Hello everyone, so bright and early on Saturday morning me and Sandra headed out to Waas to have a look at the Show and judge the Colourbox competition. This is only the 3rd year we have had the colourbox at the Walls Show so it is a bit smaller but still has beautiful entries:
Once we had done our bit we enjoyed wandering around looking at the animals and other entries. While we were driving out it was pretty rainy but luckily it was dry and sunny on the Westside (which is quite often the way!) so we had a great time.
Like all shows in Shetland the knitwear is to an extremly high standard, there was quite alot of lace but also Fair Isle. The judges had a tough job!
There are still a couple of shows still to be but thats the last with the Colourbox for this year, next years colours have been chosen so we are looking forward to 2019 already!
hello everyone, a quick post today about a new version we have of one of our classic patterns, the Brora Black Cobweb Shawl is another one of Gladys Amedro many Shetland 1ply Shawls which Jamieson & Smith released in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. This pattern was released in 1991 and like all of Gladys patterns was written rather than charted – but recently we had a customer, Heather, who had re charted the pattern for herself and allowed us to use her charts for a charted version of the pattern.
It features lots of tree motif’s – you see a lot of trees in Shetland knitting considering we don’t have very many..! They are often seen in Fair Isle in yokes as you can decrease incredibly successfully around them as you can see here in the Hairst Yoke:
For the type of shawls that this one is the tree motif is quite apt as it is often known as the Tree of Life. There are a number of similar motif’s in Heirloom Knitting by Sharon Miller and they are described as such, a 1ply shawl is also used as a christening shawl and they were/are given to a new baby as a present or to be wrapped around them at their Christening.
This shawl is quite unusual as it was knit in Black, most are made in white but this was also seen to be able to be used as an evening shawl. Regarding the construction you first knit the border to create the scallops then pick up the stitches and work each triangle 4 times at the same time gradually decreasing as you get towards the centre. This means at the end there is no sewing to be done except your ends!
If you would like to knit your own Brora Black we have added the charted pattern kit to the online shop – you can choose to knit it in Cobweb 1 ply available in White and Black or Shetland Supreme 1 ply Available in 5 natural shades and Optic White (Optic is currently out of stock but we are hoping to have it mid August) if you want to know more about the merits of choosing a woollen spun yarn versus a worsted have a look at this post.
1ply supreme optic, white, fawn and moorit1ply grey, 1ply shetland black, cobweb white and cobweb black
We are planning to work our way through many of our written patterns and translate them to also be available as a charted one too, so we hope you like it!
PS.. we recently got some new peerie project bags you can see them here
Hello everyone! thank you for your response to our last post, we are so pleased with how many of you are picking up the book, the digital PDF version is now online too.
Today i’m back with some photos from Shetland Wool Week, every year that it gets bigger I get less photos but I still got a good selection from what was happening in the shop.. We had classes every weekday alongside some free drop in events and it worked really well. We always have an excellent response to Hazels Fair Isle class..
Fair Isle with Hazel Tindallknitting, cutting and steek relief!
And Felicity Ford was back again with her inspirational Mitts-a-long, this year everyone left with a full 8 balls of Jumper weight to finish their project started in the class inspired by a group of photos and a colour palette picked by Felix
Mittsalong Class with Felicity Ford (and a fetching neepheid!)more nice knitwear in Felix’s’ class – a Cruden and Laebrack
We tried to fight the losing battle of keeping shelves filled up (if anyone can do it, its Sandra!) And we had more classes like Drop Spindling..
Drop Spindling with Deborah Gray
And a great evening event which was a trunk show for Jen and Jim Arnal Cullifords new book – A Year of Techniques which features a couple of projects in J&S yarns. It was great to see them again and celebrate the new book!
A Year of Techniques Trunk Show
We loved this hat which features the motif’s from the Baable Hat, Crofthoose and Bousta Beanie!
Felicity and Sandra say cheers to J&S!
We also had a launch event for our new book, and had all the designs on display. It was so good to finally have all the projects out and the book available. yippee!
Friday Morning was a bit quieter which was good as we had a lace class with Elizabeth Johnston, something which needs a bit of concentration I reckon!
Shetland Lace with Elizabeth JohnstonFelicity’s amazing wedding bunting!
Oliver’s last tour of Wool Week
But Friday afternoon was so busy! We had Oliver’s last tour of the week and a trunk show for Felicity’s next book, and everyone seemed to come for a look.. I don’t know how I had time to get the above pictures!
The Hub
After work on Friday I crawled to the museum to visit the Hub and admire the knitwear on display and the merchandise, I love the sweatshirts! (I bought one, of course!)
On Saturday Me, Kharis and Sandra were at the shop but i nipped over to Gremista farm where we were holding an event together with Eric at the farm and Vispring. Unfortuantely the Flock Book event fell outside Wool Week so we decided to have an event with sheep, food and farmers which went down really well and we are already thinking about how to make next year better!
Aah, all in all another successful Wool Week. There is such an amazing range of events on all week and this is just a small slice of what happened at J&S, happy knitting!
Hello everyone, happy Friday! I’m back with the final installment of our trips to the Shows – this time the Walls Show – there are others which we wont make it to but these are the three which have the Colourbox in it so we always go! Last Saturday was not too bad a day weatherwise, there were a couple of showers while we were there (you can see some offending clouds above!) so me and Sandra had a fine drive out to Waas.
Me and Sandra judged the Colourbox and the most of the knitwear at the show, this is only the second year we have done the Colourbox at Waas so it is still small but growing so we were pleased to see the entries, there was a good amount of entries in the other knitting so we had our work cut out for us.
There were lots of amazing Fair Isle and Lace to be seen..
