Red Deer – 50g Hebridean 2 Ply
Description
Alice Starmore Hebridean 2 Ply Yarn is made from premium quality pure new British wool, dyed in the fleece and skillfully blended into unique shades. It is hand-washed and dried in the Hebridean air, and supplied in hand-made skeins which may vary in weight. It is priced per 50g at standard conditions. All yarn is weighed to order on balances that are checked daily to ensure that you receive the correct total amount.
Red Deer is part of the Moor & Mountain range, which is inspired by the landscape of the Outer Hebrides.
Colour Story
Some of my fellow islanders have ambivalent feelings towards deer. They are beautiful creatures but they are inextricably associated with the Highland landed gentry and with the iniquities of the Highland Clearances in the 19th century. I can understand their point of view: my own ancestors were “chased out” of the Uig district of Lewis in order to clear the way for a sporting deer park. The way I see it, it was hardly the fault of the deer. Plenty of Highlanders were chased out to make way for sheep, but we still wear wool and eat mutton.
My favourite place to see red deer is a mountainside in Harris known as Stulaval. The sight of sixty-odd deer coming through the rocks is one that cannot fail to impress. You have to be down-wind and very still, for one false move and they are away. My best sighting ever was just a single deer – a young stag that had strayed off on its own. It was a winter day on a very wet, very flat moor, with a low sun slanting across the landscape. There was nowhere to hide and I could hardly drop into the bogs at my feet. I froze, and the slanting sun must have blinded it, for it came closer and closer towards me, cropping the heather as it came. There was no wind whatsoever, and it came close enough for me to hear it breathing. Then of course it scented me, and was off like a bullet, its hind legs kicking up a shower of water drops and rainbows. I watched until it disappeared into the blue haze.
For this shade we used the summer coats of the red deer, which are coloured a subtle tawny, tinged with rich reds that blend perfectly with the moorland, making them almost impossible to see. We have slightly intensified the flashes of red, but the effect is still one that will look perfectly at home in any landscape.
£8.00