Blog
Our Raffle Winners!
2ply Jumper Weight in shades 132 and 23 Hello everyone, happy Friday! today we are announcing the names of the winners of our recent Raffle! 2 weeks ago today we decided (very last minute) to hold a raffle to raise money for the children caught up in the conflict in Ukraine, like all of you we have been so shocked and saddened and wanted to do something to help. So we selected a group of prizes and made a product for a raffle ticket and left it over the weekend, we were amazed at the response locally and around the world. Aptly that Saturday here in Shetland we attended a vigil held at the Market Cross in Lerwick, it really felt that in Shetland we were supporting people in Ukraine. We decided to hold the raffle from Friday 5th - Tuesday 8th so that we could get our money raised donated as quickly as possible so it could help. Amazingly in those 4 day's we sold over 2500 tickets, and with a £1000 donation from J&S as a company and our staff members contributions we managed to raise £6,040 and donated it directly to UNICEF on 11th March, we were so happy at what we managed to achieve and thank you to all that entered. The raffle numbers were drawn by an independent party and we then matched it up to a spreadsheet where we had added everyone who bought a ticket, giving each entry a line, this was then randomised as the numbers and winners were matched as follows: Skye Weavers Rug: Sara Allredge, USA Sheelagh Shawl Kit: Karen Gunn, Scotland Full set of Supreme Jumper Weight: Margaret Franco, USA Fair Isle Cap Kit: Marlene Sim, Shetland Sorcha Cabled Tunic Kit: Nancy Leher, USA Antarctica Allover Kit: We are still waiting to hear from this winner, if your initials are DP please check your Junk Mail Folder, we have been trying to contact you! the prizes! So we have posted out 5 out of 6 prizes and hopefully this post will alert our final winner! We are really grateful for the support we received from our customers and how generous you were, thank you again! If you still want support UNICEF you can donate directly at this link. Happy knitting x
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Subscribe to our Newsletter!
Hello everyone, a quick post today! We are setting up our newsletter so if you want to receive a monthly update from us at J&S can we ask that you either follow this link or update your account on the online shop to ensure you are signed up (just click 'Update Contact Information and Preferences' and tick the Subscribe to commercial newsletter.) If you are already signed up via the online shop you don't need to use the form - that may result in you getting two newsletters! Don't worry - we will continue posting here but you can guarantee a monthly update (and maybe some offers!) if you sign up. We will be sending out our first Newsletter before we finish up for Christmas next week. Happy Knitting!
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Virtual Shetland Wool Week 2021
Hello everyone, this Saturday sees the beginning of our Virtual Shetland Wool Week! unfortunately the in-person events were cancelled this year thanks to Covid but everyone here is Shetland has been working hard to organise lots of online content for you all to enjoy. Here at J&S we have decided again to have a range of videos available for free on our Youtube Channel, a video will go up every working day for the Week of Wool Week and here is a bit of information about each one to whet your appetite: Saturday 25th September In the Footsteps of John 'Sheepie' Smith - a road trip with Oliver focusing on important places in the history of J&S and its founder, John 'Sheepie' Smith Monday 27th September Basics and Belts with Hazel Tindal - An introduction to Shetland knitting techniques with legendary Shetland designer Hazel Tindall. Tuesday 28th September My Life in Shetland Wool with Oliver Henry - Throughout his 50+ years at Jamieson & Smith Oliver has seen it all and this video covers some of his highlights from his career. Wednesday 29th September Edging and Ribbing in Fair Isle Knitting with Alison Rendall - This video focuses on the edging of mitts and gloves in Shetlander designer Alison Rendalls designs and how you can incorporate it into your knitting. Thursday 30th September Glove Fingers in Fair Isle Knitting with Lesley Smith - Continuing patterning when working with Fair Isle gloves can be tricky but Shetland designer Lesley Smith takes you through how she does it. Friday 1st October Speed Swatching for Fair Isle Knitting with Ella Gordon - Making sure your colours work together is important before you undertake a Fair Isle project, Shetland designer Ella Gordon shows you how she does it in the least painful way! (ie no purling!) Saturday 2nd October Shetland Trader Book 3: Heritage, A Conversation with Gudrun Johnston - before the launch of her new book we join Shetland-born designer Gudrun to go through her new designs inspired by her Mams work. So we are really excited for you all to see them, we have worked again with Keiba of Keiba film for our weekday tutorial videos then here at J&S we have put together the others, we hope you enjoy them. Each day we will be posting about that days video on our Facebook and instagram so make sure you are following us. If you haven't already subscribed to our Youtube channel now is the time and you can look back at some of our videos from last year before this years videos come out. We'd also encourage you to follow along with the official Shetland Wool Week website, instagram and facebook so you can follow along with virtual Shetland Wool Week. Happy knitting, watching and enjoying!
