Blog
5ply Shetland Cones
Hello everyone! A quick post from us today to let you know we recently got more stock of our 5ply Shetland Cones, this is our newest range of yarn which we launched at Wool Week in 2023. Its a lovely yarn (if we do say so!!) made from 100% Real Shetland Wool and inspired by our maritime history and environment here in Shetland. Although we are rightly famed for our bright Fair Isle and Lace knitting there is also evidence of Gansey/Guernsey type jumpers worn in Shetland which makes sense when you look at our location, we are and have been for many years a main port in the Fishing industry so people often travelled up and over from places with their own Knitting tradition. The 5ply cones are 250g so for an average adults Gansey in 1 colour you will need between 3/4 cones. Cones save you some ends and some money over buying the balls, we currently have stock of all 20 shades so if you are interested this is the time to purchase! You can find the cones in the shop or online here and for more information about the yarn see our earlier post here and another we wrote about the colours in the range here. If you miss our more regular updates make sure you are signed up to our newsletter, we send one out once every month with updates of new products, patterns and news from Shetland. Happy Knitting!
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Videos
Hello everyone! You may remember during 2020 and 2021 when we had no in-person Shetland Wool Week we decided to produce along with Keiba Clubb online videos, featuring some of the classes we usually host at Wool Week. They are a great source of tips, tricks and information, so we thought we'd highlight them here! In 2020 we had two videos from Wool Week patrons, one being the current one, Alison Rendall and Fair Isle Cuffs and Thumb Gussets and Knitting a Fair Isle Bookmark with Hazel Tindall, this is one of our most popular classes we hold at Wool Week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CZmq60jkSA&list=PLE1uY31y5ZbdrvBhuZSwNKyzjm7PcsmJ_ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cygWM1e_sw0&list=PLE1uY31y5ZbdrvBhuZSwNKyzjm7PcsmJ_&index=3 We also have two videos from J&S staff, one from Ella all about our yarn ranges, and one from Oliver about sorting and Grading Shetland Wool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rCR3WHHSIs&list=PLE1uY31y5ZbdrvBhuZSwNKyzjm7PcsmJ_&index=6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nMMpv-k2p4&list=PLE1uY31y5ZbdrvBhuZSwNKyzjm7PcsmJ_&index=5 in 2021 we added more videos, one from Alison about Edging and Ribbing in Fair Isle, another from Hazel about Belts and Basics, a great all-around tips video and a great video about knitting glove fingers in Fair Isle with Lesley Smith https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoY6ypmFfpc&t=878s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YIPTy26vmI&t=1783s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAqJy76a1Bc&t=524s We also had a few more videos from J&S, one about Speed Swatching for Fair Isle with Ella: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKbE4XL8QiI&list=PLE1uY31y5ZbcXGS7ROlKZuFaZPXHmZezS&index=4 And two videos from Oliver all about his working life at J&S: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSGp1e4FTls&list=PLE1uY31y5ZbcXGS7ROlKZuFaZPXHmZezS&index=5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-R3bc5vYOs We hope you agree there are some great tips and stories in these videos, you can find these and all our other videos on our Youtube Channel here, happy knitting!
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5ply Colours
Hello everyone, thank you for the great response to our new Yarn, 5ply Shetland! Today we thought we'd show you a closer look at the colour palette we chose to produce. The yarn is available in 20 shades, 14 solid and 6 natural/overdyed. As discussed in our last post the colours were inspired by our maritime history, Shetlands landscape and those classic seafaring colours: We knit up a square of each shade, so today we thought we'd go through them: We had to include two Navys, both a mid and dark - these are timeless nautical shades. The blues continue with Turquoise and Marine, two blues that lean towards a greeny, jewel tone. Then we have Airforce, a very grey blue and Olive, a rich mid-green. Marsh is a lighter yellow-green and Mustard is a bright golden yellow. There is the rich warm Rust and the super bright Scarlet As well as the refined Maroon and luscious Aubergine. The final solid shade is the purpley grey Lavender, and the base for all these shades is the lovely creamy White. We also used a mix of undyed wool to create the Natural, this light grey is then overdyed to create the Twilight shades - such as Turquoise Twilight Mustard and Rust Twilight And Scarlet and Lavender Twilight! We can't tell you how delighted we are with how all the shades came out. We wanted to create a well-rounded group of colours and the Twilight shades really add something special to the range: It's amazing how much the 5 colours change depending on the White or Grey base! We've also spent a lot of time over the last few weeks working on redoing our Yoal Gansey pattern, seen here modelled by Oliver and knit by Sandra using the shade Turquoise. Originally it was designed and knit in Shetland Heritage holding the yarn double. But as we found out two strands of Heritage matches the gauge of 1 strand of 5ply! So we have extended the size range and fixed any mistakes. We have ordered paper patterns but the pattern is available digitally on Ravelry and Payhip now. If you are interested in how much yarn you would need for a Gansey using the Yoal here is an estimate: Chest inches 37 (40.5, 42, 45.5, 47.5, 50, 51, 56.5) = 640 (680, 730, 770, 830, 850, 900, 960) grams The stitch definition is clear to see, we are so happy with this yarn! As a reminder here is the Yarn information: Yarn Information 100% Real Shetland Wool Worsted Spun 5ply/Sport Weight, wpi 16 115m/125yds per 50g ball 575m/625yds per 250g cone suggested needle size 2mm-3mm Available in the shop and online here If you own or have a Local Yarn Store that you would like to carry it in the future please contact wholesale@shetlandwoolbrokers.co.uk - We are looking to make it available to stockists very soon! Happy Knitting!
