Harris Tweed Bags

Harris Tweed is woven by traditional craftsmen in crofts scattered throughout the stunning landscape of the remote Outer Hebrides, a beautiful setting to create one of the most sought after wool fabrics in the world. This unique textile has long been a favourite of top designers for the major fashion houses in Milan, Rome, Paris, London and New York.

The process of creating the fabric begins when islanders of the Outer Hebrides, the Gaelic speaking Islands at the North West edge of Europe, band together in early summer to shear the local sheep. The island wool is blended with the bulk of the wool which comes from mainland Scotland. The mixed wool is washed, dyed, carded and spun. The spun yarn has to be warped, an important process, as this is when the weaving pattern is laid out. The designs are inspired by beautiful surroundings, colours of the sea, machair, hills, wild flowers and peat moors all feature prominently.

Once the yarn is warped it is then wound on to the loom in a process known as beaming, the yarn runs over the beams of the weaving shed and is then cranked onto the loom where the ends are then passed through the eyelets.

Crofters, many of whom have had the craft passed down to them through the generations, weave the Harris Tweed in timeless tradition, at their own homes, on their own treadle looms.

The Hattersley loom is powered by the weaver pressing two foot pedals, sending the shuttle across the tweed, creating a hypnotic click-clack sound. It takes a skilled weaver just over an hour to run off five metres of single width cloth. After weaving, the tweed undergoes a stringent quality control process which ensures a perfectly finished fabric.

The inside of our beautiful Harris Tweed bags feature the weavers label and also the Harris Tweed Orb label. This is your guarantee from the Harris Tweed Authority, by Act of Parliament, that "Harris Tweed is a tweed made from pure virgin wool produced in Scotland, spun, dyed and finished in Outer Hebrides and hand-woven by the islanders at their own homes in the Islands of Lewis, Harris, Uist, Barra and their several purtenances and all known as the Outer Hebrides".

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