Sometimes the things that happen when you least expect it are the best things. Unexpected, unpredictable, unique. 

Such is the case with our new Fleetwood colourway, Sloe. 

As those followers of HERD will know, we only use plant dyes, and they sometimes produce unexpected results. The resulting colour can be darker or lighter depending on the level of sunlight when the dye plant was growing, or the alkaline content of the water in the dye vat. We have seen this with our colourways Moss and Forest, for example. 

In this case though, we were trying to dye Anthracite - our deep brown-black, using Logwood, and it came out this gorgeous soft deep blue, which we have named after the Sloe berry. 

Another thing that makes Sloe so incredibly special is that it's really difficult to achieve blue in plant dyes, as both Indigo and Woad (the European indigo) are not water soluble so need completely different dyeing processes and equipment to other dye plants. 

We've been able to make just 12 Fleetwood Cardigans and 7 Fleetwood Jumpers in Sloe from this first batch.