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Scadder Fleece
In the wool store last week, we came across a fleece which used to be common here. Now, it is a much more rare occurrence. This is a fleece with markings described as 'scadder'. This is a dialect word to describe a Shetland Sheep with coarse, longer hair down the back from the neck to the tail. In some cases it even has a ruff or mane around the neck, this very coarse and long hair is alongside fine wool in the rest of the fleece: The fleece we got last week has extremely fine and soft wool in most of the fleece. There is just the long, coarse hair down the middle and around the neck. Oliver said this is one of the best examples of this type of fleece he's seen for a long time. Shetland Sheep have similarities with Norwegian Sheep breeds like Spaelsau and Vilsau. You can see in this Vilsau Sheep how similar the long wool is to the Scadder fleece above: Vilsau sheep, Norway Shetland Sheep, Shetland With breeding and crossing over time, this scadder marking is becoming rarer. Every now and then we get an excellent example, although its not seen as desirable for yarn or the breed it is interesting as it is a throwback to the ancient genetics of Native Shetland Sheep. The fleece highlights the importance of sorting wool. The long wool on the scadder fleece is graded as Rough Coloured. The fine wool is Superfine Coloured - These represent two extremes of handle. If this is not sorted, it results in a thick and thin yarn. For more information, see this blog post we did on the Power of Sorting. Oliver also discusses scadder markings on a blog post here. We hope you found this post interesting. To keep up with us, make sure to subscribe to our monthly newsletter. Happy knitting!
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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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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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Knitting With Cones
Hello everyone, thank you for the good feedback on our last post! Today we will go into something else we always get asked about - knitting with cones! cones in our new back-shop area. We offer quite a few of our ranges on cone but by far the most popular is our 2ply Jumper Weight, this is our traditional Shetland 4ply thickness wool that we have been producing since the 1960s. It's available in over 100 shades and we often have most of these available. We produce them in 500g cones. This is equal to 20 balls – approximately 2500 yards/2300 metres Two shades we took back last year, left 9 and right 8 What is the difference between the yarn on cone or ball? Nothing at all – when we order a shade we get a certain amount on cone and the rest on ball but initially the whole order is made on cone, the yarn to be turned into balls is then scoured and balled. What would I use it for? Lots of things! In Shetland cones are probably mostly used for knitting the body and sleeves of Yoke cardigans and jumpers and it is perfect for that but anything which needs a substantial amount of one shade will benefit from using a cone. Also if there is a shade you use a lot – it might be worth investing in a cone to always have to hand. Why would I buy a cone over balls? Cost: Because there are less production costs (no scouring, balling, bagging etc) the overall cost of a cone works out a lot cheaper than buying the balls - its over a 45% discount if you purchase it directly from us! Ease of knitting: you just plop the cone down and knit! Compared to balls there are less ends, and within the cone you should find few if any knots which means a seamless garment will be just that. Knitting Machine: If you have a knitting machine a cone is by far the easiest way to knit and because we sell the cones in oil (meaning the yarn is oiled with a synthetic oil – like sewing machine oil) that means the yarn will glide through the machine and not catch, and therefore break. FC11 Can I handknit with a cone? Of course, because the yarn is oiled it doesn’t feel the same as the balls but once washed it feels exactly the same. Anything made with the oiled yarn must be washed – we would advise this for any item made with Shetland Wool anyway but for the oiled yarn it is crucial, the oil is not meant to be next to skin and may irritate it. Some people do not like the feeling of the oiled yarn to knit with so you can hank/skein the yarn, wash then wind it into balls if you prefer but it is not necessary. The only time we would advise taking care would be if you were knitting with a very strong colour (black, red, blue etc) alongside a lighter colour as the stronger pigments can attach to the oil and bleed when first washed. In this case, we would wind off and wash or use a colour catcher when washing. 1281 What about swatching? If you need to swatch you must wash the swatch – the gauge is not reliable until its washed as with the oil it can look much thinner and therefore not give you a reliable tension. How do you wash out the oil? To remove the oil you need to submerge the item in very hot (not boiling) water along with a wool wash or hand wash wool detergent. You will see a lot of grey water which is the oil and perhaps some of the colour of the yarn as the dye can attach to the oil. Its best to leave the item (without agitating for up to an hour. Then rinse and repeat until the water runs completely clear. We also offer our undyed Jumper Weight range on cone too - Shetland Supreme Jumper Weight is completely undyed and available in 9 Natural shades. Because this is a rarer fibre we don't always have all the colours on cone available but as is the case with any product on our website you can add your email address to an 'in-stock alert' and it will email you as soon as we add more. Sometimes there can be a long wait between us getting more of particular shades or ranges on cone, its important to understand that the cones are something we have chosen to offer to our retail customers as an extra to balls. We have to order large amounts of individual shades, and we are always trying to find the balance in ordering enough to sustain our physical shop, online shop and all our stockists. This is all done by us here in Shetland so we are grateful for your patience and understanding. If you are a Lace knitter we also sometimes have our 1ply Cobweb, 1ply and 2ply Supreme Lace and Shetland Heritage ranges available on cone. You just need to keep an eye out on our online shop if the shade you want is not available. If you have any more questions about knitting from a cone - just ask. 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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Working With Wool, A Guest Post from Vivian Ross-Smith
