Choosing A Lace Yarn – Woollen or Worsted

Hello everyone, today we are going a bit more in-depth about something we get asked about all the time – what is the difference between the Supreme Lace and ‘non’ Supreme Ranges aka 1ply Cobweb and 2ply Lace, and why would you choose one over the other?

left: 1ply Cobweb right: 1ply Supreme Lace

There are some differences but the main one is the Supreme Lace 1 and 2ply are Worsted Spun whereas 1ply Cobweb and 2ply Lace are Woollen Spun.

Worsted Spun – all the fibre is combed before spinning, this results in a softer and stronger yarn because the fibres are all aligned and not poking out (this is what can make wool scratchy)

Woollen Spun – before spinning the fibre is carded which disrupts the fibres trapping air and making a lofty and warm yarn.

The Shetland Supreme Lace yarns were developed alongside research through Shetland Amenity Trust in 2010 as part of the Fine Lace Project to add and increase value to the coloured clip and to replicate yarns used in handspun and vintage Shetland Lace.

Shetland Supreme 1ply

1ply/single 25g ball 400m/436yds
100% Real Shetland Wool
Suggested Needle Size: 3mm

This yarn is available in Optic White (which is bright white) and Natural White, Fawn, Moorit, Light Grey, Dark Grey and Shetland Black

Shetland Supreme 2ply

2ply 25g ball 200m/219yds
100% Real Shetland Wool
Suggested Needle Size: 3mm

This Yarn is available in Natural White, Fawn, Light Grey, Dark Grey, Moorit and Shetland Black.

Sletts Shawl knit in 2ply Supreme Lace

The Woollen Spun lace yarns have been produced by us since the 60’s, Cobweb was the traditional weight most 1ply Shawls were made in and 2ply Lace was the classic choice for Lace Cardigans, ‘thicker’ shawls and lightweight garments.

left: Sheelagh Shawl in cobweb right: Grace Jumper in 2ply Lace

1ply Cobweb

1ply/single 25g Ball 350m/379 yds

50% lambswool 50% Real Shetland Wool

Suggested needle size: 3mm

This yarn is available in White and Dyed Black.

2ply Lace

2ply 25g ball 169m/185yds

50% lambswool 50% Real Shetland Wool

Suggested needle size: 3/3.25mm

This yarn is available in over 30 dyed Shades.

1ply Supreme Lace on the left and 1ply Cobweb on the Right

Why would you choose one over the other?

finish: items made in Worsted Spun yarn have more drape and a silky smoothness due to the spinning process, they have a ‘halo’. Our Woollen Spun lace yarns are crisper and have more stitch definition.

Left: 2ply Lace right: 2ply Supreme Lace

ease of knitting: due to the finish mentioned above the Cobweb and 2ply lace are easier to knit with because the yarn doesn’t ‘melt’ together in the same way the Supreme Lace does – the Supreme is much harder to take back if you make a mistake. However, the Cobweb and 2ply are our only mixed yarns in that they both contain 50% Lambswool which is a weaker fibre than Shetland so the Woollen Spun ranges are not as strong as the Supreme.

left: 2ply Supreme right: 2ply Lace

recipient: it’s worth considering if your item will be used as an ‘heirloom’ piece like a Christening Shawl you may want to use the Supreme as it has a very high-quality finish and is lovely and soft, similarly if its for a scarf to be worn around the neck the supreme would feel nicer and has a good drape. The Cobweb and 2ply Lace will result in excellent stitch definition so if the pattern and motif is the most important element to your design it might be a preferable choice.

Elizabeth Williamson Turvie Stole knit in 1ply Supreme

colour: In the 2ply Woollen Spun range there are 30 shades including a mix of dyed and dyed naturals, so there is obviously a lot of choice and options for more colourful lace. In Supreme only the 1ply Optic White is bleached all the other colours are 100% Natural and as they come off the sheep here in Shetland.

thickness: the 1 and 2ply Supreme are finer than the Woollen Spun counterparts, you can see in the 1ply the Cobweb is 350m per 25 ball and the Supreme 1ply is 400m per 25g ball – this means the yarn itself is the thinnest we produce. So if you are looking for some of the finest Lace yarn commercially available the Supreme 1ply could be it.

detail of a Rosemary Shawl knit in 1ply Supreme

In conclusion, we know it can be confusing that we have different ranges in the same thicknesses but we hope this makes it clearer and you can see they are both not only needed but necessary!

