Scalpay Linen
Sheila’s Hebridean tweed
As the revival in the fortunes of the Harris Tweed industry gathers pace, a Scalpay-based weaver has joined in the swirl of modern fabrics with a traditional twist to the history of the fabric.
Sheila Roderick, of Scalpay Linen – a slightly misleading name for a small-scale workshop, retail space and associated croft which produces or sells everything from turkey eggs to yarn and no longer grows its own flax – has now got available a unique Harris Tweed made entirely from the wool of sheep reared in the Hebrides, and about 90 per cent from the Hebridean sheep breed. The rest is from Cheviot sheep in a flock at Borve in Harris.
Only around 250 metres of this cloth will become available – only 50 metres or so is woven at the moment – and it is the culmination of around 15 years of work to realise a dream of entirely local Harris Tweed. (For reference, it takes about three metres of this single width cloth to make a jacket.)
It is neither easy not simple to convert the wool off a sheep into the yarn needed to create the textiles that are now so much sought after. Almost all the processes are available in the Islands, except for the key process of scouring, which gets the greasy masses of wool ready for carding and spinning. After succeeding in her battle to accumulate enough supplies of local fleeces, Sheila pays generous tribute to the enthusiastic co-operation and support of Harris Tweed Hebrides in Shawbost who managed to improvise ways to both scour and card the much heavier and rougher wool before spinning it to create the sophisticated yarn that Sheila can now use to weave the tweeds. However, the mill had to say after completing the work that it did not think it could take on the task again, because of the additional maintenance work that had resulted.
Sheila says the Hebridean sheep which supplied the wool are in flocks right across the islands, including Barvas, Ballantrushal, Brue, Point and Galson. Sheila, who along with her husband John Finlay, has been involved in weaving for many years, said she first saw a Hebridean sheep in 1996. They now have a flock of their own, along with chickens, ducks, guinea fowl, a turkey and a sheepdog or two to keep the whole place in order. Sheila also produces a unique textile which mixes linen and wool.
Sheila moved to Scalpay in 1973 after her parents retired and decided to move to the island after seeing a advertisement for a house there in the Sunday Times newspaper. She spent a short spell back in London, working in a tourist office in Trafalgar Square, and has also served in the Army, worked as a housekeeper, been a computer programmer and worked in the fish-farming industry. She started Scalpay Linen in 1997, and they did grow their own flax on the croft but this proved too time-consuming. This followed the decline in weaving in the 1990s which work for many weavers evaporate.
Sheila is now looking for ways to continue to produce the Hebridean Harris Tweed once the present stock of yarn is exhausted. The central problem is that scouring is only now done on major industrial scale – one option is to have the wool scoured and pre spun in Cornwall, before it is returned to Lewis for the spinning to be completed. Under the complex rules governing Harris Tweed, the wool can come from a wide variety of sources but it must be spun in the islands. Another option may be a project in Uist which hopes to set up a mini-mill to process wool completely in the Islands.
Scalpay Linen is based at the far side of Scalpay, giving visitors a very scenic route to the shop and workshop – but it is also perched on the hillside above the croft with no room to expand. As demand grows, and her range of output continues to expand as well, Sheila will be hoping to find somewhere else to expand the business further.
Looking back at the realisation of her dream of producing Hebridean Harris Tweed, Sheila repeats her thanks to Harris Tweed Hebrides for their crucial support. “I cannot speak highly enough of them,” she adds.
All she needs to carry on with further development is more wool from Hebridean sheep; a solution to the problem of scouring; and a bigger place to work from. But Hebridean Harris Tweed is the modern way to progress, she argues, as it is more environmentally friendly, the wool is fully traceable; and it is a boost to local production. Of the cloth she has available now, she remarks that it is completely Hebridean from flock to cloth. “It’s never set foot off the Islands,” she points out.
Contact
Scalpay Linen, 37 Outend, Isle of Scalpay, HS4 3YG
Web: www.scalpaylinen.com
Email: scalpaylinen@hebrides.net