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New Website
Hello everyone, just a quick post from us today. If you have been on our website over the past few days you will notice it looks a bit different: Its taken us a long time but we have a new website which you will hopefully find easier to navigate and order from. Many things are the same as they were and a few things are new but it should altogether be a better experience for you. Unfortunately we could not transfer over Account or Order details so you will need to make a new account which is easy to do: Where it says 'Sign In' hover over that and click 'create a new account' Then enter your email under 'New Customer' click 'register' And create a new password and therefore a new account, Yippee! Another new thing is we have added our final new shade on ball from our batch of new 2ply Jumper Weight colours: FC68 - a complex brown shade with flecks of red and yellow throughout.. we love it! So you can find that also on our new website.. Happy knitting and ordering!
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Wirsit Inspo - May/June/July
Hello everyone, Happy Saturday! We're back today with another round up of our Wirsit Inspo (wool inspiration) posts that we post every week on our Social Media (facebook, instagram and twitter) as we come into summer there have been some brighter posts but July is proving to be very grey here unlike everywhere else in the UK! We have now been doing these posts for nearly a year and we love seeing how much you enjoy them. If you are inspired by any of the colourways make sure to tag us or send pictures to us, we'd love to see! Spring Flowers, Lerwick. 2ply Jumper Weight: FC24, 118, 52, 125, 1 and 91. Red Granite Cliffs or Lang Ayre, 2ply Jumper Weight. 21, 1282, 122, 32, 1282 and 14. More Summery Flowers, North Road, Lerwick. 2ply Jumper Weight: FC44, FC12, FC24, 91, 23 and 66. Blue Inspiration, Hays Dock, Lerwick. 2ply Jumper Weight: 1, 2, 78, 75, FC34 and 132. Mid Summer Hill, Northmavine. 2ply Jumper Weight: FC12, 122, 1285, 9097, 52 and 14 Vibrant Rock Pools, 2ply Jumper Weight: 81, 54, 2, FC12, 121 and 91. Fading Sea Pinks, 2ply Jumper Weight: 2, 1281, FC22, 92 and 118. Shetland Summer Sea, 2ply Jumper Weight: 132, FC34, 65, FC24, and FC44. Lerwick Daisies, 2ply Jumepr Weight: 1, 23, FC11, FC12 and FC44. South End of Lerwick, 2ply Jumper Weight: FC15, FC45, FC43, 2, 78 and 81. So that takes us up to July, we will continue to share these round ups every few months but you can see the posts each week over on our social media, happy knitting!