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5ply Shetland
Hello everyone! The dust has settled on another Shetland Wool Week and we had a great and really busy time, during SWW we launched a new yarn range in the shop and we are delighted to say it is now available Online - 5ply Shetland! As a company that's been around for a while (we just had our 72nd birthday in September!) we have produced many different ranges over the years, our main focus has always been creating yarns that work for both traditional and timeless knitting styles. One thing we have often been asked about is a yarn that would work for knitting fine textured patterns like Ganseys. Alongside Shetland's traditions of Fair Isle and Lace knitting there is also evidence of this kind of workwear knitting, as we are a place with so much Fishing and Fishermen coming through this also meant traditions from other knitters came to Shetland and were exchanged with knitters here. Many women who worked in the fishing industry, often as Gutters would also travel down to different places to work, from Shetland along the Scottish north East coast, further south to the East Yorkshire coast of England and to East Anglia. In this way they would have seen, learnt and absorbed Gansey style patterns and techniques. Fishermen and Herring Workers in Lerwick Harbour, reproduced here with thanks to Margaret Wright So when we had the opportunity to develop a new range we thought why not make the kind of yarn we have probably been asked for the most, and 5ply Shetland is the result! The yarn is 100% Real Shetland Wool and uses the Grade 3 wool, this is slightly hardier than what we usually use for our knitting yarns but we wanted a hard-wearing quality and due to the yarn being Worsted Spun (combed rather than carded) it meant we could use a slightly rougher grade as the spinning process improves the handle of the yarn. It's really important to try and utilise as much of the wool clip as we can and we are really happy to be able to add some more value to this grade. For the colours we worked with local photographer John Rollo to see the common shades in our environment, the colours of the sky, sea and land in Shetland are so varied and such a constant for us here that they are an endless source of inspiration. The yarn is a standard 5ply/Sportweight yarn and is available in 50g balls and 250g cones. We started with White and a Natural Grey mix as our two bases, there are 13 shades dyed on the White as seen below: then for something special we chose 5 of these shades and also dyed them on the Natural Grey base, these are the Twilight shades: Turquoise Twilight, Lavender Twilight, Mustard Twilight, Scarlet Twilight and Rust Twilight Lavender Twilight and Lavender It's really interesting to see how the base changes the colour of the yarn and this adds a heather to the colour that will not detract from any stitch pattern. The mix of solid and heathered shades is really beautiful and we are delighted with them. The yarn itself has beautiful stitch definition and we hope you like it! Mustard Yarn Information 100% Real Shetland Wool Worsted Spun 5ply/Sport Weight, wpi 16 115m/125yds per 50g ball 575m/625yds per 250g cone suggested needle size 2mm-3mm Available in the shop and online here We have made quite a small batch for the first lot so it is not currently available for our wholesale customers but if you own or have a Local Yarn Store that you would like to carry it in the future please contact wholesale@shetlandwoolbrokers.co.uk to register interest. It will be available to our stockists as soon as the next batch is ready. Happy Knitting!
