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

SWW Online at J&S – A Taste!

Hello Everyone,

Thanks for all the comments and feedback on our Wool Week videos and content – it was a weird week for us, we are used to a totally different experience which definitely doesn’t adhere to the current rules so we, like many others in Shetland, tried to take Wool Week online!

We knew Olivers Woolstore talk would be one of the most missed events by visitors so that was top of our list to film:

 

We also filmed a video of all our yarn ranges to try and give you a semi-being in the shop experience:

 

 

And we asked two of our great Wool Week teachers Hazel Tindall and Alison Rendall to film their classes which we usually host during the week:

 

 

 

We also had videos documenting the production of our yarns:

 

 

 

 

As well as some exclusive videos from the Campaign for Wool, Vispring and West Yorkshire Spinners:

 

 

 

 

During the week we also had Anne from the ‘I Thought I Knew How’ podcast using our new upstairs space to host a few interviews including this one with local knitter and designer Janette Budge:

 

We also posted a couple of blogs from local designer Lesley Smith and artist Vivian Ross-Smith in case you missed those.

This is just a selection but to see all the videos we posted head over to our youtube channel and sit down with a cup of tea and your knitting, while you are there: lots of great videos were also posted by Shetland Wool Week themselves which you can see on their youtube channel and we would definitely suggest looking through the posts and hashtags on Instagram relating to the event – its a rabbit hole for sure but a good one! (start with #shetlandwoolweek2020)

We hope this has helped soothe the sadness of the event being cancelled – we are waiting to get our Annuals so as soon as we do they will be on the online shop! Happy Knitting x

Wool Week Videos at Jamieson & Smith

Hello everyone, This weekend would have seen the beginning of Shetland Wool Week, sadly but unsurprisingly it was cancelled this year but we, like many others have put together some online content for you throughout the week. The following list breaks down what you can expect from our Youtube channel over the next week or so (all UK time):

Sunday 27th September

Slowing Down Fast Fashion (Campaign for Wool)

Monday 28th September

10am – Wool Sorting and Grading with Oliver Henry (J&S)

2pm – Shetland Story (J&S/Curtis Wool)

5pm – Vispring Beds (Vispring)

Tuesday 29th September

10am – The J&S Yarn Range with Ella Gordon (J&S)

2pm – Haworth Scouring (J&S/Curtis Wool)

5pm – Why Wool – Protect our Oceans (Campaign for Wool)

Blog Post – Afterthought Heel with Lesley Smith

Wednesday 30th September

10am – Fair Isle Bookmark with Hazel Tindall (J&S)

2pm – Wool Combing (J&S/Curtis Wool)

5pm – There’s no Wool in the Sea (Campaign for Wool)

Thursday 1st October

10am – Fair Isle Cuffs with Alison Rendall (J&S)

2pm – Spinning with Lighthowlers (J&S/Curtis Wool)

5pm – Synthetic VS Wool and Two Jumpers, What’s the Difference? (Campaign for Wool)

Blog Post – Vivian Ross Smith on Working with Wool

Friday 2nd October

10am – WYS with Sarah Hatton (West Yorkshire Spinners)

2pm – Shetland Wool Week 10th Anniversary with Prince Charles (Campaign for Wool)

5pm – Two Carpets, what’s the difference? and Two Curtains, what’s the difference? (Campaign for Wool)

Saturday 3rd October

10am – Bonus Video! The Difference Between Woollen and Worsted Spun (J&S)

2pm – Choose Wisely – Check its Wool (Campaign for Wool)

Sunday 4th October

Throughout the day – Woolabilities, short cartoons produced by the Wool Carpet Focus Group.

We have been provided with great videos from the Campaign for Wool, Vispring and West Yorkshire Spinners and here in Shetland, we worked with Keiba Clubb so we really hope you enjoy them. Thanks also to Adam Curtis for helping us with filming on the mainland, Haworth Scouring and Lightowlers Yarns. To see what else is happening make sure to follow Shetland Wool Weeks social media and visit the website for more online events.

Happy knitting/watching/listening/reading!

In the next few weeks..

Hello Everyone, as difficult as it was we totally understand why the decision was made to cancel Shetland Wool Week this year, but of course, we will miss seeing all our visitors and this means many of you will not be getting your Shetland and J&S fix this year! to that end, we are working hard on having content which we will be sharing over the end of September and beginning of October. We will have exclusives from Haworth Scouring and Combing, West Yorkshire Spinners, Campaign for Wool and Vispring as well as lots from us here at J&S, this post is to remind you to follow our social media to make sure you don’t miss anything!:

Instagram

Facebook

twitter

And to subscribe to our youtube channel as that is where we will post all our video content first:

youtube

We know it won’t be the same as being here but we hope it will give you lots to see and help tide you over until you can visit again, we also still have spaces available on our Zoom Drop Spindle class with Deborah Gray – this is the only ‘live’ class we have and it is on the 1st of October, if you order a kit (see here) you will receive a drop spindle and natural comb top sample pack to be used in the class. We will be back with more details about the other content nearer the time but we hope you will all be looking forward to it,

Happy knitting!

