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Fire Festival KAL 2016-2017
Hello! Many of you have asked if we would be doing another Knit A Long this winter and the answer is yes! This year we have decided to take inspiration from something unique to Shetland and that is Up Helly Aa, there are a number of these fire-festivals all over Shetland from the Scalloway one in the second week of January up to the Delting Up Helly Aa in March. Without going into too much detail Up Helly Aa is held all over Shetland throughout the beginning of the year and they all feature a Guizer Jarl (chief Viking) and their Jarls Squad, a number of Squads dressed up, a torchlight procession and the burning of a Galley. It is something which cheers up and brightens many Shetlanders during the darkest time of the year here and I have always found the colours inspiring! So you can see from the shades chosen we have mainly been inspired by Fire! we have chosen a number of fiery shades (91, FC38, 125 and 9113) but also some darker shades to represent the dark winter skies (36, 81, 54) we have thrown in the bright blue shade 132 as when I was looking through photos for inspirations I kept seeing a brighter blue either in the sky or shadows like the photo above. Although we have taken our inspirations from the Vikings this Knit A Long is totally open to your interpretation of the colours, all you have to do is knit something (garment, accessory, whatever you feel!) using at least 5 of the 8 shades and it must feature some Fair Isle knitting (two colours in a row) Fire Festival Knit A Long Shades: 132, 54, 9113, 81, 36, 125, FC38 and 91 You can put together your own patterns or use a pattern that's already out and work with putting the colours into it, we know there is still a lot of Christmas knitting going on so to coincide with the last Up Helly Aa we will have the Knit A Long running From now until 20th March 2017 I have put together a mood board of pictures on Pinterest so feel free to have a look and enjoy the Knit A Long, you can see the colours here on the online shop. If you take part and would like to Share pictures please post in our Ravelry Group and tag your pictures on instagram with #firefestivalkal Happy Knitting!Save Save
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A Shetlanders Fair Isle Graph Book
You have probably seen this book if like us you love anything related to Fair Isle, Knitting and Shetland! Published by The Shetland Times and compiled by the Shetland Guild of Spinners, Knitters, Weavers and Dyers A Shetlanders Fair Isle Graph Book in Colour is a bright and inspiring book - perfect for this dark and dreary time of year. It was released just in time for Wool Week this year and since then it has been selling like hot cakes, everytime I went to do a blog it would be sold out! As things calm down though its a lovely book to look through. It is filled with hand coloured motif's for Fair Isle knitting, the originals of the notebooks belonged to Bill Henry who ran the Hosiery side of Anderson & Co in the mid 20th century. They were most likely used by knitters to put together pattern to put on items to sell. The idea of the notebooks themselves is not unusual, Shetland knitters have many self drafted pattern books but what makes this one unusual is the coloured aspect, it is very common to see the black and white dotted kind you see in many Fair Isle books like Traditional Fair Isle Knitting by Sheila McGregor, Alice Starmores Book of Fair Isle Knitting and Fair Isle Knitting Patterns by Mary MacGregor. Those kind of graph books are invaluable also because they help you to put together patterns without being distracted by the colours but this book is a feast for the eyes if you like Fair Isle and Stranded knitting. It's very tempting to gather up colours and try to match them up... 2ply Jumper Weight l-r: 77, 1403, 66, 1, fc15 and 34 greens: 34 and FC11, blue: FC15 and FC47, cream: 1 and 202, yellow: 66 and 121, reds: 1403 and FC55, black: 77 and 81. The yarn on the right-hand side is the same kind of shades as the ones on the left for the pattern in the previous picture but it would give you a more subtle version of the pattern. That's another fun part of putting colours together, you can adapt it until it is more your kind of shades. Shetland Heritage Naturals l-r: white, fawn, light grey, moorit and black 2ply Jumper Weight l-r: 1403, 23, 21, FC15 and 202 We have the book in stock just now and it costs £20.00. It would make a great present for anyone interested in Shetland Knitting, the historical aspect is just as interesting as the colour inspirations!