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The Power of Sorting
Hello everyone, today we are discussing one of the more hands-on aspects of the wool side of our business: hand sorting. This is physically sorting each fleece into different grades for its intended final use. If a fleece is not sorted and split into its different grades and then the wool is used for making knitting yarn you will end up with an inconsistent yarn - it will be thick and thin and may break easily. This is because there has not been uniformity in the wool. You can see how different it can be in the examples above - these samples both come from the same fleece, the fine soft yarn on the left and the much rougher wool on the right containing the longer guard hair. This guard hair can be and is combed out but if it goes into yarn along with the finer wool it becomes an irritant and changes the balance of the wool. We grade and sort into 5 grades 1 being the finest. Within the same fleece you can find all five grades, we recently filmed a video about preparing a fleece for shows here in Shetland but the information might also be helpful here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2D0EpiOVl1Y So for an example the boys in the Woolstore took a typical Shetland fleece we would receive and we laid it out.. We then sorted it and removed all the rougher grades.... Leaving behind what we keep for knitting yarns, you can see how much is removed... From a 1.5kg fleece we were left with: Off Sorts, not for knitting yarn: 800g Finer wool for yarn: 700g So in that fleece there was more to be removed than was kept for yarn. None of the yarn not suitable for hand knitting yarn is wasted, our parent company Curtis Wool Direct is able to either comb (to remove a lot of the longer guard hair) and use in a Worsted Spun Yarn or clean (dirty, heavily soiled or full of vegetable matter) to be used in carpet or even wool insulation products. Neckband wool, you can see how fine and high quality the wool is but due to its location, there is a lot of vegetable matter! We sort the neckbands on their own and keep them all together so once cleaned this wool can be used for yarn. For our woollen spun yarns like 2ply Jumper Weight to name one this sorting process is extremely important, even in a fine fleece you can get areas with both a long and short staple which is why grading alone is not enough. Due to the volume of wool we take in we are able to be more discerning with our sorting to ensure only the best graded and sorted Shetland Wool is used for our knitting yarns, because of this volume we are unable to sort it all here on-site but once it gets to Curtis Wool Direct what's not is sorted and the wool for knitting yarns goes into our 'Wool Bank' which we then create our yarns from. During the winter and quieter months, we also sort here alongside our everyday grading. We have had a busy summer here in Shetland, the wool season is fully underway and we had the Tall Ships Race in Lerwick last week, if you want to keep up with what's happening at J&S be sure to sign up to our newsletter, Happy Knitting!
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Catch Up
Hello everyone, happy weekend! Sorry things have been a bit quiet here, we have had a really busy few months since our last post! Things are cooling down fast here in Shetland and we had our first snow last week - it's all gone already of course but it will be back! We thought we'd do a quick catch up post of some of the things we've been enjoying lately: Over the past few weeks we've been working on adding all our Yoke Cardigan and Jumpers to the Online Shop, we work with a number of local knitters on our yokes so each one is totally different - something we love about them but it means it takes us a while to get them all up! but for the moment the current stock is all online and available, you can see them here A few weeks ago we got in stock of our 1 and 2ply Supreme Lace in a shade we've not had before - Light Grey! this is a truly beautiful undyed and completely natural Shade which we have in other ranges but have never had before in the Supreme Lace. As its a natural shade we don't know if we will have it again but we currently have it in both ball and cone in both weights, it really adds to the palette and offers another light shade, you can see it here alongside the other 2ply Shades: We also added recently added some new patterns and kits, on our new online shop we can offer the paper patterns individually which means you can add them to your order or change colours and we are loving seeing how many of you are picking them up, you can see all the Patterns we have here Some of the new kits we've added are the Radiant Star Mitts, Croft Cowl and Radiant Star Cowl by Ella Gordon and Jacks Jacket and Allium Hat and Mitts by Outi Kater. You can see all the kits we have available here There have also been some great new books come out recently - the Shetland Wool Week 2021 Annual, Shetland Trader Book 3: Heritage, and Shetland Wool Adventures Journal Volume 3. They are all filled with beautiful patterns using Shetland Wool and the Journal and Annual both contain articles all about Shetland. Finally, as things have been cooling down we've been keeping warm under our Skye Weavers rugs and are delighted by how many else of you are also enjoying them during this winter! They are made for us by Skye Weavers using our Shetland Supreme Jumper Weight, another of our completely undyed ranges, this week you might have seen our post about the Coloured Wool - we are currently working through these amazing shades in the Wool Store, and its amazing to see these natural shades come back to us as cozy blankets! Oliver in the Woolstore working on the coloured wool. So that's some of the things we are enjoying just now, we are being kept busy with all your orders. We have had some poor weather here which does impact the boats and planes so its worth keeping in mind although we try our hardest to get everything out as quickly as possible there are some delays outwith our control, we hope you are enjoying your December and happy knitting!
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Tirval's Toorie
Hello everyone, you may have seen our post on instagram with our new pattern earlier today, Sandra has designed this lovely hat in Shetland Heritage in two different colourways and lengths -Tirval's Toorie! The pattern is written for a longer Kep style and a shorter Beanie, both use the Shetland Heritage yarn - the shorter style in the Dyed Heritage and the longer one in the Natural: The Shetland Heritage is a great option for a hat as we move into Spring, its Worsted Spun (meaning its been combed before spinning) which creates a drapier, softer yarn and its slightly thinner than Jumper Weight making for an overall lighter weight hat. The pattern uses traditional Shetland motifs and corrugated ribbing and is finished off with a plain crown and a tassel. So if you have a stash of Shetland Heritage the pattern is available to download on ravelry here, payhip here or the kit is available on our online shop here, Happy Knitting!
