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Natalia's Yoke
Today we have an exciting new pattern to share, we often get asked about childs yoke cardigan patterns, much like our adult Hairst Yoke. This is one of the many kinds of patterns Shetlanders pass down generation to generation which makes it difficult to find a traditional pattern to make, but now Sandra has designed one for us! The cardigan is called the Natalia Yoke, named after our very cute model and Kharis' niece. It is knit using 2ply Jumper Weight and comes in sizes 22 inches up to 28". It is knit traditionally in the round with a steek but it also includes instructions for if you wanted to knit it flat, the relatively small size makes it a great first steeking project, and as there are only 3 different contrast shades a great first Fair Isle project too. If you would like to order the kit for the Natalia yoke you can do so on our website here! happy knitting!
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winter jobs
During the winter (and its feeling wintery today in Shetland!) of course things slow down a bit on the Wool side of J&S but we carry on with the job of sorting the graded fleeces, white and coloured. Shetland Wool is known for having different grades in one fleece and it is this time of year we can take the time to separate out the best of them. Oliver is taking each fleece and looking for certain things within them - the handle, the character and fibre fineness to name a few. You often find spinners looking for the crimp of a Shetland fleece and this is one of the things we are looking for. The best of all these things together make for the finest results in Spinning. The finest fleeces have a lack of Guard Hair, the courser fibres which bring down the grade. By hand sorting you can remove and ensure the overall fineness of the fleeces. This exquisite Shawl of Sandra's shows an example of how fine Shetland Yarn can be hand spun. As well as the white fleeces, which is obviously the most common in Shetland, we are also lucky to have many of Shetland's crofters come to us with their coloured fleeces. (I did a post a while ago about the Natural Colours which you can see here) These are crucial because they allow us to have a number of ranges using only the Natural Shades. 1 and 2ply Supreme Lace and Shetland Supreme Jumper Weight. We also have something new coming soon using the Undyed colours so keep an eye out for that.. So although the green doors are shut there are plenty of things going on behind them! And if your interested in Olivers hat there will be a pattern coming soon.. Happy Knitting!
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2358
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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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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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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Yarn Series - Shetland Supreme Jumper Weight
Hello! we are back with another post in the yarn series, this time it is the turn of Shetland Supreme Jumper Weight - a totally undyed and natural 4ply Weight Yarn. This yarn is perhaps best known in recent years for its use in the designs by Kate Davies, however we have been singing the praises of this natural woollen spun yarn for many years. Supreme Jumper Weight comes in a range of 9 completely undyed shades, ranging from Natural White (Shade 2001) to Yuglet (Shade 2009) The other shades are either as they are on the sheep or carefully blended from the natural wool to create a well-rounded palette. Historically Coloured Shetland Wool was used by knitters in Fair Isle patterning and Lace knitting like Haps before the dyed wool was available. As time went on however the Coloured wool lost its value and it became almost worthless because white fleece was easy to dye and much more uniform in texture. Up until around 1997 almost all Shetland Yarns in 'natural' shades were dyed to create these tones, the reason being the dye house could make it a set shade each time. This differs from our supreme range in that each batch, for example Shetland Black (shade 2005) will not be the same each time as all sheep are not the same shade. So if you plan to use this yarn its best to get all the yarn at one time, it may be quite different in the next lot! Another reason most of the mills have to dye or 'add a touch of dye' is that we at Jamieson & Smith buy roughly 80% of the entire Shetland wool clip , the majority of which is white with only a limited amount of natural coloured which we use for these our 9 shades. We need a substantial amount of natural coloured fleece in order to produce all the shades in the palette. This means we have to do a lot of hand sorting to separate the various fibre qualities and of course shades which can be found in one fleece. For more information about the Natural Wool and the Sorting process see our earlier posts here and here. In 1997 we began a journey to further and strengthen the value of the coloured fleece. This came about as a joint venture between Jamieson & Smith and Yarns International, a now sadly closed down business in Maryland in the USA. Betty Lindsay, a partner in the company visited J&S and was saddened when we told her that the coloured wool had little to no value. Betty vowed to do something and true to her word we set up the totally dye free range which was named Shetland 2000. She employed Ron Schweitzer to design a range of patterns using the yarns, you can see some of his designs on his Ravelry designer page here. Since then lots of desingers have found how well all the natural colours blend together, you can subtely blend them or do some quite striking patterns. Peat Hill Waistcoat, Adult Lynsey and Karelides Cardigan, some of our current kits made using Shetland Supreme Jumper Weight At the beginning of the post I mentioned Kate's Sheep designs, the Sheepheid and Rams and Yowes blanket. Both these patterns are extremely popular and use all 9 shades to maximum effect, they both feature motifs of Sheep and Rams which is obviously reflected in the yarns. You can order kits for these patterns here on our online shop Hopefully this post has helped you understand the work that goes into the Shetland Supreme Jumper Weight range. There a a number of crofters and farmers in Shetland who are very comitted to the coloured Shetland Sheep and we couldnt do this range without them! The coloured Shetland Wool would have been at a time one of the only ways to get different shades into your knitting, now we are extremly lucky to have so much different colours that we can use. Sometimes you cant go wrong using what nature provides us. til next time, Happy Knitting! PS. we are now on instagram! search thewoolbrokers to follow us.
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