News, May 2025

Thank you all so much for your patience and support, while we’ve been busy building mechanical and financial support for our (your!) micro-mill! We really couldn’t do this without you.

Progress!

For the past six months, over the winter and into spring, we’ve been quietly working toward two very challenging goals: 1. Bringing on our first staff, and 2. Getting “Caroline” - the large Victorian carder we purchased two years ago with your help – operational. We simply couldn’t move forward any further without both these goals being realized.

We can now share the exciting news that Highland Wool CIC has been awarded a Firstport Build It grant, enabling us to hire our first two staff members. This is a very competitive grant, so we are super grateful to the award committee for seeing the value of, and the need for our work…and to every single person who helped put the business plan and funding application together.

We have staff!

The Build It award has made it possible for longtime volunteer Anna George to step into a paid role as Assistant Mill Manager. You may have seen Anna’s gorgeous woven goodies at markets in the area (under her craft name as Baadninish Weaving), and she has been a stalwart supporter since our earliest days, helping to shape our direction and vibe. It’s fantastic to be able to (finally) give her a title and a paycheck in return! Anna will increase her time in the mill processing wool with Donna, Janet, and new volunteer Ali, will take over hosting our weekly Knit & Natter sessions, and will also be able to attend more agricultural shows and markets with us as well.

Anna is joined on the team by long time Bonar Bridge resident Kathy Smith, known to many in our community from her work developing the Kyle of Sutherland Hub and more recently volunteering at Bonar Bridge Community Hall – and, of course the Caledonian Curry Company and the Crannag Bistro & Takeaway she and husband Ian ran for over 20 years. Kathy has been a friend and a shoulder to lean on for a while, and she’ll be coming on as our Development Officer, taking quite a bit of the admin and development work off Donna’s desk. Donna, in the meantime, will be learning to let go of the reins a bit, which will be a relief for us all (but mostly for Donna).

These two positions will be funded for a year, thanks to the generous support of the Firstport Build It grant, and were awarded based on our assurance that we will be able to fund them ourselves after that. Actually, if all goes as planned, we hope to hire a third part-time team member by the middle of next year’s shearing season.

Plans and Parts.

In February, we finished writing our Business Plan and repairing Caroline, our Victorian carder. This work was funded by the Highland Council’s Community Regeneration Fund, and we had consultative assistance from Cait Murray of Strategic Scientific Consulting Ltd. When repairs were done, the carder worked fantastically… for about 5 hours. Then the effects of sitting in a barn for 12 years caught up with the carding fabric on one of the rollers (the Fancy, for those who know their machines), which started disintegrating, and there were suddenly little metal tines everywhere! It took a while to source more carding fabric (Britain has lost SO much manufacturing!) and find the funding to purchase it (thanks to a successful application to North Highland Initiative), but we finally found an Italian supplier, and Donald has been busy cleaning and repairing since then. He's very close to calling her 'ready for action'.

Donald tensioning the carding fabric onto the 'Fancy'.

Along the way, he designed and built a fantastic tensioning device that will be useful for future roller repairs too. We hope to have “Caroline” operational this week, and then we’ll take a few weeks to learn to run her through her paces. While that’s going on, Donald will finish designing and building our water recycling system, in preparation for a busy, dry summer. It’s very handy to have a resident engineer/inventor on the farm!

This year’s processing plans.

One way or another, we’ll start processing fleece in June! We’ll be opening our booking calendar for washing and fluffing wool (up to 25kg), and washing/carding wool (up to 5kg) soon. We can’t take larger carding orders until Caroline the Carder comes online – just ask last year’s clients how long it took us to card a full order on our little electric carder! – but we don’t want to keep you waiting either. So, if you want your wool made into fluff or small orders of carded wool, check our website after the 27th of May. We’ll have it updated with new booking procedures by then. Our prices will remain the same as last year.

Mulch!

We’re currently working our way through all the wool we seem to have acquired over the past two years, making room for the upcoming season. Some of this will be mulch, some will be used to clean and test Caroline, and some might still be good enough to card and sell at local events. Mulching young trees is going to be very important during the upcoming summer, and the poo etc still in this fleece will help too. ***If you’d like a feed bag or two of wool to use as mulch, contact us via info@highlandwool.scot to make an appointment to pick up a few bags. We’ll leave them up at the farm gate for you to pick up.  

Social Crafting and Learning

 Knit & Natter evenings continue at Ardgay Community Hall, Wednesdays, 7pm-9pm

They’re called Knit & Natter, but any fibre art that can be done in company and around a table is welcome. We’ve had knitting of course, but also sewing, weaving, and more. There’s always a cuppa, a biscuit, and some good craic to be had too. All levels are welcome! Knit & Natter will continue through June, then take July/August off for the hols, and return in September.

We were really excited to host some of our friends from the Highland Guild of Spinners Weavers & Dyers in March for a site visit and workshop. It was a great day, and has given us ideas for future workshops. Look for a series to start in September, tagged onto the Knit & Natter evenings – you’ll learn some basics of (drop) spinning and knitting, and will be welcome to stay for the Knit and Natter evening afterward. We’re also developing ideas for a felted rug workshop too. Watch our Facebook page for news about these plans.

Where to find us away from Home

Highland Wool will be at the following shows, chatting with farmers and wool enthusiasts about how we process raw wool into useable fibre, and the many ways you can use it for crafting pleasure, or to increase the value of your farm’s wool harvest. Check out the links for times and more information. Stop at our stall and say hi, or ask us any questions you may have about our work and how we can help you achieve your woolly goals:

17 May (this weekend!) The Hirsel will be at the Ardgay and District Golden Jubilee, celebrating 50 years of the farm and our community being part of Sutherland. Donna and Donald will be there to talk about Highland Wool, our home farm, and some of the other projects planned for the farm too, too. Link: https://fb.me/e/abO4mUeIW

11 June, NSA Highland Sheep, Midfearn farm, Ardgay: https://highlandsheep.org.uk/

12 July, The Latheron Show, Caithness: https://latheronshow.co.uk/ 

19 July, The Sutherland Show: https://www.sutherlandshow.com/

23 August, Lairg Crofters Show: https://lairgcroftersshow.co.uk/

13 September, Ardgay Community Market (the wool-themed market). This is a special one for us, as it’s our home market, where we tested our our ‘road show’ on our patient neighbours. We’ll be expanding on last year’s efforts to offer you some Hands On woolly fun that day. https://www.facebook.com/ArdgayCommunityMarkets

27 September, The Highland Wool fest, Strathpeffer. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61555669527527

See you soon!

-          Highland Wool Team

Marguerite Fleming of Westfield Croft shows off her lovely rug, partly made with Cheviot we carded for her at Highland Wool. xxx