Woolly Provenance: Weaving

As we come to the end of another #WoolWeek, we thought we’d take a look at weaving.

 

Our cloth is woven in Yorkshire. Kathryn, from Calder Weaving – the mill we use for weaving our cloth – kindly answered some of our questions:

What do you love about weaving with British wool?

It’s great to weave with a British product knowing that the yarn we are using has come from British sheep and is spun and dyed not far from us. The vast majority of yarns have a lot of miles under their belt before they reach us, it’s great to know exactly where the twool we weave with comes from.

 

Why do you think there has been a decline in British wool for weaving fabrics today?

There’s a lot of wool on the market and to some, the provenance behind the fabric isn’t a factor – the main focus is the cost to bring the fabric to the mass market at a lower price band. There is also a lot of wool blends and wool effect fabrics available on the market.

 

What’s your advice to young textile designers embarking on careers with wool?

I would say find out the story behind the yarns you are using – where have they come from? What do they lend themselves to? Experiment and try new things but also look at the heritage of British Weaving. Traditional designs and archives are a great starting point to then put a fresh spin on. British manufacture is increasing and more and more people are wanting to know what they are buying and where it has come from.

 

 

Tell us from the heart how you feel about weaving British textiles…

People are often surprised to hear that there are still weaving Mills in the UK and love to hear about what we do. Most people just think everything these days is mass produced abroad so it feels great when you can tell people about what we do. I love seeing products we have woven in real life! Watching the soaps and someone is sat on a sofa made out of a fabric woven by us, out shopping with friends and seeing things in a shop window, new products popping up on Twitter or Instagram, when a customer launches a new range woven by us and seeing it hit the shops. I love seeing where things end up after they leave us as a roll of fabric and feel proud knowing they are British made.

This video really highlight’s the reality of working in the mill…

although, things don’t always go to plan. In Kathryn’s words and true Yorkshire wit:

Eeh by gum lass us Yorkshire folk are used to ‘ard graft

Which is fortunate given the mill disaster of Christmas 2015 – which you can read all about here.

twool are very proud to be working in partnership with heritage manufacturers Calders who continually support what we’re trying to do here at twool HQ. We’re entering an exciting phase with our woven products, and we’re delighted to announce that Calders are weaving twool Woolly rugs as we type this post!

Huge thanks to Kathryn, and the whole team at Calders for answering our questions and being so fab!