Blog
Seasons of A Shetland Crofter
hello everyone, just a quick reminder today about our Seasons of A Shetland Crofter competition which closes in a few weeks. We've had some great entries so far but we are still looking for more - To remind you we are looking for seasonal stories and photos taken in Shetland which show you the nature and agricultural aspect of our culture that crofting and farming have given us over the years.. We are hosting the competition together with Vispring, Shetland Amenity Trust and Shetland Wool Week and for some inspiration I thought I'd share some modern and historical photos we have shared on the blog before: Sheep at the Voe Show Wool just been clipped, Bressay Berry Farm Shetland Sheep and Lambs Suprise Lamb at the Cunningsburgh Show Clipping Sheep Caaing Sheep Rams at the Walls Show You do not have to be a crofter to enter (I took quite a few of these and I'm just a toonie with a crofter grandad!) but if you have historical or current photos that you feel show the crofting or nature of Shetland we would love to see them, the prizes include a Real Shetland Wool Vispring Bed (!) and a two night stay at Sumburgh Lighthouse so its definitely worth entering. The competition closes on the 21st of July and you can enter and find terms and conditions here.
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Olivers trip to Visit the Shetland Sheep Society
Oliver and Catherine recently returned from a few days away visiting the Shetland Sheep Society, they invited Oliver down to give a talk on Sheep, wool and its uses and his work at Jamieson & Smith. The event took place in Nuneaton at one of the groups conferences. In 1985 the Shetland Sheep Breeders group was formed to help breeders outside the Shetland Isles to maintain flocks conforming to the 1927 Shetland Breed Standard. The group then became responsible for registering Shetland sheep on the U.K. mainland, overseeing and maintaining the strict breed requirements by inspecting the animals. The group admits they are not totally dependent on breeding the sheep classing themselves as part time unlike in some cases in Shetland where sheep is the bread and butter of the sheep producer. Oliver was greatly surprised and delighted to see the high standard of Shetland sheep in person at the Ashby by owners Lynne and David White. It was obvious that a great deal of care and attention into the flock breeding and husbandry of the animals. There was a big focus on quality, fibre fineness, uniformity of staple length and handle ( softness). After his presentation and question and answers Oliver was asked to judge a small amount of fleece some members had there and as with the sheep very impressive the fibre fineness and handle was quite exceptional. There is no doubt that this group containing approximately 500 members from the North of Scotland to Devon and Cornwall in the south of England play an important part in the Shetland breed of sheep. Not only does the group members travel to Shetland frequently and purchase high quality fine wool breeding stock, it is not unusual for some Shetland sheep breeders to do likewise. There are many reasons for this. One being the numbers of natural pure bred coloured sheep flocks are diminishing, also blood lines in Shetland are in some cases becoming to close thus the need for new stock. There is also an exchange of Shetland sheep judges wherein mainland judges travel to Shetland and judge at local agricultural shows, in turn Shetland sheep breeders travel and judge on sheep at U.K. mainland shows. It is very clear there is a combined dedicated effort to preserve the Real Shetland sheep, and this connection has resulted in many close friendships over the years. The visit was not just confined to sheep and wool but also a visit to Ashby St Ledgers a very important part of English history the home of the Gunpowder plot of 1605 where Guy Fawkes and the co-conspirators would have hatched up their plans to blow up King James and his Parliament. The church dates back to the 1100 s and is still in use today. Very grateful thanks from Oliver and his wife Catherine for the excellent and kind hospitality shown to them by the group, and a special thank you to David & Lyn of the Ashby Flock for letting me see and handle their outstanding Shetland Sheep. A never to be forgotten journey.
