
Flying into Stornoway (the largest town on the island of Lewis) you see miles of boggy ground that look empty of all human and animal life. It is starkly beautiful, and at the same time somewhat forbidding.

At first glance, I couldn’t imagine how anyone — sheep or people — could find purchase here to live. Once down on the ground, however, and a few miles away from town, it became very clear that there were sheep everywhere (though not so many people).

The two most prominent breeds are Cheviot (with the white face) and Scottish Blackface (as well as many crosses of these two breeds) bred primarily for their meat. Cheviot have lovely wool…the Blackface not so much. But I was in search of the more primitive Hebridean — the small, multi-horned sheep known for their durable, dark brown or black colored wool.
The history of Hebridean sheep is a little murky. What we know today as Hebridean sheep are related to, but not direct descendants of the Iron Age sheep of Boreray (left below) and Soay (right); the truly ancient and primitive breeds still found in small numbers in Scotland. Hebrideans are supposed to be descended from the sheep brought by the Vikings between the 8th and 10th centuries.


What we do know is that after The Clearances removed Scottish farmers from most of the Highlands and Islands (beginning in the mid-18th century), the native sheep were left behind to become extinct (Scottish Dunface) as they were replaced by more commercially beneficial breeds — primarily Cheviot. On the less accessible islands, the remaining small populations became ferrel, adapting to life with an ever more limited diet of scrub and seaweed. Being extremely hardy and adaptable, they survived in small numbers.


During the mid-19th century, the Marquess of Breadalbane was one of the aristocracy to bring the ancestors of what we now know as Hebridean sheep — then called St. Kilda sheep — to mainland Scotland to be kept as ornamental animals in his parklands at Taymouth Castle. It has been asserted that these sheep came from the Islands of the St. Kilda archipelago, the westernmost of the Outer Hebrides islands. However, the origins of the Hebridean sheep continue to be in dispute. The numbers of these sheep are increasing again in the Hebrides, but the flocks remain small. For those shepherds maintaining flocks that include Hebrideans, there is a specific interest in maintaining the breed as heritage conservation animals in spite of their minimal commercial value.
Again, Hebrideans are small sheep with a fleece weight of at most, about 4 pounds. The sheep are double-coated, with the hairy outer coat being particularly suited to provide protection from harsh weather conditions. The undercoat is quite soft and sufficiently so that it can be used for next-to-skin clothing. Like any other double-coated fleece, the quality of the resulting yarn is fully dependent on the level of processing prior to spinning. Processing is somewhat complicated by the fact that the sheep shed their coats, requiring shepherds to decide prior to the spring shed to either shear, or gather shedded wool.

I found two sources for yarn in the Hebrides — Uist Wool on the Island of Uist just south of Lewis and Harris, and the Berlinn Wool Company on the tiny island of Berneray (note the location of St. Kilda far to the West).


I’m currently knitting with the Hebridean yarns and enjoying this very much. For both producers, the dark brown is the natural Hebridean color. The white (and dyed) yarns are on a base of Cheviot. These projects will be the subject of an upcoming post.
More from the Hebrides
Bruce and I covered quite a bit of ground during our visit. With the island of Lewis being the home of the Harris Tweed factory, much of what we saw was tweed weaving. The history of the business is very interesting and reminds me of what I wrote about the New Lanark Mill in my last post. It is a story about a landowner’s personal investment in the people of the region, one that the company continues to this day.


