Wandering around Harris and Lewis, or how I met a lot of tweed weavers

I lived in Scotland for a number of years. One of the joys was seeing a fair amount of the country. One of the last trips I took before I moved back to Toronto was with a good friend to the islands in the Outer Hebrides- Harris and Lewis (which, actually is just one island), of Harris Tweed fame.

I had so much fun-the island is a beautiful place with some amazing beaches, and cool lanscape (one of my hobbies is photography, and i LOVE landscapes!). There are lots of standing stones and ruins, and the people are really friendly. At that point, I’d already started doing kiltmaking, and I was interested in the whole industry of tweed weaving.

The island is remote, and there is not a huge amount of scope for employment, so the residents have a limited number of employment options. Alot of them work as independent weavers. It’s really cool, some work for the Tweed factory, but alot of them work for themselves. We visited numerous weaving sheds, as they are fairly well signposted as you drive round the island. Sadly, I wasn’t bold enough to ask to take photos, so I didn’t, but I met alot of the weavers, and they were kind enough to talk to me about some of their processes.

They start with a spool rack and set up the warp for the tweed, which is then transferred to the loom. Most people have these (relatively) old style looms, which actually run on cycle power, if you can believe it! So, you get your exercise as you weave. They have a punch card type system of keys which the weaver sets up for the pattern of the weft, and a-cycling they go! I can’t remember how much I was told they can weave in a day, but it was pretty impressive!

some tweed samples I picked up on Harris, as well as the iconic labels that you get with them!

When the tweed is woven, the job isn’t done yet. The cloth has to be finished, which most everyone sends to the factory on the island to be done. This process shrinks the tweed and tightens the weave, as well as giving the wool a nice finish. Once this is done, it’s ready to be used! I’ve been saving my tweeds, but I’m getting closer to using them.!