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Cunningsburgh Show 2017
Following on from Voe, last Wednesday was a bit brighter and Oliver and Me (Ella) headed down to Cunningsburgh for the Show, I was judging the Colourbox again alongside some other knitwear and Oliver was Judging the Wool. I was put to work and worked my way through the Colourbox and other categories, there were some beautiful items in the Colourbox as always and the rest of the knitwear was of an extremely high quality too. The tropy winner for the Colourbox was the vest in the first picture, I loved the way the colours were put together and it was beatifully knitted. You can see above they also had a Bousta Beanie section! The Wool is usually in another shed/tent but this year it was in the same shed as me so I was able to keep and eye on Oliver and his judging and after he was finished we started to make our way around all the other bits of the show. There was a bit of a surprise arrival as you can see in the photo below! This sheep obviously was trying to get on Oliver's good side... and this duck was interested in making friends too! We had a great time as we always do at the Cunningsburgh show, the Colourbox is growing every year and I love to see all the animals. Cunningsburgh Show allows entries from the whole of Shetland whereas the others are all more area specific so there is always lots to see, it had 2841 entries in total this year! Ill be back at the end of the week with our last show trip - to Waas, Happy Knitting!
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Voe Show 2017
hello everyone, happy Monday! We have had a busy time of Shows this past week or so, I thought I'd begin with the first one we went to last Saturday which was Voe! it dawned a bit damp but we are pretty used to that around here.. The main reason I (Ella) headed us was to judge the Colourbox Competition we now host every year with the Voe, Cunningsburgh and Waas Agricultural Shows. Each year we choose a selection of 8 colours which must be used to make something using at least 5 of the 8 colours. This this then broken down into categories within that. Voe has the most entries and they have lots of categories for the Colourbox, this years shades were selected from the Heritage yarn so it was really interesting to see what people made with the more traditional colours. You have to choose an overall trophy for the Colourbox and the cardigan below was the winner, it was beautifully made and I thought the colours were expertly put together.. The Voe Show has lots of other lovely knitwear on display, from Lace to Fair Isle with everything in between. I always love to see all the skills we have in Shetland and its so inspiring to see it all together. After I had done my judging I went around and looked at everything else, they're is so much to see from animals to flowers and you can spend hours wandering around.. quite happily I add! I hope you enjoyed this peerie peek into this years Voe Show, I'll be back in a couple of days with the round up from the Cunningsburgh Show, happy knitting!
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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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Woolfest 2017
Hello everyone, happy Friday! So we are getting organised and packing together what we will be bringing down to Woolfest next week! We are taking a wide range of our yarns - including every shade of 2ply Jumper Weight and a selection of books, kits and we will also be able to take orders for anything else people would like that we dont have with us - any orders placed at the show we have free postage, So on Tuesday night me (Ella) and Kharis will be heading on the boat and making the drive down! Woolfest is an award winning event which takes place in a auction mart in Cockermouth in Cumbria, its a big celebration of Wool and the event also includes animals and fleece sales so we are looking forward to seeing that. Its is open Friday 23rd (10am - 6pm) Saturday 24th (10am - 5pm) and the tickets are £10 each day or £15 for a two day ticket, you can find us on stand J197 and 242. So if you are coming we look forward to seeing you and we will do a blog once we are back all about our trip. Happy Knitting!
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British Knitting Awards 2017
Yippeee! We have been nominated again (for the 4th year running!!) in the Best Brand For British Yarn category in the British Knitting Awards! When you think about how small Shetland is geographically we are always extremely pleased to be nominated in this category, and we are in great company - We would love it if you would vote for us, so if you would like you you can do so here (by entering you also get entered into a competition to win lots of prizes!!) So thank you again for nominating us! it really means a lot, happy knitting!
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Shetland College Project 2017
Hello everyone, Happy weekend! On Wednesday myself (Ella) and Oliver headed to the Shetland College, every year for the past few years we have worked with the College on a project using our yarns. The students are given a brief to produce a garment or home interiors product using the Worsted Spun and Heritage yarns (Shetland Supreme Lace 1 and 2ply, Shetland Heritage Natural and Dyed, Shetland Aran Worsted and Shetland Chunky). This year also had two woven products which was very exciting! We were there to see the final items and hear the presentations from 3 students, Rhea Kay who's Jumper we saw last year was also included in this module so if you want more information about her garment see last years post here. Andrea who was included with Rhea last year has moved onto another college on the Mainland so her poncho isn't included but you can see more information about it too in that post. Rhea's garment looked as good as we remembered it - it will be on display at the Whalsay Heritage Centre after the term ends at the college so keep an eye out for it there if you are visiting! First up was Julia Nairn who covered a footstool in fabric made using the Shetland Heritage Natural yarns, she was inspired by the Houll Loch in Whalsay and took lots of photos of the scene. She finds it to be a timeless landscape and she was particularly inspired by the ripples in the water and the almost symmetry seen her her photos which she took through to her finished item. She used an undulating twill structure for her weaving and her main focus was to take the landscape into the home which is why she made a homeware product. We loved the way the resulting fabric came out and found the footstool to be very effective, the heritage yarn is soft yet robust making it very suited to weaving. Alicja Tyburska also used weaving in her project but decided to make a garment, in this case, a large wrap. She is a weaver but also extremely interested in History and Archaeology, in particular, Shetlands Natural Landscape and its features, and she took the inspiration from Brochs and other stone features in Shetland - mainly how they are seen from above in drone photography. This gave her the inspiration for her weave structure and she combined different weights of yarns - the Shetland Aran, Heritage and Chunky together to give beautiful texture to her finished item. We loved the professional finish and texture of the wrap, and the chunky tassels just finished it off perfectly. Marcia Galvin used knit in her project and made this lovely wrap cardigan in the Shetland Heritage yarn, she was inspired by the word 'Heritage' and what it means to her, although not a Shetlander she has been here for many years and was interested in how certain areas have changed architecturally in Lerwick in particular Hays Dock. The Shetland Museum and Archives and Mareel are examples of modern architecture that Marcia looked at and took inspiration from, she looked up the briefs the architects of these building had and looked at the lines and shapes of the buildings. You can see in her finished garment how elements of these buildings came out in her motif and texture. The cardigan is oversized but can be closed a number of different ways and with a belt. We though the use of colour and inspiration were very successful. The winner of the unit will be announced at the Degree Show in a few weeks but we think all the students did extremely well, it's really important to us to support the local College - me and Kharis are both graduates of the Contemporary Textiles course and it gives students the skills to be able to work in the industry in Shetland, something which is quite difficult and we, as an industry, must be supportive of these students. Happy Knitting! PS. remember the Shetland Wool Week programme comes out on Tuesday the 16th of May, there are lots of things happening again at J&S and it looks to be another fabulous year! Save
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A Couple More Cones..
