Heddle

Woollen cloth by the metre · Selkirk

Range The range at length Drafting room The mill Ordering

Kirkbrae Mill · Ettrick Road · Selkirk

Kirkbrae Mill · Selkirk · woollen cloth woven to order

Every cloth here is a drawing first.

Heddle is a two-loom woollen mill on the Ettrick Water. Each cloth we weave begins as a draft — which shaft carries each end, which shafts each treadle lifts, and the order the treadles are pressed — and the drafting room lets you draw one of your own. Eight cloths by the metre, woven to order, finished in the mill.

See the eight cloths Open the drafting room

150 cm finished width · 2/16 Nm lambswool · minimum two metres · from £58 a metre

Three bolts of woollen cloth rolled on a bench: a grey twill, a camel and a walnut brown.
Cut from the beam this week: a grey twill, Kirkbrae Twill in camel, and a walnut twill woven to order.

The range

Eight cloths, one warp beam.

Each cloth is shown as it comes off the loom, with its weight, sett and price on the range page. Every one of them is woven to order on the same two looms, from the same lambswool.

A folded camel scarf with a fringed end, woven in Kirkbrae Twill.

Kirkbrae Twill

£68/m

2/2 twill · 410 g/m² · 22 ends/cm

The mill’s working cloth, in camel. The diagonal reads at arm’s length and goes at three metres, which is the right distance for a coat to be plain.

 A close view of grey herringbone tweed.

Ettrick Herringbone

£74/m

Broken twill · 460 g/m² · 22 ends/cm

Eight ends up, eight down, and a break where they meet so the chevrons never come to a point. Peat on ecru.

 Black and white houndstooth cloth.

Hound

£72/m

2/2 twill, four and four · 400 g/m²

Not printed, not embroidered. Four dark ends, four light, the same in the weft, and a twill does the rest.

 Grey herringbone cloth with a red, black and cream overcheck.

Kirkbrae Check

£66/m

Herringbone, overchecked · 440 g/m²

The herringbone ground with a madder and peat overcheck drawn across it every twenty ends. A blanket, or a scarf with opinions.

 Brown and ecru glen check with a rust overcheck.

Glen

£78/m

2/2 twill, 34-end colour order · 400 g/m²

Four-and-four, two-and-two, then a pair of madder ends to close the repeat. It never looks the same twice.

 Blue, brown and ecru plaid flannel, draped.

Minchmoor Plaid

£58/m

2/2 twill, brushed · 340 g/m² · shirt weight

A fifty-six-end plaid in woad, walnut and ecru, brushed on both faces. The lightest cloth we make, and the one that gets worn out.

 A blue and white chevron woollen throw, folded.

Yarrow Chevron

£70/m

Broken twill, 24-end · 480 g/m² · blanket

Twelve ends up, twelve down, woad on ecru, at blanket weight. The chevrons are a hand wide.

 A close view of grey basket-weave upholstery cloth.

Hopsack

£70/m

2/2 basket weave · 540 g/m² · upholstery

Two ends and two picks at a time, so the cloth is a small basket. Slate warp, ecru weft, and the heaviest thing on the beam.

The range at length, with weights, setts and prices

The mill

Four days of decisions before the first pick.

  1. Cones of yarn on the creel of a warping machine.

    Warping

    Every warp is wound from the creel onto the beam, 3,300 ends over forty metres, in the colour order the draft asks for. A day, if nobody telephones.

  2. Warp ends tied off in bundles on the front of an old wooden loom.

    Threading

    Each end goes through one heddle on one shaft, by hand, in the order of the top row of the draft. Get one wrong and the cloth carries the mistake for forty metres, so we do not get one wrong.

  3. A blue warp stretched through the heddles of a loom, lit from the side.

    Weaving

    Two dobby looms, eight shafts each, a 160 cm reed. The dobby reads the treadling from a chain of pegged bars, in the order the draft gives it, and the weaver reads the cloth.

  4. A stack of finished woollen blankets, folded, on a grey shelf.

    Finishing

    Off the loom the cloth is greige and open. It is scoured, milled until the weave closes, tentered to width and cropped. It leaves the mill a tenth narrower and considerably better.

Ends in a warp
3,300
Metres on a beam
40
Shafts
8
Reed
160 cm
Finished width
150 cm

Ordering

By the metre, or to your draft.

Two folded woollen blankets, a red tartan on a camel check, with fringed ends.

By the metre

Any cloth in the range, cut from the beam if it is on one and woven to order if it is not. Minimum two metres. Three to five weeks for a length woven to order; a week if it is on the beam.

To a draft

Bring us a draft from the drafting room. The code at the foot of that page is enough. We sett it for our yarn, weave thirty centimetres, post you the sample and quote for the length.

Swatches

A card of the eight cloths, cut from the real lengths, is £12 by post and comes off your first order.

Or write to cloth@heddle.scot.