Shetland knitting

Shetland Wool Week 2017 at J&S

October 4, 2017Jamieson&Smith7 Comments

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..

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..

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!

We loved this hat which features the motif’s from the Baable Hat, Crofthoose and Bousta Beanie!

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!

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!

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!

Walls Show 2017

August 18, 2017Jamieson&Smith7 Comments

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!

PS>> Have you started your Bousta Beanie yet? We are 5 days in our KAL and lots are on the needles on Ravelry already!

Cunningsburgh Show 2017

August 16, 2017August 14, 2017Jamieson&Smith6 Comments

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!

Sletts Shawl L252 Re-imagined

July 10, 2017Jamieson&Smith7 Comments

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!

Fire Festival KAL finished objects

March 22, 2017March 31, 2017Jamieson&Smith16 Comments

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

Little Winter Star Fire Festival by Torirot

Accessory/Other

2017 J&S Fire Festival KAL by LKLawsonknits

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!

Happy Choosing!

Save

Selection Boxes

February 21, 2017Jamieson&Smith8 Comments

Hello! it can be quite hard sometimes to choose colours, especially if you are looking to try out a yarn range with no particular project in mind, we have been thinking of ways you can pick up a one stop box full of Shetland Wool so in that vein we have put together a selection of… Selection Boxes!

In a few of the smaller ranges you will receive each of the available shades (1ply Supreme, Shetland Heritage Naturals and Supreme Jumper Weight) but for the rest we have picked a range of shades which we feel will work well together in a project or just round out your stash!

You will get your selection box in a sturdy, naturally finished box stamped with the J&S logo which is included in the price. It makes a great gift for knitters but also makes a nice treat for yourself, we have started with a smaller range of choices but if you think there is something else you’d love to see – let us know! You can see the boxes on the website here.

Happy Knitting!

PS – remember there is still time to take part in the Fire Festival Kal, there have been some really beautiful projects appearing in our Ravelry group!

Deepdale Shawl Colourways

November 3, 2016Jamieson&Smith4 Comments

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Every now and again we come into work at the shop and find there are a lots of orders for the same thing without knowing what its for! a few months ago that happened and we noticed there were a number of orders for 2ply Lace in shades L54, L203, L3 and L202. I thought they looked lovely together and then when I went on Ravelry later on I realised Gudrun Johnston had chosen to use those shades for one of her colourways in her MKAL pattern.

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For the past couple of years Gudrun has run a mystery knit along where each week new clues are revealed and you don’t know what the final project will look like! this shawl was this years effort and the final pattern is now available itself: Deepdale

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It gave me an idea to put together a few colourways using the 2ply Lace, it’s a sometimes overlooked yarn but it makes for lovely lightweight but warm projects.

the original colourway: L54, L203, L202 and L3

A number of people also ordered the Shetland Heritage Naturals for this project and they would work beautifully, the Heritage is a little bit thicker than the two ply lace but that only makes for an even more snuggly finished shawl!

The above colourways is very similar to the original, but the two below will give you more of a brown finished shawl or a grey one – I love the greys!

shetland black, grey, light grey and white

I hope this has given you some ideas for colours for a Deepdale Shawl, if you make one using J&S yarns remember to tag us on Instagram, our username is thewoolbrokers and we love to see in progress pictures. 🙂

Happy Knitting!