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Winter Woollies KAL 2015
We have had a busy few weeks since we came back after the Christmas break, so one thing I haven't had a chance to do is reveal the winner of the Winter Woollies KAL we had towards the end of last year. If you want to read more about what we did, see here and here. So after a lot of deliberation we choose Bev's project as our winner! Bev actually used all the shades in her Hat and Mittens, we only required 5 or more to be used but we thought she put them together so well in her finished project, look at that lovely corrugated rib! For her prize we sent her a copy of our book Knit Real Shetland and a selection of 2ply Jumper Weight in her choice. If you want to see some more examples of what people made, have a look at the finished objects thread on Ravelry here. If you have any ideas of different kinds of Knit a Longs you would like us to do, leave a comment here or send us an email: mailroom@shetlandwoolbrokers.co.uk we had great fun doing it and would love to do more! Happy Knitting xx
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Christmas Posting Dates
As things begin to cool down get a bit more wintry we always see the orders getting more and more, all our yarns are made from 100% Shetland Wool so they make the perfect projects for this cold weather! You might also be thinking about yarns for presents so I thought I would give you a breakdown of the Royal Mails recommended posting dates for Christmas: Friday 4th December: Africa, Middle East Monday 7th December: Asia, Far East, Cyprus, Japan, Eastern Europe Tuesday 8th December: Caribbean, Central and South America Thursday 10th December: Australia, Greece, New Zealand Monday 14th December: Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Poland Tuesday 15th December: Canada, Finland, Sweden, USA Wednesday 16th December: Austria, Iceland, Ireland, Portugal, Spain Thursday 17th December: France Friday 18th December: United Kingdom, Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia, Switzerland As we are located approximately 200 miles off the coast of the Scottish Mainland (you'd be amazed how many people don't realise!) and we are susceptible to the wild weather there are delays with boats and planes that are outwith our control. We try our best to get everything out as soon as we can but its worth ordering a few days before the limit to be sure. For more information on how we send out our orders see here We have got our tree and lights up so its looking very Christmassy in the Shop, that goes along well with the wintry showers we've been having! Happy Knitting!
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Winter Woollies KAL - so far...
We are now less than a month away from the end of the Winter Woollies KAL, and we have been so pleased with the amount of orders going out all over the world!! I thought I'd share some of the finished projects so far.. clockwise from top left: selkie72's beret, nirua68's fingerless gloves, finelighness's hat and deborahgray's boot toppers To see some of the pieces people have already finished have a look at the finished objects thread in our Ravelry group here. Theres also lots of chat and discussion in the general Winter Woollies KAL thread and people are sharing some of their progress shots, you can see that here Photos taken from the Winter Woollies KAL thread The KAL runs until the 15th December, we are loving seeing all the things people are coming up with so keep it up! The weather has turned in Shetland and on Saturday we had our first bit of Snow, in true Shetland form it is windy and rainy today but it was nice while it lasted and we are beginning to get very thankful for our woollens at Jamieson & Smith, til next time, Happy Knitting!
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Winter Woollies KAL: colour and patterns
Hello! We are so excited as to how many of you have picked up the colours for the Winter Woollies KAL! there is still plenty of time left to get involved so today I thought I'd share some of our thought on the colours and a few ideas for free patterns available on Ravelry. As you know the Knit A Long requires you to use at least four shades so we (Me -Ella, Amy and Kharis) tried to pick 2 lots of four shades of 2ply Jumper Weight that worked together. Our first group is shades 1,203,FC34 and FC41 To us these colours make us think of dark nights, snow, ice, stormy skies and seas.. all typical of a winter in Shetland! our second group is FC43, FC38, 65 and 9113 These colours are more 'inside' inspired shades - roaring fires, christmas trees, baking and mulled wine. We hoped by having these two groups it might give people more ideas - of course you can mix and match to your hearts content, it is just a starting off point and by changing one or more you get a different look - Sometimes it can be daunting to try and come up with a pattern too, even once you have decided on your colours.. To that end I thought I'd show you some fun patterns all available for free on Ravelry - they all call for fingering weight yarn which is what 2ply Jumper Weight comes under and a few even call for 2ply Jumper Weight exactly (Fair Isle Cuffs, Kite Mitts, Shwook hat) so all you have to do is pick your colour arrangement.. clockwise from top left; fair isle cuffs, kites, far me socks, classic colourwork cowl retro sampler, snowflake fingerless mitts, solidago socks, shwook hat sheep may safely graze, tourbillon, stem and leaf cowl, fair isle flower sock You will see some of the patterns only use 2 or 3 shades, all this means is you will have to add a couple more shades in to get to your 4 colours. This is easily done by doing a bit of background shading or foreground shading. If you feel you need to rechart the Fair Isle into your colours there are a few good free options - one is this Chartmaker which is free, there are also a few good tutorials online about using Microsoft excel to colour a chart (like this one) I hope this has given you some ideas! We cant wait to see peoples ideas begin to take shape - remember to tag your project on ravelry and instagram using #winterwoolliesKAL and to share your projects in the group on the Jamieson & Smith Lovers group page Happy Knitting!