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Waas Show 2018
Hello everyone, so bright and early on Saturday morning me and Sandra headed out to Waas to have a look at the Show and judge the Colourbox competition. This is only the 3rd year we have had the colourbox at the Walls Show so it is a bit smaller but still has beautiful entries: We've had a few questions about the Colourbox Shades so for a reminder the 2018 colours were: 3, 53, 66, 72, 87, 366, fc37 and fc56. Once we had done our bit we enjoyed wandering around looking at the animals and other entries. While we were driving out it was pretty rainy but luckily it was dry and sunny on the Westside (which is quite often the way!) so we had a great time. Like all shows in Shetland the knitwear is to an extremly high standard, there was quite alot of lace but also Fair Isle. The judges had a tough job! There are still a couple of shows still to be but thats the last with the Colourbox for this year, next years colours have been chosen so we are looking forward to 2019 already! 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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Shetland and Shetland Type
Hello everyone, today we are going to touch on something which comes up every now and again - the issue and differences between Shetland and Shetland Type wool. Sometimes it can be quite confusing but this post is just to alert you to the fact some yarns you see called 'Shetland' may be that in name only. According to the British Trading Standards, the current usage of the word Shetland in Wool is: 'A yarn spun on the Woollen system of 100% Virgin Wool.. such yarn being capable of imparting to a fabric the qualities of crispness and/or smoothness and soft handling attributed to the products formerly made exclusively from the Shetland breed of Sheep' This is interesting as it shows you that a yarn could be named 'Shetland' but not include much or any Shetland Wool, but by imitating the spinning style or feel of whats attributed to Shetland Wool you can give it that name regardless of where the wool comes from or the breed used. Another point in the trading standards information is this: 'where the term is qualified by the adjectives 'genuine', 'real' or any similar description, or quantified by the terms '100%' or 'all', this implies the wool actually originated in Shetland.' You will see we always talk about our wool as Real Shetland Wool, or 100% Shetland Wool etc - this is us working on this basis - to show you the wool originated here in the Shetland Islands from Shetland Sheep! We know for a fact that there are many more products out there called Shetland than there is wool available. We annually take in over 260,000 kilos of local wool from the Shetland Islands (which equals well over 80% of the Wool clip) and what doesn't come back to us in yarn and finished product is sold on through our parent company Curtis Wool Direct for many other wool products. There are of course other Shetland Wool producers and ones on the mainland but you will find in their description of the yarns they will explain this - the ones which should ring alarms bells are those who have 'Shetland' in the name of the yarn range but no other mention of Shetland or Shetland Sheep in the description. We have a very interesting piece of text in our archives which comes from Alistair MacDonald who was a long-term staff member at Hunters of Brora, where we used to have our yarns spun before they went out of business in the early 2000's. The folder contains Alistair's findings and remarks on lots of different aspects of the yarn and knitwear industry and he has some interesting comments on the Shetland/Shetland Type argument, some of which we noted in our book: 'When I think of the Shetland yarn on offer I am reminded of the bizarre situation with Cheddar Cheese.. the name Cheddar now describes a type of cheese not a cheese from the Cheddar Valley. Just as cheddar is now ubiquitous to the super market so now Shetland is ubiquitous in the textile market place.' Our aim with this post is to highlight that 'Shetland Type' yarns are appropriating the reputation that Shetland Wool has earned over hundreds of years through our climate, culture, history and sheep. We are rightly extremely proud of our wool and if this is something which is important to you also, we urge you to ask questions about the origins of the Shetland Wool you are buying. Happy knitting! All photos on this post have been taken by us either in the Woolstore at J&S or at local Agricultural Shows and the top image was taken at one of our crofters farms in Bressay.
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Wool Season
Hello everybody, sorry it has been quite quiet on the blog this summer, we have been so busy which of course is a great problem to have. We are now in the heart of the Shetland Wool season and thanks to a pretty good summer so far the clipping has been happening in earnest so the woolstore is filling up as fast as they can empty it! Even with roadworks happening outside our door (we can still be reached from the bottom of North Road) we are averaging 2-3 tonnes through the doors everyday. I took the chance on Saturday after the woolstore ones had gone home to take a few photos of the organised chaos, I find the Woolstore extremly photogenic and the sheer volume of wool in there never ceases to amaze me. We have shipped two loads so far and they are well into load 3 so you can see we are bursting (at the seams you can see above!) These pictures sum up just a fraction of the wool we see from over 80% of Shetlands Crofters and Farmers in a year, but I hope you've enjoyed this peerie peek. One more thing thats happened this summer is Oliver has reach 50 years at J&S! I posted a few photos through the years on Instagram which you can see here but I took this one last week which just about sums it up... Happy Knitting!
