Da Crofters Kep Kit Pre-Orders

Hello everyone, you may have seen that today the new Shetland Wool Week hat pattern – Da Crofters Kep was launched!!

Sadly again this year Shetland Wool Week will be online (keep an eye out later in the year for more on that!) but this means that Wilma Malcomson has continued her reign as Patron for another year and designed another beautiful hat, Da Crofters Kep.

Unfortunately, even with planning and ordering ahead, we are out of stock of one of the shades (FC38) in the J&S colourway 😦 Lockdown, coronavirus etc etc has really impacted our production chain as it has for many people and businesses but we are offering a pre-order option for our colourway.

If you order it you will pay for it now but it will not be posted until we have the full kit in stock – we are hoping it will be less than a month but we cannot guarantee this, we are asking for your understanding and patience with this and you can be sure AS SOON as that missing shade appears we will be getting those kits out!

2021 Shetland Wool Week Hat J&S Colourway: 2ply Jumper Weight FC46, 82, FC38, 122, 32 and Shetland Supreme Jumper Weight 2005 Shetland Black.

As always with the Wool Week Hat patterns we love to see the variety in everyone’s finished hats and for this design you need two balls of your main shade (one if you use Shetland Supreme Jumper weight) and one ball each of 5 contrast shades of 2ply Jumper Weight.

We cant wait to see everyones Crofter Keps! Happy Knitting!

UPDATE 30/4 We now have kits available and have fulfilled all the pre-orders. You can order kits here

Chunky Knitting

Hello everyone, during these strange times, it can be hard to find things for children and young people to do in their downtime, looking at screens or watching tv is good some of the time but not all the time so knitting could be a new skill they take up, It improves fine motor skills, problem-solving and math skills as well as using their creativity and reducing stress.

Our Shetland Chunky range is now discontinued but this means the stock we have is available at a reduced price, originally it was £7.50 per 100g ball but we are now offering it at £3.50 a ball, there are lots of great patterns out there for chunkier yarn and there are a few free patterns which are designed for our Shetland Chunky:

Chunkeanie by Woolly Wormhead

Inga Scarf by J&S

Beanie in J&S Chunky Wool by Liz Lovick

These patterns all include different elements of rib, reading your knitting and in the case of the Chunkeanie – knitting in the round. Once these skills are learnt they can be grown upon and using slightly thicker wool, to begin with, will encourage beginners not to give up! There is a lot of help available online too – if you search ‘knitting tutorial beginners’ on youtube, there are literally hundreds of videos that come up!

Happy Knitting!

Roadside Beanie

Hello everyone, today is the first day of the Edinburgh Yarn Festival marketplace, Derek and Sandra are there (if you are going we can be found at stand K8) but Oliver is also down because he has been announced at this year’s Shetland Wool Week Patron!

We are very excited of course as Oliver was instrumental in organising the first Shetland Wool Week 10 years ago as J&S founded the event. It has gone from strength to strength every year so for the 10th anniversary, it’s great to see such an important figure in the Shetland Wool Industry as the patron.

Oliver’s design – the Roadside Beanie has been launched today and you can find kits here on the website and the pattern here on the Wool Week website. The design features common motifs for a Shetlander, sheep and fishing boats! To learn more about the Roadside Beanie have a read of the pattern.

We are extremely proud of Oliver and look forward to seeing all the Roadside Beanies this year. Happy Knitting!

Bousta Beanie kits

This past weekend it was the Edinburgh Yarn Festival which has become the time when the new Shetland Wool Week hat and patron are announced, this year is it Shetland born designer Gudrun Johnston and her beautiful Bousta Beanie design!

You can download the pattern here and find our kits for the given colourways here, if you want to choose your own colours simply buy two balls of your main colour and one ball each of your two contrasts, with such a graphic motif its hard to go wrong and this makes the pattern an excellent choice for Fair Isle newbies and experts alike!

How about greys?

203, 81 and 54

Or grellow?

54, 91 and 23

or these?

FC47. FC7 and 125

29, 1281 and 122

FC56, FC50 and FC9

The possibilities are endless! Remember to tag your projects on instagram and Ravelry with  #boustabeanie and #Shetlandwoolweek2017 so others can see your Bousta Beanie and spread the story of Shetland Wool Week, happy knitting!

