Our limited edition HERITAGE tartans are handwoven in our Edinburgh atelier made from carefully sourced British alpaca and handstitched, brushed and finished.
The Heritage collection not only finds its inspiration in nature, but the very colours that are seen in the yarn have been drawn out from nature using a highly skilled natural plant dyeing process. Araminta meticulously colour matches to the natural plant dyes such as indigo, nettle and oak bark to create each of the woven yarn colours used in her tartans which reflect those natural colours providing the beautiful colour palette you see in the collection.
Each limited edition handwoven piece is one of only 12 to be produced.
The Heritage tartan design, Beech Dappled Skies, beautifully depicts the blue skies seen through the dappled leaves of the beech woodland in Aberdeenshire. Araminta’s parents’ house overlooks the River Dee and is home to a wonderful native woodland of mature beech trees, it was on an early spring day as the leaves were unfurling and the sun was hitting the soft pink grey of the trunk that Araminta was inspired to create this tartan, the first exclusive ‘Araminta Campbell’ brand tartan.
Each of the colours in the tartan has been created using natural plant dyes, a technique Araminta has practiced for over 10 years and takes our tartans back to their origins. In this tartan the dyes originally came from materials such as indigo, nettles, oak bark, logwood, onions and gallnuts. Once Araminta has chosen the natural colours used to create the tartans, each colour is meticulously matched by our dyeing technicians to achieve Araminta’s exact shade palette.
With her childhood holidays spent exploring the highlands, this tartan was inspired by the arresting view from her grandparent’s house in the highlands of Scotland during sunset. The impressive skies depicted in the tartan showcase the clean Highland air and the display of colour over the inspiring Scottish mountains at dusk. This tartan is the sister to Highlands at Dawn, they are the same tartan but created in two colourways to reflect the change in the landscape.
Highlands at Dusk is inspired by the dramatic colours in the Scottish highland skies as the sun sets at dusk. The design comprises beautiful dark blue hues with a red overcheck to represent the strong silhouette of the mountains as the sun goes down setting the clouds alight in warm tones fading to soft grey. This sight has never ceased to leave Araminta in awe.
When dyeing with natural plant dyes, Araminta uses all of the dye to achieve different saturations of colour. In this tartan the bright red is heavy with the dye of logwood and cochineal where the paler pink is where the yarn takes the last of the dyes in to create the beautiful softer colour. oak bark and gallnuts were also used to achieve the colours in this tartan.
With her childhood holidays spent exploring the highlands, this tartan was inspired by the arresting view from her grandparent’s house in the highlands of Scotland during sunrise. The impressive skies depicted in the tartan showcase the clean Highland air and the display of colour over the inspiring Scottish mountains at dawn. This tartan is the sister to Highlands at Dusk, they are the same tartan but created in two colourways to reflect the change in the landscape.
Highlands at Dawn is inspired by the big skies and dramatic display of colour to be seen over the Scottish highlands as dawn breaks. It is made up of beautiful blue hues with orange and white overcheck to represent the soft blue at dawn with the warm tones of the sun rising over a stubble field looking East.
Araminta works in a very experimental manor when working with natural plant dyes to achieve her colours, if you gather nettles from the same patch at different times of year you will obtain a different colour. In our Highlands at Dawn tartan Araminta used nettles, indigo, madder, onion skins and logwood to obtain the colours.
Alpaca is one of the rarest natural fibres in the world and we are able to source the fibre for our collections from British alpacas. In our HERITAGE Collection we use this sustainable fibre blended with the fibre created from the stems of roses. We source the finest fleece available, only 5-10% of alpacas produce the quality of fleece selected for our products. Each year the quality of an individual alpaca’s fleece can change due to factors such as the weather, nutrition, age and wellness of the animal, we therefore assess each fleece every year. The fleece is selected for fineness, crimp, lustre and colour, and this year we can now trace each fleece back to the individual alpaca.
Our yarn is spun one fleece at a time, in the Scottish Borders, to represent the unique natural colours of each fleece. In our HERITAGE collection the colours are drawn directly from nature through Araminta’s natural plant dyes. The alpaca yarn is then dyed to match these colours creating an exquisite colour palette that perfectly reflects nature. Here you can see some of Araminta’s original colours of naturally dyed yarns. Through combining the best fibre with our precise spinning, our yarn is exceptionally strong and brings an inherent strength to each piece to ensure they last a lifetime.
We work on vintage George Wood Looms in our atelier where the weaver powers each moving part of the loom by hand and by foot. The intensity they work at to create each individual product is unsurpassed in terms of precision and concentration. The entire process from setting up the warp, to individually threading each warp end, to throwing the shuttle to the lifting the shafts is all powered by one of our weavers.
Once a piece comes off the loom it is far from complete and the finishing process enhances the natural qualities of the fibre in terms of softness, drape and lustre. Each step is done by hand in-house. The washing process has six stages with measured controls from the temperature, detergent and agitation. The tassels are individually separated by hand, the piece is brushed, pressed and steamed and the label stitched on.
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