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Wirsit Inspo
Hello everyone, If you follow our Instagram or Facebook page you will have seen over the past few months we have started doing weekly 'Wirsit Inspo' posts. basically, its where we take an image of something in Shetland and put a palette together inspired by the picture. I have mainly done them in 2ply Jumper Weight but have done one in 2ply Lace and I'm going to try and use more ranges too. When we post them they always get really good feedback so I thought we would share them here too: Seaweed at the Shetland Museum Slipway. 2ply Jumper Weight top to bottom: 2. 1281, FC38, FC44, FC11 Seapinks and Sea, Northmavine. 2ply Jumper Weight top to bottom: FC61, 203, 121, 1283, FC12, 4 Wool Bales. 2ply Jumper Weight top to bottom: 81, 54, 1281, 2, 202 Peerie Boat, Shetland Museum. 2ply Jumper Weight top to bottom: 202, 66, 125, 16, 122, FC14 Scalloway Haa. 2ply Jumper Weight top to bottom: 3, 27, 1, 16, 101 Stratsraad Lehmkuhkl, Lerwick Harbour. 2ply Jumper Weight top to bottom: 36, 21, FC47, 91, 66, 1 Fading Heather, Nesting. 2ply Jumper Weight top to bottom: FC12, 80, FC38, 1284, FC21, 16 Sunset. 2ply Lace Weight top to bottom: L63, L15, L53, L96, L95 Wintery Beach. 2ply Jumper Weight top to bottom: 203, FC39, FC47, FC21, 2 The Lodberrie and Bains Beach. 2ply Jumper Weight top to bottom: 77, 54, FC61, 1281, 32 Seapinks, Sumburgh Head. 2ply Jumper Weight top to bottom: 81, FC41, FC11, FC6 and 1A As we head into winter here (the sun set at 3.22pm yesterday..) it's great to look back at pictures from seasons past, I will post them here every couple of months but you can follow the #wirsitinspo hashtag on Instagram to keep up with them as we post them, hope this has given you some inspiration, happy knitting! Ella
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Gift Ideas 2020
Hello everyone, the season of gifting is nearly upon us and although it seems unthinkable Christmas will be here before we know it! This year we expect there to be delays in delivery times as we get closer so we would encourage you to order as soon as you can for presents - we have organised our most common knitterly and knit appreciative gifts on one page on the website which you can see here RUGS - we have a limited number (don't worry, more are coming!) of our beautiful rugs woven for us using our Supreme Jumper weight by Skye Weavers, they are so cosy! YOKES - We have a range of Jumper Weight and Heritage Yokes Cardigans available (and some Jumpers) these are completely made in Shetland. The body and sleeves are machine-knitted on a domestic machine then the yokes are hand knit. Each one is different! CREW - we also have a selection of plain crew neck jumpers knit in 2ply Jumper Weight, these are classic and timeless garments that will last a lifetime! GIFT KIT/BOXES - we have also put together a selection of our patterns into gift boxes which contain the yarn and pattern, we have chosen a mix of patterns but if you have anything specific in mind we can always put something together for you - just email us! COASTERS KEYRING MUGS - perfect peerie presents, our range of mugs, coasters and keyrings are made in Shetland and depict a range of our patterns. SOCKS - we also have a selection of Toonie and Crofter socks which are knit in Shetland Heritage Naturals, these are some of the warmest socks ever and the two thicknesses are perfect for either in normal shoes (toonie) or in wellie/walking boots (crofter) HATS MITTS - we also still have stock of our hand-knit mitts and hats, these are all totally unique and knitted by expert Shetland knitters. We have just restocked our hand-knit Olivers hats too which are made by the designer - our own Sandra Manson and finished with an exclusive J&S tag. NATURAL CUSHIONS/RUGS We still have a small stock of these undyed Cushions and Rugs which make great presents and keep you warm! SELECTION BOXES If you want to buy someone Wool but are not sure what to get our Selection Boxes make a great gift! You can also buy any yarn and add a kit box to make your own gift box. KNITTING BELTS We have two styles of Knitting Belts, both made in Shetland so we have lots of colour options - Whalsay Belts and Tomas more muted colours BOOKS and as always we have lots of books, including our own publications and some newer ones which have come out this year like the 2020 Wool Week Annual and the Wool Adventures Journal Volume 1 ACCESSORIES We have lots of good accessories too for gifts, many a knitter love an accessory! Phew, if you've reached here Well Done and hopefully that has given you some ideas, you can find all the products mentioned here on our gift page. Happy Knitting xx
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