Muriel and Stuart run a specialist farm to the south of Nairn (the other side of the Moray Firth from the Black Isle). The Arr Farm is a specialist Bluefaced Leicesters and theirs are some of the finest in the country.  Each year Muriel sets aside their BFL hogg (first clip) fleeces and I take a trip over to The Arr to work my way through the bales and end up picking out almost all of them! It is always a treat to make a trip off the Black Isle to travel to past Inverness to The Arr – from the farm the views north are to the Black Isle and I love seeing our wee peninsula from the distance.

Wester Braelangwell is a beautiful Gotland flock based in the northern end of the Black Isle. Sally Ann has a relatively big flock of Gotlands and a bunch of other animals including hens, goats and cattle. Sally Ann clearly loves her livestock and has lots of stories to tell about them. I first spoke to her in 2020 and was delighted to be able to visit and then buy fleeces in 2021. My arrival was met by a very friendly and determined pet lamb whose ‘help’ with selecting fleeces was somewhat dubious but insistent! This flock’s fleeces are really lovely and range from pale greys to deep charcoals.

I love visiting Muirton, a traditional small scale farm, where Rod rears a handsome flock North Country Cheviots.  Unusually these days Rod prefers his ewes with a ‘kindly’ fleece – exactly the sort of fleece I also look for. It is great to have a chat while picking out hogg fleeces, Rod has a lot of country and farming wisdom with recollections from days past where a bag of wool would equate to several weeks shepherds wages………hard to imagine now, sadly. The views from Muirton are especially good too on a clear evening looking south to the mainland you can pick out hills in rural Buchan in the heart of Aberdeenshire.

Jane is someone who is passionate about livestock and the land – not only does she work in a farm related role but she has a huge range of animals on her smallholding, including some very lovely sheep.  Her land is tucked into the edge of the Black Isle, not far from Muir of Ord.

Her core flock consists of North Country Cheviots. Cheviots are the main sheep here and they’re not generally thought to have particularly exciting wool (it is often written off as being fit for carpets only) and certainly doesn’t fetch much when sold to British Wool (formerly British Wool Marketing Board). However I have found that Culgowrie’s Cheviot fleeces are really quite beautiful, not kitten-soft but crisp, bouncy and remarkably fine.

Alongside her Cheviots Jane has an eclectic mix of longwool and mixed breed ewes.  You can tell from their names how much she loves and enjoys them! The ewes whose names I particularly love are Horse’s Daughter (Bluefaced Leicester-Cotswold-Cheviot cross), Monkeyface (possibly Gotland-Hebridean cross) and Frankenstein (Bluefaced Leicester-Cotswold-Cheviot cross).  When I picked up fleeces this year I couldn’t resist buying Stinker and Stinker’s Sister fleeces (daughters of Monkeyface – their three fleeces will be spun into a small batch yarn) and some truly lovely longwool fleeces……….they’re so special that two of them took 1st and 2nd in the Lustre class at the Royal Highland Show this summer.

Next year I imagine I’ll be adding fleeces from Spot and Spit, two hand reared lambs from spring 2019 – I had a lovely snuggle with them when I was collecting up fleeces. Spot is the cutie in the photo!

Sally is the wonderful woman behind Meadows Flock.  From the first moment I contacted her (as the Highland Rep of the Shetland Sheep Society) she has been entirely enthusiastic, helpful and positive about my plans for Black Isle Yarns.  She has been keeping Shetlands for many years and I suspect has ‘enabled’ a great many other small flocks in the Highlands.

Sally rents a variety of small fields on the edge of the beautiful old town of Dornoch and her sheep are the friendliest I’ve ever come across.  Sally calls ‘sheep’ to bring in her lovely wee flock – I love seeing them come rushing in for pellets and a little scratch here and there. Sally is a knitter and spinner and has breeds her flock with a particular emphasis on wool quality.  When I visited Oliver Henry, of the Shetland Wool Brokers, he commented that he knows Sally and how good her wool is.  I feel very lucky to be able to buy it for Black Isle Yarns.

I met Jan, a newer smallholder, through Sally of Meadows Flock.  Inverhouse is inland from Dornoch in the stunning Kyle of Sutherland, on the edge of some very wild land indeed.  When I contacted Janet she couldn’t have been more helpful (as well as making delicious coffee!).  I enjoy catching up with Jan each year when I pick-up fleeces and usually a couple more times, perhaps at a wool show or two – it is great to hear how her flock is thriving and what her latest spinning and craft projects are.