Hello Everyone, just a quick post today! We are constantly getting in more yarn of course but lately it feels we have been getting in even more than usual - this means lots of cones in the 2ply Jumper Weight. When we order a shade we get a certain amount on cone and the rest on ball, this means that we don't always have all the shades on cone and if we don't have a certain shade it may be a bit of a wait until we get it again on cone BUT at the moment we have a good selection. We are always updating the cone page so if there is a shade you are looking for keep checking! new recent cones: 1a, 1, FC43, 72, 125, 93, FC15, FC37 and 36 A cone is extremely economical if you are making any kind of 4ply yoke jumper like the Puffin Sweater, Crofthoose Yoke, Stasis, Scalloway Yoke, Hairst Cardigan.. the list goes on. It also means less ends which is always a good thing! The cones are oiled for machine knitting but don't let that put you off, you just have to wash the garment when you're finished - we would always advise that for Shetland Wool anyway as it looks the best once washed and blocked. Finally we are open as normal this Easter Friday and Monday but there is no post so any orders wont get posted out until Tuesday, happy knitting!
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Fire Festival KAL finished objects
Hello! We had our last Up Helly Aa of 2017 on Friday so that marks the end of our Fire Festival Knit a Long, we have been so pleased with the amount of people who have knit something with the colours we chose, due to the number of entries I decided to try something different and have you guys vote for your favourite, I have broken it down into Garments and Accessories/Others. I couldn't do a poll with the images in it so you might have to make a note of your favourite piece and then put it in the poll for the two categories. For more information have a look here which list all the entries and you can go into each project to find out more from the knitter. Garments Ready For Lerwick by Claudiajano Fire Festival KAL by DottyBev Up Helly Aa by Auchnagaoith Peat Hill Wasitcoat by Braemberi Little Winter Star Fire Festival by Torirot Fire Festival KAL by Rubin Accessory/Other Fire Festival KAL by alysmith American Fire by bdegar Fire Festival KAL by EvaL8 Up Helly Aa scarf by Hadewychs Fire Festival Bousta Beanie by JaneKAL Up Helly Aa by JConklin Ragnorok by Jelibet Up Helly Aa by Jensknits Up Helly Aa Hat by jn1982 Fire Scatness by KnitMomWi Up Helly Aa hat by KTMaine Fire Wind Water Cowl by kyspinner Up Helly Aa Mitts by Laknits Fair Isle Mitts by lav 2017 J&S Fire Festival KAL by LKLawsonknits Fire KAL mitts by MaureeninFargo Fire Festival KAL by meigsview Fire Festival KAL by merelide Shetland KAL by namihn Spritely SMUHA by socksprite Norse Fire Socks by tinygiraffe Fire Festival KAL by tjitshere Fire Festival KAL by torirtot Saudade by woolyeyes The poll will be open until next week when we will reveal the winners in the two categories, good luck to everyone and thank you so much for taking part in the Knit A Long - we love doing them and seeing all the different things people make from the same selection of colours! Happy Choosing! Save Save Save Save
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Fire Festival KAL inspiration
Sometimes choosing colours for a Knit-a-Long can be quite daunting, but after quite a number of years of choosing shades for the Colourbox Challenges with the Country Shows in Shetland and a couple for our online KAL's we are always pleased and surprised with the colour and pattern combinations people come up with. The Fire Festival KAL, inspired by Shetland's Up Helly Aa festivals has been running for a little while now and more projects are beginning to emerge so I thought it was time to take a look at some of the knitting.. clockwise from top right: one, two, three clockwise from top left: one, two, three, four I always find it very inspiring to see how people have put colours together, and how to colours change when put next to others - it's my favourite part of the KAL! it runs until the 20th of March so there is still plenty of time to get involved and knit yourself (or someone else a firey inspired garment or accessory) We have already had the first of Shetlands Up Helly Aa's for 2017 with the Scalloway Fire Festival on the 13th of January, you can see some great pictures here. Lerwick Up Helly Aa is on Tuesday 31st of January and it is a public Holiday in the town on the day after (some of us need time to recover..) so we will be closed Wednesday 1st of February opening as normal on Thursday. If you would like to watch any of the live broadcast of Lerwick UHA on Tuesday you can do so here. I hope this has inspired you if you were thinking to join the KAL, you can find the shades here on the website, there has been some confusion about adding in other colours but to be entered in the KAL you can only use the 8 shades chosen and you must use at least 5 of them. Your project must also include some Fair Isle/stranded colourwork, don't forget to share your projects in our Ravelry group and on Instagram with #firefestivalkal Happy Knitting! Save Save
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