We have been weaving blankets since the very start of Chilcott in 2014. Wool is part of our story with lavender interwoven into the style and added as a finishing touch to each of our blankets.
The first collection of blankets were made with Kent Romney wool spun and dyed for us by a leading expert in the wool field, Lightowlers. We then worked with Ken at Cambrian Woollen mill to create our design with horizontal stripes, inspired by the rows of lavender! Ken also reached the age of retirement.
The next few runs were made by Raymond Jones, a true weaving legend in Wales, who has now retired having created thousands of meters of beautiful cloth. Sadly we were unable to carry on weaving with them so we have spread our wings to Yorkshire, home of the wool industry! We fortunately found a new weaver who loves weaving British wool cloth. We have also continued to use the skills of expert dyers/finishers in Scotland so this means we can reduce the mileage in order to produce these blankets.
The new run of blankets have been designed and created by us using 100% British Bluefaced Leicester wool, the most luxurious fleece found in the British Isles. Each blanket carries the accredited Gold BWMB crook which is only awarded to companies who can prove the provenance from fleece to finish that it is 100% British.
The new blankets are slightly different from our previous blankets and larger in size. We now have the Chilcott two cream horizontal stripes top and bottom to represent the Lavender rows! We have removed the verticals for this run just to add a change and make them easy to place in any room.
We hope you like them and look forward to seeing your styling in your homes?
The British Isles mileage for provenance!!
Spinning British wool from accredited farms in the UK at Huddersfield,
then the wool sets off on its British Isles journey over 4/5 months
189 miles to Dyeing at Ettrick Selkirk
185 miles to Weaving at Calder weaving
193 miles to Finishing at Scofields Galashiels
317 miles to Usk Valley South Wales!
Imagine if the wool had come from New Zealand or Europe!!
The Chilcott blankets are truly created in the British Isles, 900 miles supporting small unique British, often second or third generation businesses, we are so pleased we can share these unique wool blankets with you.