life’s wonderful turns. We met while working at Ardalanish, an organic farm on the Isle of Mull. The farm set up a weaving mill to use the fleeces of their Hebridean sheep, and we both became fascinated by the weaving process and excited about the potential of using local resources to make a sustainable product. I also fell in love with textiles and making things, particularly with wool. We later decided to move up to Roger’s family home on Skye, and set up our own business. By that point we had come across pedal-powered looms and knew we wanted to work with them. And now we’re looking forward to the 10th anniversary of Skye Weavers next year!

What’s it like living on Skye?
We feel so lucky to be living here, doing something we love doing – though running a small business has its share of stresses too! Roger says his favourite aspects are: ‘Winter, light and peacefulness’. For me it’s the hugely varied landscape and endless opportunities for outside activities – swimming, cycling and walking. We also feel very fortunate to be part of a friendly and welcoming community. If you’re a city-lover, Skye is probably not for you, but we wouldn’t change it for the world!

People often ask us how we come up with our designs. I’ve been putting off trying to answer this question! But it’s time to go behind the scenes and take a peek inside our heads.

There are two main components of a weaving design: the weave structure and the yarn colour. The weave structure is the interlacement of warp (vertical threads) and weft (horizontal threads). Depending on the structure, the warp or weft threads may be more dominant, or they may be visible in equal proportions. It’s possible to achieve lovely effects even with just two colours. Our Skye Wool Grey and Peat Throw is a good example.

There are lots of other variables: the density of the warp and weft and the thickness and type of yarn for example. We use only woollen yarns but even then there’s a huge variety: worsted spun vs woollen spun; different types of wool from different sheep breeds; how much twist there is on the yarn; and whether or not the yarn is plied (individual strands twisted together).

But before we start designing the first question is: What’s it for? Throws need to be thick and warm; tweed has to be hard wearing; shawls require a lovely soft drape; and scarves want to be nice and soft. These considerations are uppermost when we choose our weave structure and yarn.

Even then there are plenty of design choices to make. Sometimes we like to keep it simple and let the yarn speak for itself – as in our grey Skye Wool throws, woven from pure, undyed local wool. At other times we want to challenge ourselves. Our 8 shaft loom allows us to create some unusual weave structures. We love herringbone but also want to throw something different into the mix – creating fabric that is both traditionally Scottish but also very specific to us. Our Plaited Twill and Diamond Tweed are two of these more complex structures.

The question of overall design is more difficult to pin down. Everyone has their own design approach. Some people create mood boards, or scan ‘trend watch’ forecasts for the next hot look. For us it’s more about looking at what’s around us. I’m always taking photographs of Skye landscapes and nature, and these are often the starting point for a design. Sometimes it’s the colour combinations, sometimes the patterns and textures – particularly in close-up details.

We are also inspired by our materials, particularly the natural colours we get from local wool. But to be honest we haven’t got a very organised design approach; we just spend a lot of time looking at things, making sketches and thinking about possibilities. Fortunately the act of pedalling away on the loom seems to create a stream of ideas!

From design to weave

When we’ve decided the basics we need to develop the design and then work out to how to weave it. While most designs can be worked out on squared paper, we also use a computer program which makes it very easy to see the effect of changing one component.

We also have a small table loom where we can weave samples and decide which works best.

Design in action

A good illustration of the design process I’ve just described is our new wedding shawl. We knew we wanted the shawl to be light, lacy and textured, but with our looms we’re limited to a 16 pick repeat. We chose ‘huck lace’ as the weave structure as it provides varied patterns and textures even on a small number of shafts.

I started by weaving a huck lace sample blanket on the table loom, using every possible pattern variation that our big loom could manage. We’re limited to two different textures on our looms so we decided which two we liked best and then experimented with different ways of distributing them across the width of the shawl.

Here I’m weaving the huck lace sample for the wedding shawl.

Once we’d settled on the design it was time to work out the detail of how to weave it.

That means things like how many warp threads (‘ends’) per shawl; how many ends per texture; the heddling set-up (which ends get threaded onto which shaft); how many cones to wind for warping, and so on. That whole process will have to be the subject of another blog, but you can find out a bit about it in the Story section of our website.

Then finally, it’s time to get weaving!

If you’d like to know more about designing fabrics have a look at my favourite book on the subject, Designing Woven Fabrics by Janet Phillips. I went on one of her courses a couple of years ago and loved it! It was great to take some time out to experiment and try new techniques.

Now, what shall we design next?!

Lichens are one of our favourite sources of inspiration. The clean air here means they’re in great abundance in the Highlands & Islands. I love photographing them and though I have hundreds of pictures I can never resist taking another one – especially when it comes to the striking yellow Xanthoria parietina.

This lichen inspired two of our latest throws, just arrived in the shop. We had a yarn dyed specially to match the colour.

Many different varieties have made their way into our weavings over the years. This one was inspired by ochre-coloured lichens in the Cuillin Hills.

