The Process: 1.Clipping and Carding The wool and mohair is clipped, and then washed several
times before being spun and dyed. Here’s Jolin getting his 1st clip which is the most beautiful mohair of all.
It is then carded into “rollags” on a drumcarder.
This is the raw, washed mohair on the left and “rollags “on the right.
The Process: 2.Spinning and Dyeing The yarn is hand-spun by Sallie and Sheila Rodrick of Scalpay Linen.
This is a funny spinning wheel that was homemade and although it doesn’t look very traditional, it works very well indeed. The wools and mohair are individually and specifically hand-dyed for each tapestry in a
large jam saucepan; acid dyes are used to ensure permanent colours. The hanks of wool or mohair are rinsed many times and dried in the wind.
These hanks are sky hangings not yet wall hangings! Sallie’s tapestry workshop is filled with baskets brimming with coloured yarns; a real feast for the eyes.
The warp for the tapestries is usually cotton, but for a transparent
background, 50lb-breaking strain fishing line is used, which is very difficult, but gives rewarding results. The weft (this is the material covering the warp and woven horizontally)
can be innovative: jute, lace, strips of velvet and chiffon, silk and satin, sequins, plastic and metal. Sallie uses fishermen’s net mending needles as bobbins to carry the weft, which she discovered while living in the fishing village of Kinlochbervie, Sutherland.
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