Let us know if you have any questions, happy knitting!

New Colours

Hello everyone, today we are posting about a few new colours we have got back in over the past while in Jumper and Lace Weight, we are lucky that because we have been making yarn since the 1960’s we have a huge bank of shades from over the years that we can refer to. We are always looking at what’s missing from the 2ply Jumper range and we have recently added 4 new colours:

92 – bright marigold yellow

135 – mid navy

1285 – bright rust mix

FC13 – dark red mix

We have all 4 shades available on cone and ball at the moment, we are waiting for Shade cards to be printed for the new shades so for the moment they are not on the cards but they will be soon and they are on our digital shade card which you can find here, this is good for looking on a device (phone, laptop etc) but I wouldnt suggest printing it as it wont be accurate.

The new shades really add to some of the blending options for Jumper Weight – you can see below how they give just a bit more dimension which works great for Fair Isle knitting.

• 

  96, 23 and 1285

• 

  21, FC41 and 135

• 

  FC55, 87 and FC13

• 

  FC38, 122 and 1285

We have also taken back two shades of 2ply Lace Weight: L38 and L62, thes shades round out the 2ply Lace really well:

L38 – Bright Sherbet Orange

L62 – Marled Blue Purple Mix

You can see below how well they go with some of the other lace shades:

L-R: L40, L69 and L62

L-R: L125, L38 and L53

And last week we took in a batch of 2ply Lace in L1a – this is our natural white 2ply lace shade which we discontinued a few years ago, so if you are interested in a more ‘off white’ look for your project in the Woollen Spun 2ply Lace this is a great option and we are not planning to take it back in permanently so grab it while you can!

Below you can see it alongside the other ‘Natural’ – (all shades in the 2ply Lace are Dyed) colours, L-R: L1, L1A, L202, L3, L78, L4 and L5.

So thats a few new colours for us, we hope you like them – happy knitting!

Angela Irvines Lace Creations

Hello everyone, Happy Friday! today we thought we’d look at something a bit different and share some of Angela Irvines Shetland Lace creations, in particular her lace Creel lampshade which she shared on Facebook a few days ago, I was blown away by it so asked Angela a few questions about it:

For our followers that are not familiar, what is a Creel?

A creel is a cage for catching lobsters & crabs on the seabed.

What gave you the idea to turn it into a lampshade?

The idea came ages ago, a creel is covered in net, and my late brother made many to catch lobsters. I knew they would look fab covered in fine lace. The structure and ‘eye’ of the creel are great sculptural shapes to stretch lace over. Industrial Chic interior fashion is all the rage at the moment too.

Was it easy to do?

It was very very hard to do, I was amazed I didn’t have to re-do any panels. I worked the sizes & stitches out best I could from other creations I gave done on lace furniture panels in the past. The ‘eye’ of the creel was a real challenge to design as it had to finish with the round eye, I just knitted that part as the beginning of a crown for a hat before casting off, it fitted like a glove to my delight! Phew!

How did you choose the lace motif’s you used in the piece?

I chose my favourite auld Shetland Fine Lace seashore themed patterns, ‘Birds Eye’ for the creel eye ( where the lobsters or crabs crawl into the bait & are then trapped) Elaborate Print o’ da Wave top/sides and Alice Maude Pattern for the end as it is a beauty with waves also.

You often use Shetland Supreme Lace in your work, what do you like about the wool?

I use Shetland Supreme as its the best, strongest, finest, dresses the lace out tight to perfection and un-dyed the colour of wir Shetland sheep.

Angela uses our Supreme Lace in her creations like this lamp using Supreme Lace in Grey and the sideboard which features panels in Black Supreme Lace:

You can see more of Angela work on here website here, very inspiring!

Happy Knitting!

Lace Patterns

Hello everyone, one of the things we been doing during lockdown is taking our Gladys Amedro and lace patterns and adding them to Ravelry and Lovecraft’s as PDF downloads. They are all pre-digital age so it means scanning each page and reformatting them, and as they are all written out that can mean quite a few pages!