Nikki Crabtree (also known as the Crafty Weaver) is a weaver for Harris Tweed, working out of a small weaving shed attached to her home. Together with her mother and sister, Nikki relocated to Lewis from the Bristol area in 2009. They looked at several locations in Scotland, but when they visited the Outer Hebrides decided, “this was the place.” I’ve talked to a fair number of transplants from England and Ireland, and they all have expressed the same feeling about Scotland. Some have described it as feeling they have “come home.” I have sensed that in myself. There is just something compelling about Scotland, and I think, particularly about the islands…my “home” feeling is Shetland.
Nikki began weaving in 2010 when a college in Glasgow offered a weaving course to be held on Lewis to encourage young weavers to take up the craft. With so many of the older weavers retiring, this was a great opportunity to establish herself in business. She received her certificate and had to weave a test piece from home to prove her skill met the rigorous qualifications for Harris Tweed to receive the coveted “weaver’s number” that gave her the right to weave for the company. It has worked out well, because as an independent weaver and contractor, Nikki sets her own schedule, weaving all winter but working on other crafts in the summer when the shed is uncomfortably hot.
Her loom is one of the double-width Griffith looms introduced in 1990, that like the other home weaving machines, is pedal powered. It uses a single pick Rapier shuttle to pick up the weft and take it through the warp, returning empty to pick up the next weft. Even with this version of a flying shuttle and pedal power this still is considered hand weaving under the Parliamentary laws governing the production of authentic Harris Tweed. One of the things Nikki likes in particular is being able to knit or crochet while keeping a close eye on the progress of the weaving.
You might argue that this is a partially mechanized loom, so the fabric shouldn’t be considered handwoven, but on hearing how this came to be, I can see why the definition was expanded. The change occurred during and after World War I, when so many returning soldiers had lost limbs in the conflict. The addition of the pedals allowed many weavers to work from home in a productive way. To be authentic Harris Tweed the cloth must be woven at home of the islands of the Hebrides according to the standards established by the company.
The Rapier shuttle on the Griffith differs from the traditional “boat” shuttle in that the weft threads are cut after each pass of the shuttle. The weft is held in place by a fine white thread running along the cut edge.

This leaves a lot of waste which many weavers repurpose as stuffing for handmade decorations and knitted toys. They also are free to use the left-over yarns from the cones of weft yarn, and the remainder of the warp that will be used to tie on a new warp to begin to weave new yardage.
Nikki is able to weave between 3.5 and 4 meters/hour, and says 4 meters is probably the average for most weavers. She has heard that some of the fastest weavers can produce 6 meters/hour, but that’s pretty unusual.
Iain Seaforth weaves on the original style of loom used for producing Harris Tweed — the Hattersley. It produces fabric half the width of the Griffith. While the mill prefers the double-width weavings, it still accepts the narrower production that was long the standard for home production.


Warp preparation and fabric finishing (washing and fulling) are done at each of the 3 Harris Tweed factories. The weaving is all home-based via independent contractors. This was the original set-up because it was reasoned that weaving could be done in between other home and crofting activities. This encouraged many men to take up weaving particularly during the winter months when there was less work on the croft. The result was multi-generational families of weavers. Iain (above) is a 4th generation weaver. His mother, on the other hand, was the family knitter, making thick, heavy socks and jumpers that helped keep them warm in the inhospitable climate.


Iain was also happy to show us how wool used to be dyed locally. Lichens were most frequently used, and the color variations were achieved by using either caustic soda or a urine mordant at various pHs. As others have done, Iain claims that being too poor to “have a pot to piss in” originated in the region, and that all visitors used the same pot in the house in order to collect enough urine for dying. In fact, the saying is thought to have originated in the early 20th century in the US (so says the Oxford English Dictionary), and likely was part of the American slang that soldiers brought to Europe.

Another interesting fact about gathering lichens came from an antique spoor worn down into a half moon shape because it was used for so long scraping the lichens off of rocks. Like many of the other weaving, spinning and knitting tools in his house, these all are family pieces that have been passed from generation to generation.
Iain also showed us the amount of lichens it took to dye the yarn in the photo above left. It was a rounded hand full, making it clear that a great deal would been needed to dye an entire fleece. It’s also important to note that the rounded hand full represents about 80 years of growth. Even with the very small population in the Hebrides and the vast expanse of boggy land where the lichens cover anything that isn’t moving, it’s quite obvious that this is a limited resource.

