As part of my 2027 residency on the island of St Kilda, I will weave tweed using the two rarest and most historically significant native sheep breeds of the archipelago: Soay and Boreray. My project is not only an act of craft but a quiet reclamation of a cultural practice that has not taken place on the island in nearly a century.

🐑 Soay Wool — Weft

The weft of the cloth will be spun from Soay fleece, the same primitive, short-stapled wool used by the women of St Kilda before the island’s evacuation in 1930. Traditionally rooed (gently plucked) rather than shorn, Soay wool is soft, springy, and delicate — ideally suited for weft threads that carry the feel and breath of the cloth.

🐏 Boreray Wool — Warp

The warp will be spun from Boreray fleece, a stronger, more resilient wool with a longer staple and a coarser hand — ideally suited for the structural tension of warp threads. Once kept for subsistence purposes by the islanders, Boreray sheep are now critically rare, and this project brings their fibre back into functional, textile life.

🌾 Weaving as Cultural Practice

The cloth I produce will be grounded in traditional technique but contemporary in intention — a new textile drawn from ancient land. By combining these two native fleeces and spinning them with attention to historical precedent, I hope to give voice to an overlooked material culture, using the act of weaving as a form of silent storytelling — of endurance, place, and return.