The majority of our, fabrics, however lovely, were designed somewhere else, for someone else, and we have then purchased them and brought them to you. Heart of Huddersfield has never worked that way. Every autumn since 2019, Fabworks has curated this annual collection, commissioned and designed by us, woven up on the moorland of West Yorkshire, imbued with a sense of place and Yorkshire personality, and becoming increasingly ecologically sound, adhering to our principle that wasting yarn, like wasting cloth, is detrimental to the planet. We have taken Yorkshire pride in every collection, and now, entering the eighth chapter in 2026, we have created our most ambitious collection yet: seventeen speckled herringbone tweeds, each with its own colour story, every one of them woven with a single, unbroken chestnut-brown warp. One warp with seventeen locally influenced stories.
There is a particular kind of Yorkshire September morning, as the colours of the landscape start to emerge from the red sunrise, with honey-gold light that tinges the bronzing bracken of the hillside above the lingering soft grey mist of the valley which gradually lifts like a feather down duvet from the woods of green conifer and the myriad golds and browns of oak and birch. There is the first hint of autumnal chill in the air, fresh and invigorating. It is this morning that this year's Heart of Huddersfield collection was woven to encapsulate in cloth.
We are ready to tell you about it.
Exclusivity is only half of what makes Heart of Huddersfield special. The other half is where it comes from. Each stage of the process, from collecting the yarn through weaving and finishing, happens in Huddersfield, the town where the rivers Colne and Holme meet and the soft Pennine water once made this the finest wool-washing ground in the world. It's the reason cloth from here became the choice of kings, and it's the same craft, the same hands, still at work today. Fabworks itself sits just up the road in Dewsbury. This is about as close to home as fabric gets.
And then there is the yarn itself. Every colourway is built from carefully selected surplus and rescued yarns - the remaining half spools from large manufacturers that would otherwise have been discarded. We don't apologise for that; we intentionally design with it. It means every one of the seventeen colourways exists in a genuinely limited run, each producing between 35m - 90m of finished cloth for our very special collection. Once a colourway sells out, it is gone for good. No reorder. No repeat. This is a collectible, not a staple - closer to a small print run from a favourite illustrator than another length of cloth off an endless roll.
If you want to understand why this collection feels different, it helps to know where the words behind it came from. As a team we created the colour palettes together. Every name and every product description in this year's range was created by Dawn, Fabworks’ Fabric Specialist and textile expert, whose own family wove in the Holme Valley for generations - her great-grandparents farmed in Netherthong, her grandfather kept the mill steam engines running, her grandmother and great-aunts were weavers themselves. The make-do-and-mend attitude that sits at the heart of the 2026 collection's rescued-yarn story isn't a marketing idea Fabworks borrowed. It's what Dawn grew up watching, three generations before "sustainable" became a word anyone needed.That's why we say people buy Heart of Huddersfield for the heritage as much for the story as the quality, and when you create a self-bespoke garment with it you add your own chapters to that story, which is one that will last for years.
Each number corresponds to a fabric within the 2026 Heart of Huddersfield Collection.
Seventeen colourways is a lot of cloth to fall in love with, so consider this the introduction rather than the whole story - we'll bring you deeper into the collection, fabric by fabric, but here we introduce you to some of the names of the latest collection for you to understand our inspiration and the true heritage behind each fabric.
There's warmth here that calls to mind late-harvest light and woodsmoke, imbued by the chestnut-coloured warp that runs consistently throughout each fabric.
Every name in this collection is drawn from somewhere real - a village, a hillside, a mill pond, a moor edge, all found along the stretch of the Colne and Holme valleys and surrounding area in West Yorkshire, where the cloth itself is made. It isn't decoration. It's a map of where this collection comes from and what it is founded on, cloth by cloth, and it's what lets each colourway carry a genuine sense of place rather than simply a pretty word. This is what elevates this collection above the ordinary. A name here doesn't just describe a colour - it weaves fabric and location together as surely as warp and weft, and the valleys, the water and the hills that make Heart of Huddersfield possible in the first place, woven into every metre. This means that each of the seventeen fabrics echoes its geographically-inspired name, carrying its own light and its own story, and what makes this collection feel unmistakably a piece of Fabworks - home-inspired, home-grown, and entirely our own.