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winter woollies KAL
The weather is beginning to cool down and things are beginning to feel very wintery in Shetland, so we've decided to run a fun KAL (knit-a-long) with a winter theme! The Jamieson & Smith Winter Woollies KAL 2015! we know people all over the world are often interested in our Colourbox Challenge we hold with the local agricultural shows in Shetland, this is your chance to get involved with something similar, we have chosen a group of wintery/chrismassy shades and we want you to create some winter accessories using this curated group of shades of 2ply Jumper Weight - it can be headwear,neckwear,gloves,mittens,mitts,socks,legwarmers etc etc.... rules: you can use any pre designed pattern or create your own. item must be a accessory as described above. use at least four colours but up to eight from the selected shades: 1, 203, FC34, FC41, FC43, FC38, 65 and 9113 - to be eligible only these shades can be used. item must contain some stranded colourwork/Fair Isle techniques. the KAL runs from now until 15th December There will be a ravelry thread in the Jamieson & Smith Ravelry group and for easy searching you can use the hashtag #winterwoolliesKAL on instagram and ravelry. If your not on Ravelry or Instagram you can still take part, just send your final photos of your projects to mailroom@shetlandwoolbrokers.co.uk. We will choose a winner after the 15th of December and they will receive a fun J&S prize! We cant wait to see what you come up with, happy knitting!
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wool week friday,saturday and sunday
On Friday we had another class with Felicity, this time the class were working from another set of inspiration pictures and different shades of 2 ply Jumper Weight. Lots of brilliant swatches again! In the afternoon we had Deborah Gray in doing some drop spindling, we always try and offer at least one spinning class although it is tricky for the space, using the combed tops very quickly everyone was spinning away! All through the week Oliver was also giving his sorting and grading demonstrations which was busy as always! On Saturday morning Kharis and Amy held the fort at the shop and I went for a look at the Marts Flock Book sale I then headed to the Wool Week Hub at Islesburgh Community Centre, where the Makers Market was being held beautiful pouches by Julia Traditional knitting by Patricia Doull Scarves and Snoods by Fraser Knitwear All through the week the Hub was the base for Wool Week and it worked brilliantly as there was plenty of space for people to sit and knit, spin or whatever! This map shows all the far flung places people come from to go to Shetland Wool Week, its amazing! Yesterday to finish off the week we attended the Shetland Guild of Spinners, Knitters, Weavers and Dyers Sunday Teas at Tingwall Sunday Tea's is Shetland are a classic and they didn't disappoint! As well as the cakes and fancy's there was a great display of the Guild Member's Work So that wraps up the J&S coverage of Shetland Wool Week 2015, it is a crazy week for us but we always enjoy it and look forward already to next year! Happy Knitting xx
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wool week 2015
The shelves are stocked and we are ready for Shetland Wool Week 2015! The event starts today and goes on until next Sunday. We have classes everday in the shop and there will be lots of people in shopping! As it will be so busy there may be delays in us getting back to you and dispatching orders so please bear with us. If you are here then enjoy Wool Week and if not dont worry we will be blogging here throughout the week showing what has been happening at Jamieson & Smith! Til then happy knitting!