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Wool Awareness Event
Hello everyone! So this past Saturday we hosted something a bit different at J&S, a Wool Awareness event. This was for our crofters and wool producers and focused on the ways to present the wool so as to get the best price. Jan, Oliver and Derek were all on hand to advise and talk through with the visitors about what was on show. The woolstore was laid out brilliantly with examples of all the different grades we take in as well as what we don't want and how it can lower the price the crofter receives, this was great I thought (as a non-crofter!) because it was well described as to why this lowers the value and I could see what was wrong with it compared to the other examples. We also had fancys! And fleece-rolling demonstrations! We had as well a display of all the yarns and products we make so you could also see the finished product - a number of the visitors came into the shop afterwards and all the feedback I had was really good, so I hope those that came enjoyed it. Its extremely important to us to support the crofters as much as we can, after all we wouldn't get very far without them! I made a quick video on Saturday too which you can see below, Happy Knitting! Save
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Ollies Visit to Papa
Oliver recently spent the day clipping sheep on Papa, an island off the west side of Scalloway. Papa Isle is owned by the Smith family, the founders of Jamieson & Smith, he headed there with my (Ella’s) Uncle James who runs Berry Farm and a group of willing clippers and packers! arriving on Papa Papa Isle is one of the now many uninhabited islands in Shetland. Shetland is made up of over 100 small islands but only 16 are now lived on. Nearby to Papa there are a number of similar isles - Hildasay, Oxna, Linga, Havra and Langa were all at one time inhabited like Papa but as times changed and Island life became harder people gradually moved to the more easily assessable islands, part of Oliver’s family came from Hildasay. Preparing the cro Gathering the Sheep James looks on while the sheep are rounded up Brian watches as the Sheep enter the pen Oliver hand shearing the old way! Shearing by power - the modern way! Papa is now the home of approximately 90 sheep who are quite happy living on the natural grazing and feeding on seaweed. They are handled only twice a year for shearing and later in the year for taking home the lambs so with the exception of necessary drenching are virtually organic and quite self-sufficient! They are able to survive and reserve energy and fat for the harsher winters, Hill Sheep have very good wool, the environment and grazing usually leads to a very fine quality of wool. All clipped and back to the hills! Lots of Oo ready to head to the J&S Woolstore There are still many examples of Papa being inhabited, the two below pictures show the plaque erected by the Slater Family and the remains of the Slater family Croft house which was attached to the school. The next two pictures show the Papa Kirk, you can see Oxna Isle in the background with the house used for Lambing. Papa in Old Norse means the Island of the Priests and people came from all the surrounding Islands for the Sunday service. It was still active in the early 1930s and an elderly neighbour of Oliver’s said he would row over from Burra for the service. The image with the stone before it shows the rock on which the late Robert Fullerton told Oliver a Bible would be laid onto, the people in Oxna would look for this through a spyglass and if it was there they would climb the hill behind their house and wave a bed sheet which would have been seen on the Islands of Hildasay, Linga and Langa. The congregation would then row or sail over for the service. If the Bible wasn’t there it meant the weather was too poor for the minister to make it to the kirk from Scalloway. The 'Crying Knowe' can be seen in the picture below, this was a small hill used by the residents of Papa to shout across the sound to the people on Oxna You can still see remnants of the Papa Peat banks like in the picture below, many people still use Peat to heat and warm their houses in Shetland today but it was a complete necessity for people in isolated Islands like Papa. You can see a bit more information about Peats in Shetland here. I hope you've enjoyed this quick look into a bit of Shetland History, you can see on the Map I've included above from 1806 nearly all the Islands in Shetland are named, probably because people lived on most of them! Papa is located directly across from Foula on the mid/bottom left hand side. Happy Knitting! Save Save
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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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