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Shetland Wool Week 2016
Can you believe it? Shetland Wool Week 2016 began today!!! Shelves have been filled and the shops as tidy as it will be for the next week! We are hoping orders and email disruptions will be kept to a minimum but we might be a bit delayed in getting back to you, just know we are working as hard as we can to keep getting orders out as fast as we can. This is our busiest week of the year and we love seeing all the people who have come to Shetland for the event. We have classes every day and three tours on so lots to do! We will be blogging throughout the week so keep an eye out for out posts about Shetland Wool Week at J&S.
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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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Voe Show 2016
On Saturday I (Ella) had the task of heading up to the Voe Show to Judge the Colourbox Competition. We have mentioned it many times before but in case you're not sure what it is - every year we choose a selection of 8 shades of yarn and people have to use at least 5 of the shades in a Fair Isle garment or accessory. They then enter it into the Voe, Cunningsburgh or for the first time this year the Walls show. There are a number of these shows which go on all over Shetland in the Summer, filled with livestock, animals, vegetables, flowers, baking and our favourite of course - knitting!! This years shades were 2ply Jumper Weight - 71, 118, 80, fc39, 82, fc22. 9097 and 9144 and as always I was amazed at the finished items! I wish I had got more pictures but I was busy judging and when I came back later the knitwear was full of folk so I couldn't get near! Voe always has an excellent amount of entries in the Colourbox and this year was no exception even though I would say the colour's were a bit trickier than years before - but it is meant to be a challenge and to push people out of their comfort zones. Apart from the colourbox, there were some amazing examples in the other knitting categories, everything is covered from 1ply lace to yokes and cardigans, mittens, gloves, scarves, machine knit and hand knit. Basically, every kind of Shetland knitting you can imagine! Oliver was judging the fleece so I had a quick look in the tent to see what he had thought of the entries. I thought I'd leave off with some more pictures from around the show, if you ever get the chance to come to a Shetland Agricultural show I would definitely take it as it gives you a great overview of Shetland Culture and it's a great day out!
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Shetland Heritage Naturals - a closer look
hello! Today I thought we take a closer look at the new addition to our Heritage Range - Shetland Heritage Naturals! Its only been available for a few weeks but its been flying off the shelves.. When we got our sample cones I (Ella) rushed some home to do some swatches on my machine to see how the yarn would knit up, its spun to the same thickness as our Shetland Heritage but the natural yarns always behave a little bit differently than the dyed ones and I wasn't disappointed! The yarn smells lovely and sheepy in the ball so the yarn feels a bit thinner until its washed, it fluff's up and fills the gaps between the stitches beautifully. The heritage range has a beautiful soft handle thanks to being worsted spun, (see more info here) I knitted it on my machine at tension 9 for a quite drapey fabric but you can knit it with lots of needles sizes to get a different finish. Heritage yarn bridges the gap perfectly between 2ply Lace and 2ply Jumper weight and most resembles the traditional Hap weight yarn we used to produce, its a versatile yarn as it works for lace knitting but also is perfect for colourwork. You can see more about the story of the Shetland Heritage yarn from our yarn series post last year. Here is a side to side with the yarn and swatch of each of the six shades: White Fawn Light Grey (a first in our undyed worsted ranges) Grey Moorit Black The Shetland Heritage Naturals are available here and cost £3.20 per 25g ball, we will shortly be getting in some cones so keep an eye on the website for that, we are so pleased with our newest yarn and hope you are too! The coloured Shetland Wool was at one time such a unwanted fibre (people used to dump it rather than sell it as it was worth so little) that we are so proud to give it value and we now have a 1ply/2ply lace weight worsted spun, light 4ply worsted spun and a woollen spun 4ply yarn all using this precious fibre. By using it in yarns and products it makes it worthwhile for crofters and farmers to keep coloured Sheep and that's always a good thing!
