Made in Scotland: House of Cheviot

Hooray, it’s Made in Scotland time again! Yes it’s our monthly delve into other small businesses who make all of their products in Scotland like we do at Bill Baber Knitwear. Scotland has such a wealth of creative people making beautiful things and we love our regular delve into the different gorgeous products that are available. This month we had a wonderful chat with Ashley from House of Cheviot who design and make beautiful socks, of all types, from Hawick in the Scottish Borders. They offer socks for ladies, gents, highland wear, wellies and garter ties using yarns like cashmere and merino wool. As you can imagine, a Scottish made knitwear business featuring colourful materials is right up our street so we were delighted to chat with them about all things Scottish and Wool!

Can you tell us how your business got started? 

 

Where do you look for inspiration when you are designing new products?   

The subtle, earthy tones used in our traditional kilt and country collections are inspired by the beautiful countryside. We’re located in the Scottish Borders, where wild uplands meet picturesque valleys – it’s the perfect place to create and test our products. Our more vibrant designs are often inspired by something random – Nordic patterns, a jumper we’ve seen while scrolling on Instagram or catwalk fashions. We use tweeds and tartans as a guide for our colour palette, however as country clothing and Highland wear has modernised and become increasingly fashionable in recent years we’ve had to adapt. There are brighter colours appearing in cloth therefore our range has to reflect that.

 

Can you tell us a bit more about how you make your products?

Making socks isn’t as simple as one might think… Each sock passes through 12 pairs of skilled hands from selecting the yarn, to knitting and linking, hand sewing, pressing and packaging. We pride ourselves in attention to detail and want our customers to receive luxury socks that, with love and care, will last for years. All products are designed, knitted and hand finished in-house by our 20 talented and passionate members of staff.

 

What are your most popular products and which are your own favourites?

Our Fairisle socks are having a moment! We introduced new men’s and ladies Fairisle designs for 2022 and they’re flying off the shelves. They were a headache to design and colour. We had a pin board filled with ‘fairisle inspo’ and spent a lot of time researching colour trends before taking the plunge. It’s so hard to visualise but when the design and colours come together… Wow!

 

 

The Fairisle is probably my favourite due to the time spent on them however I have an obsession with orange. You’ll see from our social media that orange popped up a lot in our AW22 photo shoot styling (Ann and I were on location to style the models which was the best experience ever). I love rich colours and our burnt orange Lady Rannoch socks with matching wrist warmers look amazing with jeans and a tweed jacket. Classic style!

 

 

If you had to pick one place in Scotland to recommend that people visit, where would it be?

Target Hill pond is tucked away in the hills above Hawick and it’s my happy place. It’s surrounded by rolling hills, wildlife and is blissfully quiet. The Scottish Borders is a beautiful area – there’s a lot to see and do and the people are friendly and welcoming.

 

 

Which other Scottish Makers do you love to recommend?

The Kilt Experience are a small, artisan company who hand sew kilts and make their own sporrans.

Thanks so much to Ashley and everyone at House of Cheviot for their time chatting to us about their beautiful Made in Scotland socks! Make sure to check out their website, Facebook and Instagram pages to find out more about their stunning range of colourful socks!