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Shetland College Project 2020
Hello everyone, You may know that every year we work with the Shetland College and their Fine Art and Contemporary Textiles students on a project in which the students create a piece of work inspired by J&S and its buildings and yarns, even though things have been very different this year we did manage to have the usual visits with the students at the beginning of the year before everything shut down so they were able to continue the project and last week I (Ella) headed to the college to see the results of the project. As always we will go through the students work and I'll write a little bit about their inspirations: Shannon Leslie Shannon was inspired from her visit to us and hearing Oliver speak about the importance of Shetland sheep and their colours, marking and existence - She created this collection of beautiful 'lugs' - ears in Shetland dialect from raw wool and combed tops. She said 'We never want these ears to become mere ‘specimens’ of what ‘once was’'. I found the ears very tactile and cute, and I could see links to Museums and Taxidermy which was very effective. Elouise Spooner Elouise was inspired by the markings on the floor in the Woolstore and the colours and textures in the woolstore from the walls, floors and wool. She worked into a sheet using sewing, painting and distressing. She said: 'The phrase ‘Common Land’ took a whole different meaning when put into the context of today, as before it just meant a field used by many crofters for sheep, but in the context of COVID-19 it stands for how people have had to come together in the ‘Common Land’ of the internet and how people have had to become more empathetic with each other as this virus affects everyone. This piece was not what I expected when I first stepped into Jamieson & Smith, but I’m very happy with the outcome.' It was a really effective piece and I liked how it linked into the present as well as the every day in the Woolstore. Jean Urquhart Jean created a selection of sculptural pieces and painting in her work as well as small art book containing samples of fleece paintings which she then took out onto bigger scale wall pieces. She was inspired by the textures and colours of the woolstore which I think translated well into her use of natural colours in the Heritage and Tops. She said: 'I really enjoyed discovering the wool shed, loved the untreated wool, the atmosphere, the history: found it inspirational. The natural yarn is very beautiufl and makes me want to learn to knit' Elaine Thomason Elaine was inspired by visiting J&S and its buildings to create a 'Taatit Rug' which incorporated lots of elements of what we do - including our logo and bannisters! She said: For the last sixty years, J&S have bought fleeces from the Shetland crofters…who graze their hardy peerie sheep on the stark hillsides. In the 1960s the old United Free Kirk was purchased to be used as a grading shed…it is now the Wool Shop. In the 1900s this part of Lerwick was a hive of activity with numerous fishing stations spread along its shores. The shore being the work-place of the Herring girl’s as they gutted and salted fish. The kirk was a place of worship and relaxation for them. The herring girls had a restroom and knitted in any free time. Marriages also took place and even a Post Office made use of the building. This colourful history inspired me. I thought of the poverty of material things and how nothing was wasted. From conception to creation the coming together of the Tattit rug, historical a wedding gift to the bride and groom from both families.' I found Elaine's rug really moving and could totally see all the inspiratrions and how they had translated into the piece. Cilla Robertson Cilla was inspired by the textures in the woolstore and decided to work with crochet and balls to represent the reach of Shetland Wool all over the world. She combined these into hanging almost 'mobiles' Shet said 'I wanted my final work to highlight the environment that supports the production of wool. I used peat, clay, heather and rams’ horns.' I loved the use of different materials withing the work and found them very beautiufl to look at and stand under. Jane Ridland Jane worked with audio and visuals to represent her visits to J&S and what that ignited within her and she made her film from a Grandaughters perspective. She said 'I used film to recreate the rhythmic movement and sound of my grandmother’s knitting needles and highlight the importance of yarn quality, and the essential knitting belt. Finally, to remember a small flock of twenty sheep.' I think the work the students produced considering everything that's happened this year was really great and it's always amazing to see what is produced and how others see coming into J&S and we love seeing work from so many different perspectives. To find out more about the creative courses at the Shetland College click here, we hope you've enjoyed seeing the students work.
