Iona Wool

Sorting and Spinning

  

Working in teams of two, using our hands more than our eyes, we feel our way through each fleece removing any course or matted sections. The fine grade fleece is compress into bales for transportation to the scourers, and then on to Lightowlers, a family firm that have been spinning for four generations, they spin our yarn using traditional mule spinning.

With all the different breeds mixed together, our yarn emerges as a warm, rich, natural grey - the collective colour of the island flock. We’re looking forward to seeing the subtle shifts in colour that each year will bring as individual crofters make adjustments to their flock, and perhaps one day a trained eye will be able to identify the different vintages in a line up of IonaWool garments. To complement the natural grey we have also had the wool dyed into a small selection of colours.

You can see more pictures in the Gallery section.