I live surrounded by the twisted hawthorns and the black faced sheep of the Antrim Hills and I work with native breed wool; transforming a material that is an integral part of the landscape into beautiful and useful things for you and your home.
The names of the sheep breeds that I use in my hand-woven textiles read like a list of the hills and mountains that I love. Wensleydale sheep originate in the Yorkshire Dales, Galway sheep are the oldest extant breed in Ireland, Herdwick is the breed native to the English Lake District and Jacobs sheep were once employed to keep parkland neat.
Wool
There is a magic about taking raw fleece and using your hands to turn it into yarn but to turn that yarn into fabric is alchemy. . . .
As the colours meld and the cloth grows a landscape appears before me that is a realisation of the landscape around me. The wool grew on the backs of the sheep that grazed the sides of the hill; the sheep fed on the grasses that give the changing colours. . . full circle.
“Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.”