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Gentle Reopening
Hello everyone, just a quick post today to give you a run-through of our situation as Scotland enters the new phase of relaxing Lockdown. Scotland has different rules than England so we are following the current guidelines which mean as of Monday 29th of June we are now in working 5 days a week and our shop is open to the public! We are however still offering free Shetland Delivery for phone and online orders and we would encourage locals to take advantage of this service, and only coming into the shop if completely necessary. We want to keep our customers and staff as safe as possible. We are of course adhering to social distancing in the shop and offering hand sanitiser as well as cleaning regularly. This also means we are back posting 5 days a week, this should hopefully mean you getting your orders a bit quicker but we are still seeing delays in orders arriving and unfortunately coupled with rising costs we will be raising our postage costs for European and Rest of the World orders as of 1st July 2020. European orders will now cost £8.95 up to 2kg and Rest of the World £10.95, we are working on new systems and hope to offer more options for posting in the near future but for the moment this is the current situation. Again we would like to thank all our customers and friends for their support and business during this crazy time, we know how lucky we are to have such a strong and reliable customer base that has kept us all working and kept you knitting! Happy Knitting x
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An Update
Hello everyone, this is just a quick post to update you about what is happening at J&S during the UK lockdown thanks to the Coronavirus Pandemic. We posted an update at the beginning of the week which came before Prime Minister Boris Johnson made his address to the UK. From Monday night we are now in a lockdown situation which affects how businesses are able to be run during this time. We have had to close our physical shop meaning no customers can come in and shop because as per the government's instructions we are a non-essestional business, we are able however to continue selling online, we have made changes to our staff schedules so that we are not all in at the same time and we are able to work at the appropriate distances from each other. This means however that we cannot dispatch orders every day because there are fewer of us in and there will be delays in orders and with emails being answered. We will try and post out 2 or 3 times a week, we are used to posting out every day so it is a change for us too and we appreciate your patience. We will not be able to accept as many phone orders and would prefer if possible that you place your order online, we will be checking the answerphone when we are in but it will be dispatched earlier if placed online. We also ask that you double-check your order is completely correct before finalising it, as we cant easily make changes or add things at this time and it will delay your order further - this also applies to ensure you select the correct delivery option for your area. We have had an uptake in Shetland orders too through the online shop and we have added a Shetland Delivery option to the checkout so please make use of that if you are in Shetland. If there are any changes we will post again here or on our social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Ravelry) If you have questions we are contactable on all those channels so you may find we can get back to you quicker than by email. It is a scary period for us all so thank you for your patience and understanding during this time, keep safe and happy knitting xx
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Sale!
Hello everyone, just a quick post to tell you about a little online only sale we are having for the next couple of weeks! we've reduced a selection of shades all over the ranges and added some other bits and pieces. You can get 20% off the following shades of 2ply Jumper Weight: top row: FC9, 1284, 132, 95. bottom row: 90, 79, 32 and 16 20% of these shades of 2ply Lace and 1ply/Supreme 1ply: top: L136, L95, L78. middle: L68, L53, L15. bottom: L5, 1ply Cobweb Black and 1ply Shetland Supreme Shetland Black These shades of 2ply Supreme Lace, Heritage Naturals and Aran Worsted: top: 2ply Supreme Lace in Shetland Balck and Moorit. bottom: Shetland Heritage Naturals in Dark Fawn and Aran in Saxon Blue We've added a discount on our bags: And we've put together some packs of different yarns - some are old stock or test runs so there are a limited quantity but they are a good deal! top: packs of 10 balls of 2006 Supreme Jumper Weight, 10 balls of Aran Berry Wine, 6 packs of 1ply Moorit Supreme. middle and bottom: packs of 10 balls of Shetland Heritage. We've recently received more stock of our Shetland Chunky which we have discontinued and we thought was finished but we've found more so its available for £3.50 a ball instead of £7.50: We've also put some packs together containing 7 balls of Shetland Heritage in a selection of Shades: 1 ball of Auld Gold, Indigo, Peat, Coll Black, Berry Wine, Madder and Fluggy White We have also reduced the Calendars, Cushions and some needles. Its a great chance to get a good deal on some shades and we might be adding some more things over the weeks - it's on from now (18th February) until the 3rd of March. Happy knitting and shopping!! just a note: this doesn't include yarn in kits, it's only available at the discounted price if bought from the sale page.
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