Again once we had done our judging thing we went for a look around at all the animals and other entries..
This was a very friendly kitten in the pets section..i think Sandra would have taken it home if she could!
And then we also made friends with the Goats (there is another version of this photo in the Shetland Times today – just know I set it up and the photographer swooped in!!)
I really enjoying going to the different shows and seeing whats similar but also different about them all. We were quite lucky with the weather this year but for our judging we are always inside so its fine for us! I hope you’ve enjoyed the photos from the shows, we have already chosen the colours for next years Colourbox and people have been buying them already so it bodes well for next years entries. Happy Knitting!
Following on from Voe, last Wednesday was a bit brighter and Oliver and Me (Ella) headed down to Cunningsburgh for the Show, I was judging the Colourbox again alongside some other knitwear and Oliver was Judging the Wool.
I was put to work and worked my way through the Colourbox and other categories, there were some beautiful items in the Colourbox as always and the rest of the knitwear was of an extremely high quality too. The tropy winner for the Colourbox was the vest in the first picture, I loved the way the colours were put together and it was beatifully knitted. You can see above they also had a Bousta Beanie section!
The Wool is usually in another shed/tent but this year it was in the same shed as me so I was able to keep and eye on Oliver and his judging and after he was finished we started to make our way around all the other bits of the show.
There was a bit of a surprise arrival as you can see in the photo below!
This sheep obviously was trying to get on Oliver’s good side…
and this duck was interested in making friends too!
We had a great time as we always do at the Cunningsburgh show, the Colourbox is growing every year and I love to see all the animals. Cunningsburgh Show allows entries from the whole of Shetland whereas the others are all more area specific so there is always lots to see, it had 2841 entries in total this year!
Ill be back at the end of the week with our last show trip – to Waas, Happy Knitting!
As our yarn range grows and changes sometimes its fun to take a look back at one of our older patterns and try it in a newer range. This is what Sandra did recently with the catchily named ‘My Weekly Baby Knits Shawl L252’ – originally released in the 1980’s and designed by Gladys Amedro.
Originally knit in the Woollen Spun 2ply Lace Sandra remade this version in the undyed White shade of Shetland Supreme 2ply Lace – worsted spun and somewhat finer this has resulted in a very soft and drapey shawl.
I was surprised how modern and wearable it seemed when we were rephotographing it, it would still make a perfect Hap for a baby or a christening but wrapped around your neck and shoulders its lovely and quite stylish! The Shetland Supreme 2ply is quite lightweight but also substantial due to the two plys, the worsted yarn of course is fine for next to skin and I can imagine it would look lovely in all the natural 2ply Shades.
Construction wise the shawl is made as indicated by my quick drawing above – you initially knit the edging first, the stitches are all picked up and the four borders worked at the same time in the round. The centre is then knitted from one of these borders and knit whilst attaching to the other two sides and grafted onto the last border.
We decided to rename this pattern the Sletts Shawl, which is where we took the photographs, its a bay in the town and made the perfect backdrop for the shawl. We have also updated the pattern with charts and updated all the abbreviations to the modern ones, so you can see on the product page there are now two choices for the kit – one is the original patttern and knit in L1 Woollen Spun Lace and the new pattern which is both written and charted in the Shetland Supreme. We hope this means there is something for everyone depending on how you like your lace patterns!
We hope your enjoying your summer, we have been been having some nice summery weather in Shetland so long may it continue, Happy Knitting!
Hello! We had our last Up Helly Aa of 2017 on Friday so that marks the end of our Fire Festival Knit a Long, we have been so pleased with the amount of people who have knit something with the colours we chose, due to the number of entries I decided to try something different and have you guys vote for your favourite, I have broken it down into Garments and Accessories/Others.
I couldn’t do a poll with the images in it so you might have to make a note of your favourite piece and then put it in the poll for the two categories. For more information have a look here which list all the entries and you can go into each project to find out more from the knitter.
Garments
Ready For Lerwick by ClaudiajanoFire Festival KAL by DottyBevUp Helly Aa by AuchnagaoithPeat Hill Wasitcoat by BraemberiLittle Winter Star Fire Festival by TorirotFire Festival KAL by Rubin
Accessory/Other
Fire Festival KAL by alysmithAmerican Fire by bdegarFire Festival KAL by EvaL8Up Helly Aa scarf by HadewychsFire Festival Bousta Beanie by JaneKALUp Helly Aa by JConklinRagnorok by JelibetUp Helly Aa by JensknitsUp Helly Aa Hat by jn1982Fire Scatness by KnitMomWiUp Helly Aa hat by KTMaineFire Wind Water Cowl by kyspinnerUp Helly Aa Mitts by LaknitsFair Isle Mitts by lav2017 J&S Fire Festival KAL by LKLawsonknitsFire KAL mitts by MaureeninFargoFire Festival KAL by meigsviewFire Festival KAL by merelideShetland KAL by namihnSpritely SMUHA by sockspriteNorse Fire Socks by tinygiraffeFire Festival KAL by tjitshereFire Festival KAL by torirtotSaudade by woolyeyes
The poll will be open until next week when we will reveal the winners in the two categories, good luck to everyone and thank you so much for taking part in the Knit A Long – we love doing them and seeing all the different things people make from the same selection of colours!
Hello everyone, so bright and early on Saturday morning me and Sandra headed out to Waas to have a look at the Show and judge the Colourbox competition. This is only the 3rd year we have had the colourbox at the Walls Show so it is a bit smaller but still has beautiful entries:
We’ve had a few questions about the Colourbox Shades so for a reminder the 2018 colours were: 3, 53, 66, 72, 87, 366, fc37 and fc56.
