SHILASDAIR YARNS
Discover plant-dyed yarns from the Isle of Skye
THE BEAUTIFUL Isle of Skye is one of Scotland’s most coveted locations; filled with untouched rural landscapes, dramatic coastlines, and rich in Highland heritage with its castle, Dunvegan, being ancestral home to Clan MacLeod for the past 800 years.
“We feel so lucky to live here,” says Kirsty Faulds. She is the owner of Shilasdair Yarns, a natural yarn dyeing business located in Culnacnoc on the north-eastern peninsula of Skye. For the past 13 years, Kirsty has lived on the island with her two children and her husband,
Simon. “We’ve always wanted to live somewhere remote and to follow our passions,” she says. “Skye has amazing wild landscapes, and the shoreline is incredibly beautiful; it’s magical at night when the sky is filled with stars. There’s also a very close-knit community and everyone looks out for each other.”
In 2018 Kirsty and Simon took over Shilasdair Yarns, having worked for a year with the company’s founders, Eva and Tony Lambert, who had started the business more than 40 years ago. “I’ve always been interested in textiles, embroidery and sewing, and my gran taught me to knit at the age of seven,”
Kirsty explains. “I took an art course on Skye and started to learn yarn dyeing around ten years ago. I also developed my skills by studying yarn dyeing books, then took a fabric dyeing masterclass with renowned eco-print artists India Flint and Michel Garcia - I’ve never looked back!”
Kirsty began dyeing natural fabrics using seaweed, and she experimented with cotton, but soon moved onto wool. She discovered that it was possible to produce deeper colours due to wool’s protein content, and found this encouraging as a beginner dyer. “I experimented with different techniques and kept taking notes – it was very much trial and error!” she
says. As Kirsty familiarised herself with Skye’s climate and seasonal plants, she practised various yarn dyeing techniques using only natural produce from the island.
Her process begins with careful and mindful foraging of local plant varieties which are growing in large areas, or by picking dye plants grown in her garden, such as tansy and meadowsweet. “I have become very aware of the seasons; I work in harmony with nature, and love the sense of place connected to natural dyeing,” says Kirsty. “As the plants are seasonal, their colour changes dramatically throughout the year, so timing is essential. Depending on when the plants are harvested, they will produce different results - this demonstrates the infinite possibilities of colour when using natural dyes. We use ling heather, for example, and when this is picked during May it produces a bright yellow, but if we use the same plant in August, the colour becomes paler, while in October it creates a deep orange tone.”
Once the yarn has been dyed using local plants, Kirsty creates colour blends by overdyeing her yarns with red and blue
Indian dye plants. “It’s very exciting to create colour blends which combine local colour with ancient madder and indigo dyes,” she says. “These enhance the plant’s natural colour to produce rich and infinite colour combinations - madder will add a pop of red, and the indigo adds an amazing shade of deep blue. When alder cones are mixed with indigo, they create a beautiful gun-metal tone which really captures the colour of the local sky.”
As Kirsty relies on natural resources, it can be challenging to create consistent colours, but by using a focused colour range of around 12 to 14 colours, she can control and reproduce colours for customer projects. Popular shades include caramels, forest greens, rich teals and zingy yellows. In addition to solid tones, her collection includes experimental layered colours, which are dyed by dipping the bottom and top of the hank. “This process is exciting, and creates playful variegated yarn colours which are ideal for sock knitting,” she says.
Celebrating British wool
As well as sourcing a variety of local plants for colour creations, all of Shilasdair’s yarn fibres are British and are spun at UK mills.
These include a soft 4ply alpaca, a lustrous Wensleydale DK yarn, and the bespoke Coara yarn which, as a mixture of Bluefaced Leicester and Shetland wool, is ideal for stranded colourwork.
“Provenance is very important to us,” Kirsty explains. “We want to celebrate and showcase the brilliance of British wool, and because our range is very varied, it demonstrates the diversity of UK yarn. We also ensure that our product is ethically sourced and sustainably manufactured at all stages, from carefully sourcing our wool from British farms through to our dyeing techniques, including our water consumption. Fortunately, we have a spring which runs through our garden and flows down the hills to fill our machinery, which saves energy.”
Kirsty explains that once the dye plants are gathered, they are heated with fresh water from their local spring to produce a plant dye liquor. “As the water runs through the hills, it’s filtered through peat, which is very acidic. We’ve found that this type of water is very good for natural dyeing, as it produces vibrant results.”
While the plants are being gently heated in huge containers over a few days, Kirsty prepares and winds the yarn for dyeing. “When the yarn arrives from the mills on huge cones, we use traditional machinery to wind 600g hanks. Then we scour the fibres to release any impurities, which will ensure that there is an even result and that the yarn absorbs the dye. Next, the yarn is mordanted with alum before it’s submerged and heated in the plant liquor, which is then left to cool overnight.” Finally, the yarn is rinsed, hung to dry, and the plant material is strained for composting, which will encourage new plant growth for future harvests – a part of the process which has essentially remained unchanged for centuries.
“These dyeing traditions have been around for hundreds of years, and they tell a story. It’s wonderful to be so connected to tradition, and when I’m collecting heather, I feel very Scottish, although I find the most exciting results when using local plants – there’s so much colour in Skye, it’s an amazing source for inspiration. I hope my work encourages others to celebrate their own landscape through natural dyeing, and give it a go.”
- www.shilasdair-yarns.com/yarns