Category Archives: tweed

Two days in Donegal

Posted on by
48

I am designing a few things at the moment with a yarn that is new to me. I really like this yarn – and surely the best way to find out some more about it was to visit the place where it is made? So, on Friday, Mel and I took a trip to Donegal.

The yarn is a 2 ply light aran (US worsted weight) called “Soft Donegal”. It is “soft” because its yarn base is an Australian Merino – and it is “Donegal” because it is processed with the colourful neps, burrs, or flecks that are a familiar characteristic of Donegal tweed. The processing and the end-product are what is traditionally “Donegal” about this yarn. It is manufactured by Donegal Yarns, and distributed by Studio Donegal.


(Tathams of Rochdale carding machine at Studio Donegal. I hail from Rochdale, and always like to spot their machines in a mill.)

I have visited quite a few mills, but this first time I’d seen a fully vertical operation – that is, a mill where all of the processing stages from raw wool to finished yarn are effected in-house.


(Francis introduces Mel to the raw wool.)

Donegal Yarns dye the wool. They mix the dyed colours into beautiful, complex shades; they add the neps (the tweedy flecks) and the wool then goes through several stages of carding and condensing before it begins to resemble what we’d call a ‘single’.

Different stages of spinning, tying, washing, drying and skeining follow before the yarn is finally ready to leave the mill as balls or cones.

Thanks to Francis, the production manager at Donegal Yarns, Mel and I learned all about the operation — as well as many things we didn’t know about yarn processing.

This machine closely resembles a giant pair of human legs and feet — it ensures the colour is evenly distributed through the dye-vats and is appropriately called a “stamper.”

Wool shades are mixed with tweedy “neps” by being repeatedly blown about together in an amazing fleecy snowstorm . . .


. . . the Scotch Feed (invented by Henry Brown of Selkirk in 1844) puts a nifty twist into “woollen” processed yarns, turning and realigning the carded wool in preparation for the next stage.

I am often stunned by the fit-for-purpose ingenuity of textile machinery and the tape condenser (invented in the 1870s) is particularly ingenious. The efficient transformation of carded wool into fine ribbons relies entirely on the slightly-sticky properties of the fibres.

Francis was so knowledgable and enthusiastic and very tolerant of our yarn-related ravings. (Thanks, Francis!)


(a badly out-of-focus shot captures Mel’s rapturous reaction to the end product at Donegal Yarns)

The following day we visited Tristan Donaghy at Studio Donegal, just around the corner from the mill. As well as distributing Donegal Yarns for hand-knitting, Tristan runs his own small and highly-skilled manufacturing operation, producing unique hand-woven cloths which are used to create beautiful home furnishing fabrics, together with a small range of clothing.

What Tristan doesn’t know about Donegal tweed probably isn’t worth knowing. He was extremely generous both with his time and knowledge, and Mel and I came away feeling we had learned an enormous amount.

We saw unspun sliver being woven directly into boucle fabric for a textured effect . . .

. . . we found out about leno and tuck selvedges . . .

. . . we learned all about the different processes involved in finishing a hand-woven scarf or blanket (adding a rolled fringe is much more complex than you might think!)

And then we went outside to explore our surroundings, and let all we’d seen sink in.


(Me, the BMC, and the Maghera waterfall)

We could immediately see the material connection between the yarns and textiles we’d been admiring, and the beautiful landscape of Donegal.






Such an inspiring weekend! Thankyou Chris, Francis, and Tristan! Now it is time for me to get busy with those needles. . .

* You can buy Donegal Yarns directly from Studio Donegal, or from stockists like This is Knit.
* Read more about Donegal Yarns and Studio Donegal in Carol Feller’s super book, Contemporary Irish Knits

botched

Posted on by
79

I am out of sewing practice.

At least that’s my excuse: yesterday I managed to make a botched job of things . .

I bought this tweed when visiting Harris a couple of years ago – I love the bright blue, green, and orange flecks sitting in among the herringbone.

My idea was to turn this cheap and cheerful Ikea footstool . . .

. . . into this glorious work of woolly art . . .

I have lusted after these Anta tweed cubes for years (this one is my favourite) . . . but neither my budget, or my sense of crafty pride would allow me to acquire one . . . surely I could make my own? How difficult could it be to upholster a cube?

But my cube confidence was misplaced!

Having measured up the stool, I cut out five squares from the tweed with a generous seam allowance, got out the iron and sewing machine, and began to stitch everything together, as per the layout above. The sun was shining in the kitchen, the machine was purring away merrily, Debussy was on the radio: all was well. Then, half way through the seam between squares 2 and 3, the power suddenly cut out. Had I blown a fuse? I looked outside. A hole had appeared at the corner of the road. The hole was accompanied by machinery, and a small fire. Some men were in the hole, who blithely confirmed that they were responsible for the outage.

There was nothing I could do, so I took Bruce for a walk. When I returned, a couple of hours later, so had the electricity. I got back to my seams, but things were not the same: the light was poor, I was tired from my walk, and, quite simply I was not in the zone (I am not a natural with the sewing machine, and have to be in precisely the right frame of mind to deal with pins, bobbins, threading and all its other general gubbins). I should have put my cube aside and gone and done something else, but instead, growing increasingly grouchy and frustrated, I ploughed onward, stitching up my wonky seams, and trimming my crappy corners. I got the footstool out for a fitting. All was not well.

Now, this is the footstool after extensive repairs conducted this morning: it still looks rotten, but you should have seen it yesterday. So many things were wrong: I gave myself a far too generous seam allowance, (which meant that the corners of the cover didn’t sit properly in those of the footstool and the sides flapped about like a badly fitting skirt). None of the seams were straight, and the corners were really messy and bulky (because several layers of fabric met there) . . .

. . .actually pretty much everything about the cover was wonky, including the Harris Tweed label, which I sewed on last of all.

Annoyed with myself, I set the stool cover aside, and returned to my knitting (how soothing! No electricity! No fiddlinesses! Just me and the wool and the needles!). Later last night it occurred to me that the first problem lay in my pattern layout. I should have cut and seamed the pieces like this:

or this:

or this:

. . .the final layout, which could be cut on the fold, uses up more fabric, but it also makes for less bulky corners, fewer seams and layers, and a design that is much easier to fit and adjust . . .Of course, when I examined the Anta cubes again, it was immediately obvious that the fabric had been cut and seamed in like fashion . . .

Kate, you choob, why didn’t you have a proper look in the first place?

I had settled on my first layout after examining the cover of the Ikea cube, and deciding that the seams between the squares were necessary to give structure. But I hadn’t considered how much more bulky Harris tweed is than Ikea furnishing fabric. A well-fitting cover, cut from a single piece of fabric, would have been far better than one with sticky-out corners and multiple, wonky seams.

looks botched, doesn’t it Bruce?

I find it curious that, while I can immediately visualise all sorts of 3 dimensional seamless knitted constructions – I find it much more difficult to think naturally about fabric layouts. It is probably just that knitting is my metier, or that I have made it such by doing an awful lot of it (I have done very little sewing over the past couple of years).

Ultimately, there is no excuse, quite simply: I made a shite job of it.

This morning’s repairs have made the cover look a little better, yet I still think I will have to cut it up again, use that tweed for cushions, and sew up another cover.

But not today.