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Salted Wool
What is ‘Salted Wool’ you ask. Well, I didn’t just want to put ‘Socks’ on the label, that’s pretty obvious and giving them a name starts an interesting conversation!
I source most of my wool from within 10 miles of my home, but one year we had an idyllic holiday at Kylesmorar on Loch Nevis in the Scottish Highlands, and there we met some Black Welsh Mountain sheep who didn’t know what to do with all that fleece they grow each year. I offered to take it away and do something with it.
Black Welsh Mountain Sheep at Tarbet, Loch Nevis
The only way to reach Kylesmorar is on foot, via an amazing 9 mile hike along Loch Morar, or by ferry from Mallaig. I didn’t relish hauling three bags of fleece along the 9 miles of footpath, beautiful as it is, even in the rain, so we put it on the ferry and along the way we hit a wave which sprayed the wool….and the name ‘Salted Wool’ was coined. You can buy ‘salted lamb’ from sheep which live on salt marshes, so, I thought, why not ‘salted wool’!
The wool itself goes on quite a journey. From quiet loch side it travels to a busy scouring plant in Bradford. Then it passes through spinning machines over 100 years old in Huddersfield and eventually reaches a family hosiery business in Leicestershire that’s been knitting socks for even longer than that. Everything is grown and processed within the British Isles. There are no added dyes or chemicals and no foreign wool – just some Bluefaced Leicester wool from farms in and around Sedbergh in the Yorkshire Dales, plus some Hebridean wool from a pedigree flock in Cumbria. We blend the three wools to arrive at a gorgeous natural shade of grey which we hope you’ll love.
Loch Nevis
Our ‘Salted Wool’ socks are 80% wool with 20% nylon added for durability and strength. They have cushioned soles for comfort and are machine washable on a gentle 30C wool cycle. Please don’t put them near a tumble dryer or they will shrink!
Wool being delivered to the ferry
Our socks are for walking or cycling, canoeing, mountaineering, farming, skiing, or simply for skipping, wearing around the house instead of slippers or for keeping your toes warm in bed…..or all of the above if you can’t bear to take them off!
