About Us

Adelaide Walker has been supplying fibres to the textile craft industry for over 40 years, and we pride ourselves on continuing to deliver friendly and helpful customer service and high quality fibres. The good news is that the business is run by fibre nuts, we love the stuff and the smell and feel of the fibres is just wonderful. We make felt , spin and weave so you can be confident that we understand your needs.  Meet the family -

Angela Barrow - taught knitting, embroidery, and crochet by her Grandma, Angela then spent a career in marketing, public relations and communications. She began working with wool fibres around twenty five years ago and is now a City & Guilds qualified feltmaker who teaches this fascinating art, take a peek at her website. Although relatively new to weaving, she is already well and tuly hooked on spinning with two wheels and over two dozen spindles and runs drop spindle  and wheel spinning workshops!. Angela is also a keen wildlife gardener.

Simon Battersby - Simon isn't a fibre nut, yet, but is slowly being drawn further into the joys of wool. Having tried his hand at drop spindling he's discovered the ease and possibilities of needle felting and is taking to weaving like a duck to water. Simon now also makes all of our top whorl hand turned drop spindles in our garage in Ilkley, he sells through us and through his own site  Northern Spindles. You'll meet him in the shop and at shows and he also provides IT support, accountancy and porterage. He's recently been refurbishing spinning wheels so you can expect us to have the occasional secondhand wheel for sale.

Charlotte Battersby - A very important partner who has taken on the challenge of social media and training of Mum and Dad!  Many of the blends we offer are designed by Charlotte and she's solely resonsible for our popular mystery fibre boxes. You'll also see Charlotte in the shop and at shows and, as a very keen spinner herself, expect her to offer drop spindle spinning classes in the near future. When she's not busy at AW she's developing her own textile business where she designs and hand embroiders home decor, jewellery and clothing. Her business is Sea and Bee Embroidery on Etsy and commissions are welcome.

So who is Adelaide?

The business originally grew from Walker's who sold wool commercially in Bradford. In the 1970s, a separate business was created to serve the craft industry, which was originally located in Adelaide Street, in Bradford, hence the name Adelaide Walker. We do occasionally get letters addressed 'Dear Adelaide...' but in fact there never was such a person.

What we believe

A fair price for both customers and our business.

Support for other local businesses wherever we can, there's a wealth of expertise and creativity in the country, let's support it.

Protecting the environment. What we're doing is reducing our plastic use where we can having already eliminated 90% of the plastic from some of our mixed packs. We re-use all undamaged plastic, paper and cardboard packing that comes to us through our suppliers. We have trialled compostable external packaging but unfortunately it didn't withstand the twin pressures of fluffy fibres and the postal system so it's not currently in use. We do expect this packaging to improve so we will be looking to use it in the future.Some of our products e.g. the fibre advent and spinning kits are already plastic free.

What you can do - feel free to bring back any undamaged packaging that we can reuse. if you've received plastic needle or dye containers we'd love to re-use them, you can bring them to the shop, a show or post them to us. You could also bring your own bags when shopping with us.