Our Skye Wool range is woven entirely from local wool. For these products we buy fleeces directly from Skye farmers and crofters and have them turned into a special yarn that is unique to us. It gives us great pleasure to work with this natural, local material and to know exactly where our wool comes from. If you visit us in Glendale you might even see some of our suppliers grazing in the glen.
Most of our Skye wool is from white Cheviot hoggs – one-year-old sheep sheared for the first time. This wool is the softest a sheep will ever produce. We also buy some brown fleeces to get a variety of natural shades. We carefully examine every fleece and select the best quality wool for weaving. This is a time-consuming process but one we really enjoy because it keeps us closely connected to the raw material.
After sorting and grading the wool we send it off to Yorkshire where is it washed, carded, spun and (if needed) dyed. We work with specialists in northern England because there is no longer a local mill able to process raw wool into finished yarn. The wool comes back to us in a range of natural shades and custom-dyed colours, produced exactly to our specifications. Then it’s time to start weaving.
Our hardy local sheep are made for tough climates and need to be very good at resisting the cold. This makes Skye Wool perfect for warm throws and tweeds and we now use it for around half of our product range. But where something more delicate is required, for example for baby blankets or floaty scarves, we use a softer lambswool from further afield. You can identify our Skye Wool items through their special label featuring two sheep. See all the current range on the Skye Wool page of our online shop.
We really enjoy working with local sheep farmers, seeing the sheep, handling the wool, and knowing exactly where it all comes from. We hope you enjoy feeling the essence of the island in our Skye Wool creations.
Find out more about some of the processes in our blogs: Summer Clip and Fleece to Yarn. Visit the online shop to buy our Skye Wool booklet.
See where our Skye Wool comes from – scenes from the summer clip.
Watch the full fleece to yarn story.
