Why Use British Wool?
Posted on 13 December 2019
Our cushions are made with great care and attention to detail in London. We fill them in Sussex with pure sheep's wool from Orkney.
One of our suppliers is a mill on North Ronaldsay, the most northerly of the Orkney Isles. The sheep on the island are extremely hardy and mainly eat seaweed! Using this wool means we're supporting a long neglected industry of small independent Orkney farmers. It feels good to avoid importing wool unnecessarily.
Until the 1990s it was considered uneconomic to process the clipped fleeces of the sheep on the island. Today The Orkney Sheep Foundation work hard to maintain a small cottage industry in spun wool and byproducts, which are processed by Jane Donnelly at her lighthouse mill.
We also love British wool because it means we can easily avoid chemicals and live-plucked feathers. Making the cushion pads ourselves in Sussex means we know exactly what goes in; clean, natural wool. Synthetic fillers like polyester hollow fibre fillings aren't used in our studio because they're not from a renewable source. Polyester can also be set on fire too easily, and the chemicals in it have been linked to various illnesses. We think that when you're spending your hard earned money on a luxury cushion, it shouldn't be full of polyester!