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Vintage Lace Collection Volume 1
We often speak about Gladys Amedro here at Jamieson & Smith, the reason we do so is her patterns continue to be some of our best sellers since they were released over 20 years ago. Together with her we published many patterns in the best way there was at the time - in magazines! My Weekly, The Peoples Friend, Bella.. to name a few. A collection of Gladys' patterns were sold in a book called Shetland Lace which was published by the Shetland Times for many years and went through a few reprints. The Shetland Times currently publishes a few lace books, The Unst Heritage Lace book and A Legacy of Shetland Lace so they have decided at present to not reprint Shetland Lace. As you may know we sell our kits with the patterns, and every day we have kits and yarn going out to knit one of Gladys designs. We have always had our patterns printed here in Shetland using the Shetland Times because we feel its important to support our local businesses so we decided that together with them we would put together smaller selections of Gladys Lace patterns into Volumes, so we present The Gladys Amedro Vintage Lace Collection Volume 1! This first Volume contains the patterns for The Gibbie Shawl, Lace Christening Robe, Fine Lace Stole and Scarf and My Weekly Baby Knits Shawl. We have reproduced the patterns as they were in the Magazines so they are written out line by line, rather than charted. All the patterns are written for either 1ply Cobweb or 2ply Lace but they would work equally well with Shetland Supreme 1ply or 2ply Lace, in the introduction we give yardage to help with substituting. You can buy a copy on our website here!
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Vintage Shetland Project
"Fashion and history intertwine in the Vintage Shetland Project as Susan Crawford recreates and explores cherished pieces from Shetland's rich knitting heritage" Here at Jamieson & Smith we are lucky to know and call lots of designers our friends, one of these designers is Susan Crawford. Her latest project as you probably know is the Vintage Shetland Project. In this unique book Susan will recreate and publish the patterns for a number of designs featured only in the collection of the Shetland Museum and Archives. For the past 4 years Susan has painstakingly reknit and de constructed (mentally not physically) the pieces to find out how they were made. photo: Susan Crawford Susan has used crowdfunding website Pubslush to help raise the funds to publish this book herself, at the time of writing this post the amount raised is nearly double what the initial target was of £12,000 but in this last few weeks of the campaign we would encourage you to contribute if you can. For £15 you can get a digital copy of the book and for £25 you will get a signed copy of the print edition as well as a host of other goodies depending on how much you put in. photo: Susan Crawford We have been trading since the 1930's in buying wool and making yarns since the 1950's so it is quite possible and extremely likely that a number of the pieces were knit using J&S yarns. Luckily as a part of this blog tour we are able to share some of the pieces that will be in the book. Today I'm going to talk about this piece: photo: Susan Crawford This short sleeved jumper is a lovely example of a 1940's piece of Shetland knitwear and features nice little puffed sleeves, the jumper would have been knit in the round to the oxters (armpit) and then extra stitches cast on for the neck and sleeves to allow it to be knit in the round, the back neck has also been steeked so a zip could be inserted, you can see the maker or owner has written their name on the zip tape I asked Susan about what she found out about the piece, she said the yarn is most likely worsted spun (like the Shetland Heritage range) especially as the gauge is quite small at 34 stitches and 34 rounds. This means the yarn is combed before its spun, resulting in a very soft but also strong yarn. As you know from our post on the heritage range we based the colours on traditional knitwear and although this piece is from a bit later than we were looking at some of the colours are still a good match: L-R: Mussel Blue, Indigo, Berry Wine, Auld Gold and Fluggy White The Indigo shade is a bit brighter than the original but as Susan pointed out the piece may have faded over time and it could have been brighter when first knit. You can see from the first picture of the whole garment how well these yarns last over time, apart from the wear under the arms the yarn is incredibly well preserved. photo: Susan Crawford This book will be a welcome addition to anyone interested in Shetlands textile heritage, here at J&S we work very hard to keep this strong heritage alive and well so we are really excited to see the book when it comes out! The full blog tour schedule is below so go back and have a look at some of the posts from our knitterly friends! Thursday 9th July KnitBritish Saturday 12th July By Gum By Golly Monday 13th July Hazel Tindall Wednesday 15th July Ella Gordon Friday 17th July Jess James Saturday 18th July Jen Arnall-Culliford Sunday 19th July Maja Karlson Monday 20th July Karie Westermann Tuesday 21st July Rachel Atkinson Wednesday 22nd July Woolly Wormhead Friday 24th July Deb Robson Saturday 25th July Julia Billings Sunday 26th July Helen Magnusson Monday 27th July Tom Van Deijnen Wednesday 29th July Kate Atherley Friday 31st July Jamieson & Smith Sunday 2nd August Donna Druchunas Monday 3rd August Felix Ford aka knitsonik Tuesday 4th Aug Ysolda Thursday 6th August Donna Smith Friday 7th August Susan Crawford
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