Off the hill
Fourteen farms, one valley.
Cheviot and Blackface fleeces arrive in June from farms within thirty miles. We grade each one by hand: the long, bright wool for blankets, the soft neck wool for scarves.
Est. 1887Selkirk, Scottish Borders
Wool, woven the slow way.
Tweed blankets and scarves from our own mill on the Ettrick Water. Scroll to follow one fleece from the hill to the finished cloth.
Scroll to start the shuttle
01Fleece
Fleece
Washed and carded
Soft water, slow hands.
The fleece is scoured in burn water, teased open and carded into airy rovings. Nothing harsh goes near it, because wool remembers.
Spun
Drawn out into yarn.
On the wheel the roving is drawn thin and twisted tight, then plied with a second strand so it will not unravel under a shuttle. A bobbin takes about an hour to fill.
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02Dyeing vats
Dyeing vats
Heather
Blaeberry purple.
Blaeberries from the hill, a little logwood and an iron mordant. Six hours at a low simmer, then the skeins are lifted out darker than anyone expects and dry a shade lighter.
Moss
Bog myrtle and lichen.
Gathered in September from the moor above the mill. It dyes a soft, mossy green with a hint of gold, and it makes the whole dye house smell like a hillside.
Rust
Madder root.
The oldest recipe we own, copied out in 1911. Madder is simmered, cooled and warmed again until the wool turns the deep red-brown of wet bracken.
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03Warping
Warping
The creel
Every end in order.
Bobbins of dyed yarn stand in the creel and feed a single thread each. The order they are wound is the pattern, so a slip of the hand is a slip in the cloth.
The warping mill
Round and round.
The great wooden reel turns and the threads wind up and down it in a spiral, each turn laying the next layer of the sett. Eighteen turns make one warp chain.
On the beam
Pulled tight.
The chain is wound onto the loom's back beam and drawn through the heddles and the reed, one end at a time. Then the whole warp is tightened until it hums.
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04Weaving
Weaving
The shed
Half up, half down.
Two frames of heddles lift every other thread and lower the rest, opening a gap called the shed. Each pick swaps them over, so the warp crosses itself again and again.
The shuttle
Thrown through the gap.
A boat of polished ebony carries the weft from one side to the other, trailing a single thread behind it. It crosses the loom in less than a fifth of a second.
The beat
Pushed home.
The reed swings forward and beats the new thread hard against the last. How firmly it is beaten decides whether a blanket feels like a hug or a plank.
Row by row
The pattern appears.
Pick after pick the cloth grows toward you, and the twill turns the colours into checks. A weaver can read a mistake from across the room.
Rows woven0
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05Your cloth
Choose a pattern.
Watch it weave.
Pick a weave and a colourway and the loom starts again from nothing. The colours change in place, the pattern needs a fresh warp.
Pattern
Colourway
- Weave
- Tartan
- Colourway
- Heather
- Rows woven
- 0
A balanced sett, 64 threads to the repeat. Warp and weft use the same stripes, so the colours cross into soft squares.
Drag the loom to turn it
06Finished cloth
Finished cloth
Milled
Washed until it blooms.
Off the loom the cloth looks thin and a little harsh. A warm soapy wash and a long rolling bring the wool together, shrink it by a tenth and raise a soft halo you can feel from across a room.
Pressed and folded
Brushed, steamed, stacked.
Teasel brushes lift the nap, a steam press sets the fold, and every blanket is checked against the light for a missed thread. Anything that fails goes back to the loom.
Labelled
Signed and sent.
The weaver's mark goes on a cotton tag, and the cloth goes on the shelf, or into a box for you. A scarf takes a morning to weave. A blanket takes four days.
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07From the mill
Blankets, scarves and a day at the loom.
Everything is woven here, and nothing is woven twice quite the same. Prices are examples for this concept page.
Blankets
Selkirk Throw
Border Heather tartan, pure Cheviot wool, 140 x 180 cm.
£145
Cheviot Herringbone
Double bed, oatmeal and moss, bound edge, 200 x 230 cm.
£265
Cot Blanket
Houndstooth in lambswool, soft against the skin, 80 x 100 cm.
£78
Scarves
Lambswool Scarf
Rust herringbone, hand-knotted fringe, 190 x 30 cm.
£48
Fringed Tartan Scarf
Moss and amber sett, brushed and steam-pressed, 200 x 32 cm.
£62
Oatmeal Wrap
A wide houndstooth wrap in undyed wool, 200 x 70 cm.
£89
Mill tours
The Mill Floor
75 minutes with a weaver, the looms running, a cup of tea at the end.
£14
Weaver's Morning
Three hours. Learn to throw a shuttle and weave a sample to take home.
£65
Weave-a-Scarf Day
A full day at a loom with lunch, and a finished scarf in your colours.
£120
08The small print
Slow on purpose.
- First shuttle thrown
- 0
- by the Armstrong family, on the same river
- Looms still running
- 0of 14
- the rest are kept for spare parts
- Picks a minute
- 0
- a good weaver on a good day
- Farms we buy from
- 0
- every one within thirty miles
09Visit
Come and see it woven.
Book a place on a tour and we will have the looms running. Wear flat shoes: the mill floor is old and a little oily.
Thank you. We will check the looms and the kettle and write back within a day. Mind the step by the dye house door.
The mill
Ettrick Mill, Tweed Road
Selkirk, Scottish Borders
TD7 9XX (invented for this page)
Opening hours
Shop: Mon to Sat, 10 to 5
Tours: 11:00 and 14:00
Sundays in summer, 11 to 4