Honley Harvest is a deep honeyed amber, flecked with sunshine gold and burning orange, named for the Holme Valley village recorded in the Domesday Book. Then there's the earthy hush of Cragg Vale Peat, soft beige and cream neps (flecks) settling across a leaf-mulch brown like fireflies coming out at dusk. There's brightness too - Wessenden Foxglove in ruby pink, and Crossland Hill Fireworks in an ember orange that does exactly what its name promises.
And then there is the shimmer. Two of this year's cloths - Saltaire Silver Heather and Slaithwaite Stone — carry a silvery yarn running throughout, closer to the silvered flash of fish scales than to anything as plain as grey. It is, without question, the hardest thing in this collection to capture in a photograph, and the easiest thing to fall for the moment it's in your hands. If you take away only one reason to wait for a sample rather than judging from a screen, let it be that.
Every one of the seventeen is a speckled herringbone, akin to a Donegal Tweed - with our own Yorkshire-inspired twist. They are all 100% pure wool, in a medium weight built for structure and warmth, threaded throughout with that same chestnut warp that holds the whole collection together. Without it, this much colour and this many multicoloured neps might have felt scattered. With it, everything reads as autumn, as depth, as one family of cloth rather than seventeen strangers sharing a shelf.
This is, first and foremost, a collection for autumn and winter garment-making. The weight and the handle are built for structure: think tailored coats, fitted jackets, skirts, minis with a classic twist, A-line, four gore, six gore, asymmetric, and also wide-leg trousers that will carry you from the first cold snap through to spring. These fabrics press beautifully, hold a crease, and being a genuine herringbone rather than a printed imitation, will only look better with age.
This is not just a collection for wearing. In smaller cuts, these herringbone tweeds give a lift to the home as cushion covers, table runners, fantastic curtains, or the kind of soft furnishing accent that turns a room autumnal without redecorating it. Think of a half-metre as dipping into the collection, and combining several half metres will enable you to be inventive.
A big shift this year is in how we'd like you to think about our Heart of Huddersfield collection. Seventeen colourways is not seventeen separate fabrics to consider one at a time - it's one cohesive collection, meant to be seen and felt as a whole. That's what the shared warp is for. It's what lets a lilac heather and a bracken neutral and a sapphire blue all belong to the same story, the way chapters belong to the same book. We hope you'll come to think of Heart of Huddersfield the way you might think of a favourite annual publication: something you watch for every autumn, collect a little of when you can, and never quite see it the same way twice.
Heart of Huddersfield 2026 launches online and in the Mill Shop on Thursday 10th September. Given the nature of this collection - small runs, no repeats, with the genuine possibility that your favourite colourway may already be spoken for by the time you visit, we'd gently suggest that this is not one to sleep on.
Next week we will be taking a closer look at the collection: the full colour story and a full product preview to all seventeen fabrics. For now, consider this your invitation to start dreaming up what you'll make with a piece of Fabworks' own.
One warp. Seventeen stories. Endless opportunities to create a one-off piece to cherish.
Timeline Dates
Blog 1 (pre-launch) Thursday 3rd September 2026
Blog 2 (pre-launch) Tuesday 8th September 2026
Collection Launch: Thursday 10th September 2026
Garment Inspiration: October 2026
2019: First Ever HoH Collection
2020: Thistledown Marl
2021: Twill Melton
2022: The Herringbones
2023: Crosshatch Chronicles
2024: Eco Herringbones
2025: Delicious Delights
2026: Coming Soon
Coming Soon: Tuesday 8th September
On Tuesday 8th, we'll take you further into the collection: from surplus yarn to finished tweed, and the flecks and neps that give every colourway its speckled character. We'll walk you through the collection one fabric at a time - name, photo, code, the story behind each name, and its weight - just enough to fall in love with, and decide which are your first picks - an exclusive insight for Fabworks Bulletin subscribers only, before the full launch.
Everyone else will have to wait for launch day itself, Thursday 10th September – 48 hours after Blog 2
One warp. Seventeen stories. See you on Tuesday for the second Blog 2.