Janet has adopted Sally’s ‘sheep’ call and her flock all came running at the sound of her voice.  Like all ‘my’ Shetland flocks they have excellent fleece quality and it is a real pleasure to be able to work with their wool.

St Finbarr’s is a new croft belonging to Deborah who has moved her flock here from Meadows, where they used to run with Sally’s flock. Like Meadows and Inverhouse, St Finbarr’s flock have the most beautiful fleeces, fleece quality being something Debbie looks for in her sheep. During Dornoch Fibre Fest 2022 I took the chance to visit Deborah’s new land. Although I have bought Deb’s beautiful Shetland flock’s fleeces for several years I hadn’t had a chance to see them on their new land.  The St Finbarr’s flock now have the most beautiful position above the town of Dornoch looking south across the Dornoch Firth. Happy sheep growing fantastic quality wool!

Dan and Rachel, and their two wee boys, organically farm Fearniewell Croft in the heart of the Black Isle (only a handful of miles from our home).  They work ”on a scale mid way between gardening and farming which means a close eye can be kept on things as they grow. The grass & clover feeds the cows whose dung feeds the soil which feeds the vegetables which feed us – no short cuts but the result is healthy animals, soil, vegetables and people.”

The small flock of Gotlands ”with a hint of Shetland” (thanks to a fence jumping tup a few generations ago!) is integral to the croft  – Dan even hand clips with traditional shears.  Sadly, until Black Isle Yarns, their fleece has only been used as insulation and slug barriers!  We’re hoping that from now on their clip will be put to good use in countless knitting projects instead and hopefully treasured for many years to come.

Fraoch Cottage Flock is a small flock on the northern shore of the Black Isle. Alongside his Ryelands, Neil has a small flock of Gotland and Gotlandish (Gotland crossed with Shetland). While Fraoch only has a few fleeces which are suitable for Black Isle Yarns, I really appreciate having a few more very local and beautiful Gotland and almost-Gotland fleeces to add into my spin plans. Fraoch is the Gaelic word for heather.

Craiglands is a large farm in the heart of the Black Isle, just 3 miles or so from my base in Fortrose. Rory has several sheep flocks, breeding his own ewes to a strict system in order to get the best from his mixed quality grazing.  The flocks include a small group of Bluefaced Leicesters and a large flock of mostly white Shetlands.  I first bought both BFL and Shetland fleeces in 2018, and in 2019 was delighted to be able to pick out the Shetland fleeces on shearing day.  Rory tends to clip his BFLs earlier in the season and unfortunaly I missed their clipping day but had the pick of the wool bale.

It is a real bonus to have such lovely white Shetland fleeces near at hand – they work very well with the mostly coloured Shetland wool I buy from the smaller flocks I work with.

Maddie, her husband Neil, and their daughters Bella and Iona (and their families) manage an organic flock of Cheviots across two farms
one, Coulmore, here on the Black Isle and the second, Rhidoroch, on the west near Ullapool.  They have been farming organically for many years and, sadly, the fleece from their flock fetches less than normal Cheviot (so that even with clipping done by the family, mostly Maddie, they have had very little return for their fleeces).  As a family they are very keen to see all the products from their land being well used and they are delighted that I am able to add value to their wool (as well as paying a good rate directly to them).

Cheviot wool is traditionally thought of as only fit for carpets, however this is really not the case if fleeces are carefully selected.  I have picked first clip hogg fleeces from the Coulmore flock and the resulting yarn is strong but beautifully soft and smooth. I’m looking forward to working with Coulmore wool for many years to come!

Kath and Donnie keep a wonderful mix of sheep on their Black Isle smallholding at Bogallan.  Kath regularly enters her fleeces in the local shows where they tend to do very well – in fact one of her 2018 Shetland fleeces won best-in-show at Lochaber Agricultural Show. To date I have only bought Shetland fleeces but one day I’d like to add their lovely Jacob fleece to my repertoire.

At Wester Raddery, around 5 miles from my base, Philip has a beautiful flock of Bluefaced Leicesters on his mixed arable farm.  There’s also equally lovely small flocks of Zwartbles and Texels but, to date, it is the BFL fleece that I have bought.  Although Philip’s flock is small he breeds for quality and, additionally tends to have one or two coloured BFL fleeces – these are a real bonus, allowing me to produce natural rose grey BFL yarns.

On my first visit I particularly enjoyed meeting the very handsome Craiglands BFL tups – they seemed well aware of their own majesty!