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New Yarn Launch - Shetland Heritage Naturals
A few of you may have heard whisperings over the last few months about something exciting on the way from Jamieson & Smith. We are so happy to finally let you all in on the secret and launch our Shetland Heritage Naturals... These undyed shades are an extension to our Shetland Heritage range which is an incredibly smooth and strong worsted spun 100% Real Shetland yarn! The Shetland Heritage Naturals are a lovely variation to our woollen spun 2ply Jumper Weight for use in Fair Isle or other colourwork. Due to the worsted spinning process they are slightly lighter in weight meaning they are also suitable for lace knitting. Similar to our Supreme Lace yarns the Heritage Naturals show off beautifully the natural tones of our islands' native sheep. Technical info: 25g, 110m/120yds, 2.8nm worsted Tension: 30 sts and 32 rows = 10cm/4in over Fair Isle pattern using 3mm needles You can read more about our original Shetland Heritage range here and about the idea behind developing the Heritage yarn here. You can see it on our online shop here!
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Yokes
a shetland knitter working on a V-bed machine, photo by Tom Kidd Historically Shetlander's have always had to have a few things on the go, originally we were crofters and fishermen and this meant there was always quiet times, be it bad weather, dark nights or rough seas you had to find something to do. In the height of Shetland knitwear fame many homes were equipped with large v-bed knitting machines like the one you see in the picture above for people to combine machine and hand knitting and to earn a bit of extra money. Prior to the Oil Boom of the late 1970s/early 1980's many homes echoed to the sound of the knitting machine. 'by the mid 1960's, when the local press reported that knitting was beginning to become more profitable than crofting, many Shetland families were encouraged to purchase Passap or Knitmaster machines specifically to turn out sweater bodies, as well as yokes in their own home' An excerpt from Kate Davies 'Yokes' Working in one of the many Knitwear factories. Photo: Unknown With the introduction of oil and all its job opportunities and wealth it was no surprise that locals packed away their knitting machines and took advantage of the Oil Boom and all its rewards. The skills of these cottage industries saw a deep decline, luckily there were still people in Shetland who had these skills and we are lucky to be able to work with some of them. We have designed a range of traditional Yoke cardigans using both our 2 ply Jumper Weight and Shetland Heritage yarns, we have partnered up with a selection of Shetland knitters to help us produce them - The body and sleeves are hand frame knitted for us by a maker in Whalsay, one of the outlying Islands and then we have a number of local knitters who put in the yokes and finish the garments in their own homes. The continuation of the Shetland Textile industry is always very important to us, that's why we are ensuring to pay our knitters a good price for doing the work, we understand and appreciate the skills the knitters have and want to pay them rightly for these skills. We have the initial stock available on the website here but we will be adding to it as colours come back from the knitters. We are very excited about our new range of garments, and we hope you are too! If you don't fancy buying a ready made yoke the pattern is taken from Sandras' Hairst Yoke pattern which is available as a kit. Happy Knitting!
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Spring/Summer KAL 2016
hello! Thank you for the kind comments on our last post, today I'm going to speak about another fun thing we are doing this Spring and Summer. After the success of our Winter Woollies KAL last year we thought we'd try another one! So these are the shades for our Spring/Summer KAL 2016 L-R: 141, 125, 29, FC55, 122, 1281, FC45, 121 The Rules for the KAL are: You must use at least 5 of the 8 shades (no additional shades not listed above) You can make any kind of garment or accessory The item must feature some Fair Isle knitting (two colours per row) The Knit a Long will run until 1st August 2016 I had a look on Ravelry and came up with some patterns which would work great with the KAL, all use Fair Isle knitting and a number of colours. First up is Hats! Clockwise from top left: Green Memories, Seasons Hat, Saudade and Crofthoose Hat Next up is Gloves and Mitts.. Clockwise from L-R: Blomkrans, Maggies Gloves, Margots Garden and Swedish Fish Since it is getting into the warmer months I thought rather than Jumpers I'd share some good vest patterns which are out there, they are perfect for trying out all the techniques like stranded knitting and steeks but without the huge investment which a jumper can be.. Clockwise from L-R: Cruden, Wartime Farm, Islay and Tortoise and Hare I hope this has given you some ideas for the KAL! if you want to take part we have a thread on Ravelry about it which you can see here, so come and join the conversation, and you can buy the shades here from our site. Happy Knitting!
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