Our Aerial upholstery range is woven for us by Bute Fabrics. Based on the Isle of Bute, off the west coast of Scotland, they are upholstery specialists, weaving high-end contract-grade wool fabrics. They produce a beautiful range of plain, tweed and textured wool upholstery fabrics as well as occasionally doing commission weaving for other companies.

When we started planning and designing the upholstery collection, Bute were our first choice for production. They have huge experience and technical expertise in this field, and is has been a pleasure working with them.

The mill is an impressive example of industrial production. The image above is the warp threads coming off the creel through a series of guides and onto the beam. Below are the pins in the temple which hold the edges of the fabric under tension as it is woven.

The machine below is tying one set of warp threads onto another - preparing for a new colourway to go into production.

And below is the warping frame with the two layres of warp threads lined up ready to wind off the cones. This is set up for the Totley and Belmont fabrics which are orange on one face and a black & white marl on the other.

Many thanks to Catherine Murray at Bute for the images.