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Winter Woollies KAL: colour and patterns

Hello! We are so excited as to how many of you have picked up the colours for the Winter Woollies KAL! there is still plenty of time left to get involved so today I thought I’d share some of our thought on the colours and a few ideas for free patterns available on Ravelry.

As you know the Knit A Long requires you to use at least four shades so we (Me -Ella, Amy and Kharis) tried to pick 2 lots of four shades of 2ply Jumper Weight that worked together. Our first group is shades 1,203,FC34 and FC41

To us these colours make us think of dark nights, snow, ice, stormy skies and seas.. all typical of a winter in Shetland! our second group is FC43, FC38, 65 and 9113

These colours are more ‘inside’ inspired shades – roaring fires, christmas trees, baking and mulled wine.

We hoped  by having these two groups it might give people more ideas – of course you can mix and match to your hearts content, it is just a starting off point and by changing one or more you get a different look –

Sometimes it can be daunting to try and come up with a pattern too, even once you have decided on your colours.. To that end I thought I’d show you some fun patterns all available for free on Ravelry – they all call for fingering weight yarn which is what 2ply Jumper Weight comes under and a few even call for 2ply Jumper Weight exactly (Fair Isle Cuffs, Kite Mitts, Shwook hat) so all you have to do is pick your colour arrangement..

clockwise from top left; fair isle cuffs, kites, far me socks, classic colourwork cowl

retro sampler, snowflake fingerless mitts, solidago socks, shwook hat

sheep may safely graze, tourbillon, stem and leaf cowl, fair isle flower sock

You will see some of the patterns only use 2 or 3 shades, all this means is you will have to add a couple more shades in to get to your 4 colours. This is easily done by doing a bit of background shading or foreground shading. If you feel you need to rechart the Fair Isle into your colours there are a few good free options – one is this Chartmaker which is free, there are also a few good tutorials online about using Microsoft excel to colour a chart (like this one)

I hope this has given you some ideas! We cant wait to see peoples ideas begin to take shape – remember to tag your project on ravelry and instagram using #winterwoolliesKAL and to share your projects in the group on the Jamieson & Smith Lovers group page

Happy Knitting!

The Wool Ride

During Wool Week there are many things happening all over the UK, of course we will be busy with Shetland Wool Week but in London the Campaign for Wool will be hosting their Wool Ride!

from the Campaign for Wool website: Starting and finishing at Potters Fields on Sunday 5th October, the bicycle ride will journey through some of the streets made famous by London’s most prominent wool supporters, including the archetypal Jermyn Street. Participants will also be able to take in some of London’s key sights and hotspots, passing through iconic scenery such as; London Bridge, Buckingham Palace, Westminster, Knightsbridge, Park Lane and Regent Street. Commencing at 9am and running through till 2pm, this 13.4 mile ride, estimated to take around 1 hour 38 minutes, takes riders along a meandering route with time to soak up the atmosphere and enjoy the sights of the capital at a leisurely pace.

in celebration of the Wool Ride, Sandra has designed two free patterns which you can download and make yourself. The Rastoorie and the Bikers Hat. Both are designed to fit over a cycling helmet but of course if you use smaller needles or block the hat over a smaller plate (Sandra used a large dinner plate) it will fit a lot less slouchy. Although if you like that look, go for it!

The Rastoorie uses lots of small amounts of Jumper Weight so its great for using up odds and ends and the bikers hat features a fun bike motif ‘cycling’ around the hat!

for more information and to download the free patterns, click  here

Its been a very busy summer at J&S so we haven’t had much time to blog, but with visits from Kate Davies, Deb Robson, Mary Jane Mucklestone and Gudrun Johnson thankfully they have blogged about visiting us! of course the usual tourist season filled with cruise ships and holiday goers has meant for a busy shop.

We are now beginning to get organised for Wool Week, and we cant wait!

Speak soon!

Love Wool UK

Jamieson & Smith are delighted to be a part of Love Wool UK – a free style celebration of wool that any individual or group can take part in, just by signing up. 

We’ve specially commissioned two patterns for free download, which you get as a lovely little present by signing up here.

1&2 Inga Scarf in Shetland Chunky 3&4 Sissal gloves in 2 Ply Jumper Weight