'Form'. Shetland wool on Burlap. 20x21cm. 2018 You don’t have to look hard in my studio to find wool. There are balls of J&S yarn scattered everywhere and crimps of raw fleece dotted around my work benches. There’s a grip and bite to Shetland wool that is unlike any other wool I have used in my work; the texture is beautiful to hold and excellent to work with. J&S have an enticing range of colours waiting to grab your attention but it’s the natural shades that always sit best with my work. Reminding me of shearing sheep on my home island of Fair Isle. 'Fair Isle Scattald' 2018, acrylic on wood. 14 x 12 cm each (series of 17) 'Ewes Out' 2018. Shetland wool handstitched on canvas. 70 x 51 cm (Detail) Some of my fondest childhood memories are gathering as a community to ‘caa’ sheep. This process involves walking through the rugged, heather-covered hills as one to manoeuvre the flock toward the ‘crü’, a large enclosed pen from which sheep can be sheared and dosed. Feeling the rich, almost sticky lanolin coat my hands as I prize fleece away from skin to find the growth line I will clip along. Not only have these textures, colours and smells stuck with me, the coming together of community to work collectively had a huge impact on me too. As with many artists, my personal history is an integral framework for my practice. The mentality and dynamic of island communities’ shapes my work, I approach my art as an islander. 'But if you use the word craft, it's like you're politicising the word craft', 2020. Shetland wool and acrylic on paper 'Craft Conversations II', 2020. Canvas, felt, acrylic, Shetland wool, wood and tracing paper Materiality forms the backbone of my practice from which I explore the aesthetic qualities, as well as the cultural value of material. Fish skins, salt, wood, and hessian are paired with traditional island skill sets such as knitting, knotting, weaving and stitching to communicate craft, skill, isolation, and commitment to place. It is wool, however, that features in my work time and time again – a material completely intertwined with Shetland culture. When I use wool, I play a small part in feeding into the long and rich history of crofting, knitting and textiles in Shetland. 'Stitch', 2019. Hessian and Shetland wool. 24x24cm 'Sorting + Grading' 2019. Shetland wool and burlap. 140x80cm 'Sorting + Grading' 2019. Shetland wool and burlap. 140x80cm (Detail) Living on a small island like Fair Isle simultaneously requires self-sufficiency and a willingness to rely on neighbours. Although not the only industries, the laborious working of land and sea through crofting and fishing, is still a common practice on Shetlands islands. I use my practice as a method of echoing the types of work that take place on islands, commitment to working in a repetitive and laborious way is mirrored through the rhythms and durational nature of my work, reminiscent of the ebb and flow of the sea, or the back and forth of a knitting machine. Alongside the workload of an islander comes a collective commitment to place and way of life, which highlights the need for a strong community, allowing a sharing of workload and the building of support structures. It is this joined-up thinking I am interested in. To me, islands are places of coming together. Good Mother, 2018. Shetland wool handstitched on canvas. 70 x 51 cm 'Moder Dy', 2019. Haddock skins, Shetland wool, wooden bar This shared working is very apparent in the crafts of the island and particularly in the knitting, where its commonplace to share patterns and knitting knowledge with neighbours, friends and family. The social aspect is what draws me to textiles and from that stance, my appreciation of wool as a material strengthens. 'J+S', 2019. Raw fleece hand-stitched with Jamieson and Smith yarn. 24x24 cm I’ve never been taught how to use stitch properly, instead making it up as I go along with whatever means make sense to the work. The same goes for my knitting, although Fair Isle is my home island and I have been surrounded by exceptionally talented knitters for my whole life, I only taught myself to knit garments properly in 2017. My use of wool in my artwork has always been intuitive and centres around the development of tactile surfaces and trying to gain an understanding of the materials form and function. piece could be as simple as exploring the relationship between raw and spun wool, yet the touch of the fleece, the smell of the lanolin, the individual crimps, keep my mind and hands engaged for hours. Or the conceptual could take forefront, how does craft practice fit into fine art? Is the internet the new craft space rather than gathering and making physically? Regardless of the starting point for a piece of work, it’s the material - and usually the wool – that my mind goes to first. 'Craft Conversations III' 2019. Shetland wool and canvas I ask viewers to look at material from a perspective they’re not used to. I ask them to question its qualities, origins and if our understanding of the material itself can be built on. From this place of constant learning, a deep appreciation can be formed. ------------------------------------ Vivian Ross-Smith is an artist working from the Shetland Islands. She adopts a collaborative and systematic approach to making and sharing through painting, textiles and the digital. Her work creates space to discuss the practices of island life from a contemporary, fine art context and explores the textures, qualities and values of material and space. Ross-Smith’s work builds relationships and conversations between material, place and people and is as much about experiencing as it is about seeing. https://www.vivianrosssmith.com @vrosssmith Thank you Vivian for this guest post - we hope you are enjoying our Wool Week content - make sure to follow our instagram and subscribe to our youtube channel - if you haven't already! Happy Knitting!