Wool Week 2019 – a photo roundup

Hello everyone, happy Friday! It’s hard to believe that Shetland Wool Week 2019 ended over a month ago, we had such a busy time but the dust has settled so we thought we’d share some pictures from throughout the week:

The Opening Ceremony L: lots of Roadside Beanies R: table decoration featuring scarfs mentioned in this post

Oliver giving his speech

Judging at the Marts L: on the hoof R: a beautiful Moorit fleece

L: Prizewinning fleece R: the winners

The Hub L: Lots of Knitters R: Amazing giant Jumper Board

Vivian Ross-Smiths’ exhibition was on in the Hub space during Wool Week, for more information about Vivian’s work see here.

L: Burra Bears R: Faye Hackers of the Shetland College and Nicholas Coleridge, Chairman of the Campaign for Wool

Oliver giving his talk ’50 Years in Shetland Oo’

L: The Oo never stops! R: Oliver giving his sorting and grading demonstration

L: It was a week of Roadside Beanies R: Amazing Jumper featuring all the motifs from Shetland Wool Week hats past and present.

Ruth Mackenzie and Matt Roberts of the Shetland Amenity Trust alongside Oliver presenting Dave Wheeler with his prize for winning our Seasons of a Shetland Crofter Competition. We also launched the book at Wool Week, its available here!

So much amazing Knitwear all week! L: a Hevdadale Scarf and Ola Yoke R: A Roadside Skirt!

Beautiful fleeces outside the Woolstore

L: Roadside Beanie and Glebe Jumper R: Just some of our mail posted out during the week

Lots of great memories and friends made as always, for more information about Shetland Wool Week see here, it will soon be here again, Happy Knitting!

photos: Adam Curtis, Ella Gordon and one from Sara Granqvist (thanks Sara!)

 

Shetland Wool Week Scarf Project

Hello everyone, happy Friday! Today we thought we’d share some images of a project we took part in during Shetland Wool Week which was coordinated by Faye Hackers of the Shetland College.

The project took inspiration from people known in the Shetland Textile industry who provided Faye with imagery and text about what they love about Shetland, this was then taken by Faye and designed into one-off scarfs which were auctioned off for charity during a silent auction at Wool Week.

Among the people asked were J&S’s own Oliver and Ella, former patrons Donna Smith, Elizabeth Johnston and Hazel Tindall. For more information see Fayes Instagram posts. We love how different each scarf was:

We were happy to donate all the yarn for the project meaning the scarves were knit in 2ply Jumper Weight or Shetland Heritage, in total the auction raised £1,776.00 of which 100% will be donated to charity as we provided the yarn for free. The charities chosen by the individuals were: Cancer Research UK, CLAN, Shetland MRI Scanner Appeal, Mind Your Head, GlobalYell, Lerwick Brass Band and Whalsay Heritage Centre.

All and all it was a great project!

Model and white photography: Faye Hackers

Museum Photos: John Hunter

Models: Akshay Borges and Alanah Young

Shetland Wool Week at J&S through the years

Hello everyone, can you believe Shetland Wool Week is nearly upon us yet again? We are trying to get organised here but you can hardly believe that this is the 10th Shetland Wool Week, every year the event has grown and now its a huge event in the calendar and our busiest week in the shop by far!

The programmes through the years!

You may or may not know that it was us, J&S, who started Wool Week back in 2010. Through our work with the Campaign for Wool, it was suggested we hold a Wool Week in Shetland which was organised to tie in with the Shetland Flock Book Society’s annual sale – if you’ve ever wondered why SWW is at the time of year it is – that’s why! Together with the Shetland Amenity Trust and Shetland Museum J&S put together a number of events and that’s what kicked the whole thing off! Since 2011 the event has been made possible thanks to the work of Promote Shetland as it was then and later the Amenity Trust.

So I thought we would have a look back through some pictures from Wool Weeks over the years here at J&S..

2010

You have to go pretty far back on the blog to find about 2010 but after Oliver had a couple of weeks to put together a SWW J&S hosted a selection of classes and tours. It was also the year we launched the Shetland Fine Lace project and in turn our Shetland Supreme 1 and 2ply Yarns.

2011

2011 didn’t have a lot of blogging action but it did see the launch of our first book Knit Real Shetland for SWW alongside some of our most popular kits: Eva Shawl, Eid Top and Yuglet Hat to name a few, it was the first year we had a programme for the event and it consisted of a folded a3 piece of paper – seen above. Quite different from now!!

