By Janice Hopper

Ruth Hyde is known in Cullen, Morayshire, for her fabric designs inspired by the seascapes and countryside that surround her. With her husband Howard Owens, they built and run the Cullen Harbour Hostel, welcoming guests to the Moray coast. While Ruth finds time to escape to her artist studio, Howard meanwhile is often found in his yard working with Caithness Slate, creating hearths and feature pieces. Together they are an artistic couple putting Cullen on the creative map.

Ruth’s fabric designs are clean, crisp, bright and modern but they take inspiration from timeless rural and coastal objects, bringing an agelessness and a certain innocence to her creations. Hemp rope, hawberry bushes, ivy leaves, boats and bales pepper her portfolio. The designs summon up images of the rigging of old maritime vessels, blustery seaside walks, farmland and ancient forests, yet they’re bang up to date.

While Ruth has years of experience in upholstering and design under her belt, her new venture, Cairnie Wheeber, is just beginning to get noticed. The name itself is a bit different. Ruth explains: “In 2007 Howard and I purchased a bit of wasteland next to the Aberdeen/Inverness railway near Keith. It’s called the Cairnie Junction as it was the point where the train route diverged, one line going to Banff, the other to the Highlands. The junction was demolished during the Beeching cuts in the 1960s and we now have a workshop and office on the site. The main line still whistles past and long may it continue. In the Aberdeen Banff area Wheeber means to Whistle, hence the name Cairnie Wheeber.”

Ruth’s journey to the Moray Coast and the Cairnie junction started in northern England. Growing up in Hull, Ruth loved sewing as a child. At 18-years-old she moved to Aberdeen with Howard where she worked as an industrial sewing machinist in the city, then interned for an upholsterer in Deeside learning more about her trade.

After a stint working from home she opened her first shop in Alford, then moved it to Aberdeen’s Belmont Street producing a range of furniture. But it was the design of fabric that captured Ruth’s imagination and she enrolled at Gray’s School of Art to study textile design, graduating in the mid 1990s. Family also played a key role in Ruth’s creative story. Bringing up four children took time, focus and dedication but it was the loss of her twin sister in 2012 that left an indelible mark. Ruth says: "My sister was also a creative person. The shock of losing her set me back, but also gave me a right royal boot up the backside, making me realise if I wanted to do anything I better just do it."

This emotional jolt, alongside her children growing up, gave Ruth the time and the impetus she needed to pursue Cairnie Wheeber designs. Her home and hostel in Cullen, with a site right on the shoreline, has inspired the designs that Ruth creates today. The shifting weather patterns, seascapes and rural countryside of Morayshire offer rich pickings.

“I like to paint and sketch,” says Ruth, “If I see something that captures my imagination I might sit down and draw it out or I’ll photograph it. The immediate coastline in front of us is always fascinating, it changes all the time physically, sometimes the sand appears gouged out and sometimes it’s pushed right up, sometimes patches are exposed and different sizes of rocks and pebbles collect in different areas. The colours of sea and sky always amaze me and are ever varied. The walk over the railway viaduct and coastal paths are loved by everyone here, including me. I take my camera and get photos that feed in to my work, or I just retain images in my head without a conscious effort.”

Once back in the shelter of the workshop Ruth scans her initial sketch onto her computer. She admits she spent a lot of time mastering the new technology necessary to design things to her requirements. From Autocad to Photoshop, Ruth selected a gallery of specific colours and tones that became her signature style. She plays with the scale of her sketch, she experiments with colours and textures. It’s a dedicated process of experimentation, rejection and sometimes simplification.

Once the digital design is completed it’s sent to her manufacturer and a tester piece of fabric is returned. Ruth admits it’s never really what was expected: “From here I make adjustments, I keep making choices. The colour can be too saturated. Perhaps the tester simply isn’t what I had in my mind’s eye, it can be very different, it’s either not what I wanted or it somehow works anyway. It’s often a surprise because digital images just don't look like printed fabrics, I have to judge from experience how a design will print. If I could tinker with the design forever I would, luckily the process doesn't allow such indulgence!”

When Ruth is happy with her choices she adds the swatch to her gallery. Potential customers can then browse online, or visit in person, and choose a design and colour scheme to suit their tastes and purpose. Bespoke designs or colour schemes are also possible by arrangement.

Ruth’s fabric of choice is unbleached linen. Customers are offered the option of 100% linen or a linen union which is part viscose and part linen (a cellulose fibre, plant based, which takes the same dyes as cotton). Ruth likes the fact that linen has the natural properties of materials such as silk and cotton. The two linen types display colour differently: it’s usually brighter on the union and slightly more understated on pure linen, so this can influence a customer’s choice of fabric.

“Linen works well for furniture and curtains, it’s elegant yet tough, and it hangs well,” Ruth says, “I know how fabrics work. I like the way linen behaves, it drapes but it’s crisp as well. It’s not uniform, it’s not perfect like a manufactured synthetic fabric. It’s got a real feel and look to it, an irregularity that draws me to it. I like seeing the weave in a material. When linen’s washed and used it fades and ages well. I like a material that matures gracefully.”

Cairnie Wheeber’s designs offer a hint of the great outdoors indoors, for homeowners with a passion for the Scottish countryside and its heritage. The names of the fabrics are enticingly straightforward and specific; ‘Bales’, ‘Vessels’, ‘Deck Rope’, ’Kinraddie’ and ‘Cluny’. Her most recent design, ’Pinebranch’, originated from a branch found at the Cairnie Junction which Ruth combined with a 1950s themed design. And for customers with a taste for the modern Ruth also has some abstract designs entitled ‘Grid’, ‘Soundwave’, ‘Jogline’ and one design called ‘City’ which offers variety for customers looking for cleaner lines.

“My customers are generally people who want something original and good quality, a product they will enjoy for many years,” Ruth concludes, “Furnishings are an expense which you shouldn't have to keep changing like a dress. They need to have a timeless ingredient and I provide that.”

Discover more at http://cairniewheeber.scot/fabrics/