Blog
Voe Show 2019
Hello everyone! this past weekend saw the first of this summers agricultural shows here in Shetland and it was the Voe Show, I (Ella) headed up to judge the Colourbox Competition - this is something we do every year with some of the shows, we choose a selection of 8 shades of 2ply jumper weight and then people make things using at least 5 of the 8 shades. This years shades were: 5, FC44, 16, FC46, 32, 23, 91 and FC47 As always the standard was extremely high and it was very hard to judge, its amazing how much the way the colours look changes depending on how they have been put together. I took lots of pictures at the show so here are some of the Colourbox entries: You have to choose a trophy winner from all the firsts and I chose this allover, I loved the corrugated rib collar and cuffs and thought the colour use and pattern were really excellent: The rest of the knitwear entries contained a huge variety of different styles from Fair Isle and Lace and everything in between - you always see amazing uses of colour, design and finishing. After I had finished in the hall with the knitwear I had a wander around the rest of the Show - the sun had come out and it was a lovely day. Apart from knitting, there is all the sheep, cows, horses and ponies, baking, plants, wool, hens, ducks etc etc.. there are also lots of places to get food, ice cream and stall selling things so it's easy to spend a lot of time (and some money!) I hope you've enjoyed this look at some of the things to be seen at this year's Voe Show, Sandra will be judging at Waas and Cunningsburgh in the next week so keep an eye on our Instagram for some pics from those shows, happy knitting!
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Voe Show 2018
Hello everyone, this past Saturday saw our annual visit to the Voe Show - the first agricultural show of the year in Shetland. I (Ella) headed up to judge the Colourbox Competition. Every year we choose a selection of 8 shades of Jumper Weight which are used by people in a category on its own in the knitwear section of the show. The entrants must use at least 5 of the 8 colours - this year the shades were: 3, 53, 66, 72, 87, 366, fc37 and FC56. The allover on the left was the Trophy winner for this year. It is always very difficult to choose the winners as the standard is extremely high but I was really pleased with the entries. This is the Show where I have the most time so I helped the other ladies with laying out the rest of the knitwear and as a judge I got to help with choosing the trophy winners. There is everything from lace, handspun and machine knitting to yokes, all overs and hats. This 1ply Shawl by Kathleen Anderson won lots of prizes - very well deserved! It was beautiful. I then spent the rest of my time at the show looking at all the other entries. At Voe there are Cows, Sheep, Horses, Chickens, Ducks, Goats, Dogs... the list goes on. The sheep are probably my favourite as the amount and variety of breeds is always so interesting but I also like to have a look at the flowers and vegetables too... I didnt get any photos of the baking or other handicrafts but I can assure you it all looked great too! The rain came on just as I was leaving but I had a great day at the Voe Show, this week sees Cunningsburgh on Wednesday and Waas on Saturday so we will be back with more photos from those shows too, happy knitting!
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Cunningsburgh Show
Our tour of the Shows continued this week and we headed to Cunningsburgh on Wednesday. It was a lovely day, the only one of the week so it was great to be out! Again I was judging the Colourbox Competition and Oliver the Wool so we headed to our respective huts to get judging.. After I'd done my bit I went to see how Oliver was getting on with the raw wool As it was such a nice day we had a good wander round and looked at some of the Sheep.. and I was amazed at the amount of dogs.. Before heading back to the Knitwear to see the finished displays, as always the skill and amount of Knitwear entered was brilliant and it was very hard to judge the Colourbox, I did a few of the other category's too but the I'm sure the other knitwear judges would agree the standard was very high! As we had a tour in the afternoon we headed back to town so we didn't get a look at everything but just like the Voe Show there were Cows, Poultry, Horses, Vegetables.. lots of things to see! The Walls Show is this weekend so after that Ill have another post to round up the J&S tour of the Country Shows! Happy Knitting!
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Sometimes here in Shetland its easy to forget how far-reaching our yarns can be. As you probably know, every year we take place in the Colourbox challenge with local agriculture shows, see posts here and here. Well our friend Mary Jane Mucklestone was teaching at Vogue Knitting Live last week and she had the idea to try a mini colourbox challange with her students, so using this years colours, the students set about knitting their own Fair Isle using the colourbox shades They were very lucky because there were a few Shetland Ladies kicking about New York last week and noted Shetland Designers Hazel Tindall and Wilma Malcomson were both available to judge the entries, just like we do here! After some deliberation (by the looks of it!) Hazel and Wilma chose their winners.. So congratulations ladies! We would have loved to have been there and seen J&S in the wild in New York Happy Knitting!
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The Cunningsburgh Show
A mammoth photo post of the Cunningsburgh Show this Wednesday. 1.Entrance to the Wool tent 2, 3, 4.Oliver's fleece judging skills put to the test again 5, 6, 7. Some prize winning Shetland Sheep 8. Charlie Simpson and a herring feast 9. Cool footgear and a woolly dog 10, 11. More beautiful Shetland Sheep posing for the camera 12. Tractor love 13, 14. Elizabeth Johnson of Shetland Handspun's beautiful things 15 and 16. Yummy wool in the sun (which decided to make an appearance after weeks of grey, woop woop). x
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