The Sheelagh Shawl

During the 1980s and 1990’s Gladys Designed a wide range of Shetland Lace patterns for J&S, they are still some of our best sellers and are seen as some of the most accomplished things you can tackle as a knitter.

clockwise: CW103, Sheelagh, CW112 and CW105

So we’ve added most of the 1ply Shawls that were left to do as well as all the matching Christening Gowns/Robes:

l-r: CW111. CW106 and CW104

As well as the Gladys Patterns that were left we’ve also added the lace scarf patterns:

clockwise: Trondra, Dale, Lunna and Tresta

And the Stole, Jacket/Bonnet and Grace Jumper:

l-r: CW108, CW113 and Grace

Unfortunately, we don’t have all the samples of the lace items – some because they are from a long time ago and we just don’t have them anymore or we’re not able to photograph them at the moment but by ensuring they are all listed on Ravelry it means people can link their projects to them so if you’ve ever made any of these patterns please link them – they are an important part of our history as some over the patterns go back over 30 years!

So if you have some time on your hands and some 1ply Cobweb, 1ply Supreme, 2ply Lace or 2ply Supreme this could be the perfect chance to try out some Shetland Lace. Thanks as always for all your support and patience, happy knitting!

Another Batch of Patterns

Hello everyone, we have had a busy couple of weeks here in Shetland. The Wool Season is well underway and often we struggle to see the boys in the Woolstore under the mountain of Oo! We have been busy in the shop too with lots of visitors and groups, we also recently had the end of our Seasons of the Shetland Crofter competition so we are looking forward to showing you the results of that project – the photos which were entered were great!

We have added another batch of 4 patterns to our Ravely and Lovecraft’s pages, this week we have chosen the Sissal Mitts and Hat, Eva Shawl, Fair Isle Vneck Jumper and the Pam Shawl.

The Pam Shawl is another Gladys Amedro pattern, its knit in 2ply lace and alongside the usual Hap motifs, it also features a cable border and twist motif. it was originally in the Shetland Lace book (now out of print) but we have always had it as a paper pattern so now its available as a PDF. As with many of Gladys’ patterns, they follow her abbreviation style which may take a moment to get used to but once you do it makes sense, it is an entirely written out pattern and contains no charts.

The Fair Isle Vneck Jumper is from our Shetland Heritage collection and is knit from a garment in the Shetland Museum and Archives, you can see that every lozenge is a different pattern – making it the perfect knit to keep you on your toes! knit in the Shetland Heritage yarn, a worsted spun light fingering weight it is a great layer for when it’s not too cold (amazingly like Shetland at the moment!!)

The Eva Shawl was originally sold as the Shoulder Shawl but for the Wool Week Collection in 2011 we redeveloped it as the Eva Shawl and it was knit in Shetland Supreme 1ply and the pattern had charts added. Its a beautiful and elegant shawl which has been used several times as a wedding veil due to the shape.

The final pattern this week is the Sissal Mitts and Hat, these are the perfect project for Fair Isle beginners and enthusiasts alike, the background colours stay the same the whole way through throughout the project. Its knit with Shetland Supreme Jumper Weight as the main colour and 2ply Jumper Weight as the pattern colours – we are often asked if you can knit them together and you can! You can see how they work great together.

So you can find these patterns and the others we have made available as PDF’s on Ravelry and Lovecrafts, happy knitting!

Brora Black Cobweb Shawl

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 moorit

1ply 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

Walls Show 2017

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

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!

Voe Show 2017

hello everyone, happy Monday! We have had a busy time of Shows this past week or so, I thought I’d begin with the first one we went to last Saturday which was Voe! it dawned a bit damp but we are pretty used to that around here..

The main reason I (Ella) headed us was to judge the Colourbox Competition we now host every year with the Voe, Cunningsburgh and Waas Agricultural Shows. Each year we choose a selection of 8 colours which must be used to make something using at least 5 of the 8 colours. This this then broken down into categories within that. Voe has the most entries and they have lots of categories for the Colourbox, this years shades were selected from the Heritage yarn so it was really interesting to see what people made with the more traditional colours.

You have to choose an overall trophy for the Colourbox and the cardigan below was the winner, it was beautifully made and I thought the colours were expertly put together..

The Voe Show has lots of other lovely knitwear on display, from Lace to Fair Isle with everything in between. I always love to see all the skills we have in Shetland and its so inspiring to see it all together.

After I had done my judging I went around and looked at everything else, they’re is so much to see from animals to flowers and you can spend hours wandering around.. quite happily I add!

I hope you enjoyed this peerie peek into this years Voe Show, I’ll be back in a couple of days with the round up from the Cunningsburgh Show, happy knitting!

Sletts Shawl L252 Re-imagined

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!