A couple of years ago I decided I wanted to know more about the biology of these fascinating organisms. So I signed up for an introductory lichen identification day at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh. One of the first things I learnt is that it’s actually very hard to identify many lichens! You often have to look close up under a microscope or even use chemical testing.

We covered a lot in the day and some of the information was quite overwhelming, but here’s my handy checklist of Things I Learnt About Lichen:

What is lichen? It’s a fungus living in a symbiotic relationship with an algae and/or cyanobacteria. Most of what we see when we look at a lichen is the fungus.

How does it grow? The fungus ‘farms’ algae: it protects the algae from UV light and gives it a place to live, then ‘harvests’ the sugars that the algae produces by photosynthesis. Fungi don’t photosynthesise themselves, so this symbiotic relationship is their way of getting energy.

What types of lichen are there? Lichens have a number of different growth forms. The most basic ones are fruticose (with algae all around), foliose (leaf-like) and crustose (very closely attached to a stone or rock). But as is the case with anything to do with lichens, it’s not straightforward and there are many cross-over types.

What’s behind the names? Most lichens only have Latin names, but there are quite a few with common names, especially those that have a medical or a practical use. For example, Lungwort was used to treat lung disease, and Dog Lichen was a cure for dog bites – and also looks like dog’s teeth underneath. Crottle or Crotal is one we’re very familiar with as weavers – it refers to a number of lichens used for dyeing wool, which was common in Scotland in the past though it’s now not allowed commercially. The word comes from the Gaelic word for lichen.

All in all, it’s a totally fascinating subject. Being able to identify the more complicated lichens takes years of study, but spending a day learning more about these complex symbiotic organisms made me appreciate them even more.

If you’re been inspired by lichens too, you’ll find a few lichen-related weavings in the shop at the moment. As well as our Xanthoria throws there’s a Grey Lichen tartan wrap and Map Lichen scarf.

Just to finish off the Lichen lesson, here’s a short video of us weaving our Map Lichen scarves.

From front-garden singing to TV life drawing, the current crisis seems to have sparked a (home-based) creative renaissance. And many people have been channelling creative energies into sewing projects. Restricted shopping opportunities give us all another reason for dusting down the sewing machine – whether making something from scratch or giving older items a new lease of life. So this month’s blog is dedicated to … the joys of making and mending.

Getting started
If you’re new to sewing or a bit out of practice, we suggest you don’t leap into creating a tailored jacket straight away! Have a start with something relatively simple that doesn’t need any lining or fitting. A purse, tea cosy, cushion cover – these are all good to begin with and have the bonus of not needing a lot of fabric. And of course we would highly recommend the wonder-fabric, tweed. Here we’re making cushions with Plaited Twill Wine.

There are plenty of instructions online. The BBC’s Great British Sewing Bee has some great little videos, and the Women’s Institute has produced some how-to films specially for lockdown. If you’re nervous about making mistakes why not do a dummy run with a discarded sheet or other old fabric.

Scale it up
Feeling a bit more ambitious? Curtains are one of the most popular things people make with our tweed. They are actually surprisingly easy once you get your head around dealing with so much fabric. They work equally well lined or unlined, and with any kind of heading. For extra warmth you can even use thermal interlining – learn how to in this National Trust video.

We love seeing what other people have created with our fabric. This Skye couple used our herringbone tweed to create thermally lined divider curtains in a draughty house – and also give a new lease of life to some 1970s chairs.

On a practical note in regards to upholstery – we’ve put representative samples of our tweeds through the industry-standard Martindale Abrasion Test and they are all suitable for ‘heavy domestic use’ upholstery. The only one we wouldn’t recommend for upholstery is our Brushed Tweed, as with wear it would lose its brushed finish. The brushed tweeds are a favourite for curtains or soft furnishings such as cushions.

Tweed is a great fabric for clothing projects too. Our fabric lends itself to trousers, jackets, waistcoats and more. Here are some more pictures from our creative customers.

You can find some excellent patterns online. As well as established makes like Burda there are a number of independent pattern makers springing up such as Alice & Co (we think their ‘Copenhagen Coat’ would look great in tweed).

Making it last
Today we are all starting to question our society’s throwaway culture; there’s a definite move towards buying things that will last, and towards sharing and handing down. And for fashion, that means rediscovering the art of mending. You know something has entered the Zeitgeist when Scotland’s design museum, the V&A Dundee, is on to it. Check out their Sewing Box for the Future web page where you can download ‘recipe cards’ on darning and other repair tasks and find out how to customise your own garments. You’ll find some good advice on the Fashion Revolution website too – from how to sew on a button to how to refresh your wardrobe.

Mending has actually become an art form in itself. Witness the new trend for ‘visible mending’ – making rips and mistakes beautiful. Scottish knitwear designer Flora Collingwood-Norris is something of a visible mending guru and runs online tutorials on the subject; here are a couple of her creations.

If you’re feeling inspired why not take a visit to our online shop where you can order samples of all our tweeds. We’re also now selling a pack of three matching tweeds suitable for cushions, so you can mix and match. We hope you enjoy getting creative – and don’t forget to share with us online!