2012

   

2012 was when I would say people started really seeing that Shetland Wool Week was the place to be.. highlights included a trunk show from Kate Davies’ first book ‘Colours of Shetland‘ (we had no idea how big that would be!!) and the launch of our Shetland Heritage yarns.

Kate was the first patron of Shetland Wool Week, at that time it wasn’t the big thing it is now but it was the start of that tradition..

2013

     

2013 saw classes from visitors like Tom of Holland and Felicity Ford (the second wool week patron!) and local designers like Hazel Tindall and Elizabeth Johnston.. for a bonus point see if you can see another future patron in the class pictures..

We also had a visit from some of Shetlands future designers, the girls visited us from Whalsay, at the time they were the only after school/lunchtime knitting group and were definitely innovators!

2014

In 2014 we had our first opening ceremony – prior to that the organisers always had a closing ceremony but for the first time we all gathered at Mareel. We also had our first pattern! Hazel Tindall was the patron and designed the Shwook hat – starting the hat pattern tradition we have all come to know and love. More classes this year from designers including Gudrun Johnston and Mary Jane Mucklestone whos classes can be seen above.

2015

2015 was the year of the Baable Hat! Donnas pattern for that year truly went viral and we had another busy year with classes and tours in the shop as well as a lot of wool buying (of course!). The opening ceremony grew again and was even bigger at Clickimin Centre featuring speeches and talks from all involved in Wool Week.

2016

2016 was another busy year of classes and we saw lots of new and returning visitors at J&S, that’s one of the best things about SWW – we get to see the friends we made in the years before! Every year Oliver’s sorting and grading demonstrations are one of our most visited events (if you are here this year they are on again!)

2017

In 2017 we had a very exciting SWW as we launched our book Jamieson & Smith A Shetland Story, this was the result of a good few years of work by us all so it was exciting to have the book launch during Wool Week. We continued with our classes in the shop but also hosted a Wool and crofter focused event at Gremista Farm as unfortunately, the Flock Book sales fell outwith SWW that year.

2018

Oh dear, I didn’t get many pictures last year! It was by far our busiest year in the shop so most of the time was spent at the till – but it was another great year. We had a big Opening Ceremony at the new Anderson High school and you can see all the Merrie Dancers Toories!

2019..

And here we are at 2019 and the year of the Roadside Beanie and Oliver as the patron, it’s so great to see it come full circle.

I hope you’ve enjoyed a trip down J&S SWW memory lane!

Ollie Dolly!

Hello everyone, happy Friday! A few weeks ago we received an email from a customer in Australia, Debra Hinton who had made a doll featuring our very own, and this year’s wool week patron, Oliver Henry!

Debra had kindly mentioned in her email she would be happy to have the pattern available free so we are offering it to you here if you would like to make your own peerie Ollie! I (Ella) decided to make one and for my first knitted doll – I’m very pleased! I found the pattern easy to follow and it just took me a few nights of working on it before he was finished.

It’s knit using 2ply Jumper Weight and stuffed with our Wool Balls – I went for shades 21 (blue), 53 (peach) 54 (dark grey) 203 (light grey) and 9097 (red). For the boiler suit details, I used sewing thread held double in a bronze shade.

So if you would like to make your own Oliver you can get the pattern by clicking here: oliver henry man of wool doll. Although it is free (for non-commercial use i.e you can make it for yourself or for a gift, not for sale) she did mention she would be happy for people to make a small donation to the MRI Maakers appeal.

If you are coming to Wool Week and would like to make one we would love for you to bring your doll so we can take a picture and show Oliver, we’d love to see how many we can see before the Week is out!

Roadside Allover

Hello everyone! We have been delighted with the feedback on the Roadside Beanie, both here in Shetland and at Edinburgh Yarn Festival over the weekend. If you were there you may have seen Oliver in a very striking Fair Isle Jumper – which is what we are sharing today!

When Oliver was thinking about going to EYF he asked Sandra if she would make a jumper for her, so in a couple of weeks (!) she knitted up the Roadside Allover for him to wear when he got to Edinburgh. It was a design she had made before and we all agreed he would really suit the colours.

It features a mix of blues with some surprising shades thrown in and a lovely all over OXO pattern. Its knit in the traditional Shetland way – in the round with steeks added in for the armholes and neck. Me and Oliver headed down the new pier in in front of J&S a few weeks ago to get some photos and it fitted in perfectly with the fishing boats

So if you would like to knit yourself a Roadside Allover you can find the kits on our website here, we are running out of a few shades which feature in both the Roadside Beanie and Allover but we are expecting a stock delivery in the next week or so so if you see anything sold out dont panic, 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!