Iain also informed us that after washing and fulling the wool tweed, it was hung from tenterhooks to dry. I’d never heard the use of the word “tenterhooks” in this context, so had to look it up, of course. A tenter is a frame (dating back as far as the 14th century) upon which woolen cloth is stretched to dry. The stretching is designed to keep the fabric from shrinking, and the “hook” — actually a hooked nail driven into the perimeter of the frame — used to fasten the fabric in place.
(Left) Tenter hook in an 1822 trade catalogue, published by H. Barns & Sons, of Birmingham, England. Source: Wikipedia


While weaving consumes most of the time of these crafters, knitting certainly hasn’t died out. Finding examples of traditional knits, however, was difficult without knowing any of the residents of the Hebrides. Iain was able to persuade a friend to stop by and show me her recent work. This jumper is being knit without a pattern — all of the designs are in the knitter’s head, and she develops each garment as she goes. Always knit on straight needles, these jumpers are extremely heavy and very tightly knit to keep out wind and rain. Jumpers are frequently the outermost garment worn in rough weather.
From what I was told, this Aran-style knit is more common than the gansey in the Hebrides, and there do not appear to be any particular patterns passed down within families. Girls learned from their grandmothers or mothers, and no written patterns ever were used. It was pointed out that the folklore of families being able to identify loved ones who were washed overboard was highly unlikely…once waterlogged, the jumper would pull you straight to the bottom of the sea. Given the weight of the ones I handled, I immediately got the point.
The Weaving Shed




Miriam and Martha of the Weaving Shed are independent weavers who are not producing tweed for Harris Tweed. Their unique and luxurious tweeds use yarn from a variety of sources, including their own small flock as well as the Uist mill. The sisters also relocated from England. They had grown up having holidays in the Hebrides, and upon returning again as adults, Miriam and her husband knew that was where they wanted to be. Her sister and parents surprised them by deciding to move there as well. In 2017 they moved to Harris, starting the long process of renovating two dilapidated properties.
Miriam and Martha are the 3rd generation of weavers to work their Hattersley loom. Miriam spent weeks with a retired weaver learning to weave before finally buying the loom. That loom (nicknamed Hatty) was purchased originally by the gentleman weaver’s father in around 1940. It had arrived on the island as a flat package from the factory in Keighley, Yorkshire needing to be assembled before serving the family for two generations (until 2018). Miriam taught Martha to weave in 2019, and they both consider Hatty to be a work of art in her own right, where “the divots on the arms…wear on the bar…and faded paint…all make each Hattersley loom unique and give them their own personality.”
While they used to keep Hebridean sheep for wool, they recently have been introducing Gotlands which they find produce a quality of yarn they much prefer. Among the reasons for the switch was the fact that the Hebrideans produce very small fleece that after preparation yields a limited quantity of yarn.

As their business has grown, Martha has become the primary weaver, while Miriam fashions the garments and other products that are sold from their workshop. I brought this scarf home from their shop primarily because the dark brown is from their Hebridean sheep, and no more of its kind will be made.
You already know about my appreciation for historic photos. Here are some that I gathered about dying and weaving in the Hebrides.





Meanwhile….
Every weekend since I’ve been back home it has rained like crazy. I think we’re about ready to establish a bog in our own front yard! Not going out much has given me the opportunity to start a new tidy-up effort in my studio including more de-stashing. With some careful re-arranging, Bruce and I are opening up more space for all things yarn.

One reason for this effort is that I needed to find just the right location for a knitting machine that will arrive in November. This is something I’ve thought about adding to my studio off and on for many years, but didn’t have the courage to dive into. I took a flatbed weaving class in Shetland that was really enjoyable and the rest is history.
I will certainly have lots of help setting up and learning to use the machine, and sort of expect that Bruce will work with it even more than me because of the computer interface!
So until the next time, keep calm and craft on…I certainly will!