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Chunky Knitting
Hello everyone, during these strange times, it can be hard to find things for children and young people to do in their downtime, looking at screens or watching tv is good some of the time but not all the time so knitting could be a new skill they take up, It improves fine motor skills, problem-solving and math skills as well as using their creativity and reducing stress. Our Shetland Chunky range is now discontinued but this means the stock we have is available at a reduced price, originally it was £7.50 per 100g ball but we are now offering it at £3.50 a ball, there are lots of great patterns out there for chunkier yarn and there are a few free patterns which are designed for our Shetland Chunky: Chunkeanie by Woolly Wormhead Inga Scarf by J&S Beanie in J&S Chunky Wool by Liz Lovick These patterns all include different elements of rib, reading your knitting and in the case of the Chunkeanie - knitting in the round. Once these skills are learnt they can be grown upon and using slightly thicker wool, to begin with, will encourage beginners not to give up! There is a lot of help available online too - if you search 'knitting tutorial beginners' on youtube, there are literally hundreds of videos that come up! Happy Knitting!
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Flecket Friday Cheeriness!
Hello everyone, happy Friday! Today we thought we'd share some cute pictures from one of our crofters. Lambing season is in full swing now and the fields are filled with bouncy little lambs, Chris Dyer has Garths Croft in Bressay and he has lots of beautiful coloured and flecket Shetland Sheep (the kind of wool that ends up in Supreme Jumper Weight, Supreme Lace and Shetland Heritage Naturals) and he's been sharing some lovely pictures over on their Instagram so we asked Chris if we could share some here: Aren't they so cute? Chris also made a video with a virtual tour of his croft which you can see on youtube here as part of the I Thought I Knew How podcasts online international fiber festival. While everything is in lockdown it's important to remember those things that carry on and in agriculture, lambing is one of those things that will happen no matter what! And with very cute results.. So follow Chris' Instagram and follow along the lambing and crofting journey if you find it interesting, happy knitting!
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Voe Show 2019
Hello everyone! this past weekend saw the first of this summers agricultural shows here in Shetland and it was the Voe Show, I (Ella) headed up to judge the Colourbox Competition - this is something we do every year with some of the shows, we choose a selection of 8 shades of 2ply jumper weight and then people make things using at least 5 of the 8 shades. This years shades were: 5, FC44, 16, FC46, 32, 23, 91 and FC47 As always the standard was extremely high and it was very hard to judge, its amazing how much the way the colours look changes depending on how they have been put together. I took lots of pictures at the show so here are some of the Colourbox entries: You have to choose a trophy winner from all the firsts and I chose this allover, I loved the corrugated rib collar and cuffs and thought the colour use and pattern were really excellent: The rest of the knitwear entries contained a huge variety of different styles from Fair Isle and Lace and everything in between - you always see amazing uses of colour, design and finishing. After I had finished in the hall with the knitwear I had a wander around the rest of the Show - the sun had come out and it was a lovely day. Apart from knitting, there is all the sheep, cows, horses and ponies, baking, plants, wool, hens, ducks etc etc.. there are also lots of places to get food, ice cream and stall selling things so it's easy to spend a lot of time (and some money!) I hope you've enjoyed this look at some of the things to be seen at this year's Voe Show, Sandra will be judging at Waas and Cunningsburgh in the next week so keep an eye on our Instagram for some pics from those shows, happy knitting!
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