2014 Tour Day One

Hairy coo

I'm back in Scotland with a new group of travellers. This year everyone on the trip is from the U.S. The 2014 blog will focus on one venue or event from each day of the 14 day tour.  On Tuesday, April 29 our textile-focused venue was The Weavers Cottage in Kilbarchan. Just 20 minutes outside of Glasgow, this cottage, run by the National Trust of Scotland, shows how handloom weavers lived and worked in this town. The building dates back to 1723, but there is evidence weavers were working in the town in the late 1600's.

Christine Macleod has been the head weaver in the cottage since the 1990's. In a typical weaver's cottage, the man wove on the loom which occupied the lower level of the house. The women and children did the spinning, supplying the "copps", the yarn for the weft of the weaving. In the 1800's the weavers took on contract work, getting the warp and weft materials from a "jobber" and weaving to their specifications. Most weaving shifted from hand loom cottage industry to power loom weaving done in factories in the second half of the 1800's. A very small number of handloom weavers continued on into the 1900's with speciality work. On of the last ones, Willie Meikle, wove tartan and double sided cloth into the middle of the 20th century. His loom, over 200 years old, is the one still used in the Weaver's Cottage.

"Jenny Dang the Weaver" is a traditional Scottish tune I played on my fiddle  for the video below.