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Wool Week at J&S
Hello! I'm so sorry we haven't been able to update you this week of all the happenings at J&S for Shetland Wool Week, I'm afraid it has just been so busy!!! A great problem to have of course, We have just about managed to get some snaps here and there during the week so this post is all about what we had going on in the shop fair isle knitting with Hazel lace with Elizabeth Johnston On Monday we had a Fair Isle Class with Hazel Tindall in the Morning and Shetland Lace with Elizabeth in the Afternoon, we always have these classes and they are always some of the first to sell out, Hazel and Elizabeths years of experience make them excellent teachers! Drop Spindling with Deborah On Tuesday Morning we had a Drop Spindle class with Deborah Gray, I always think this looks like a really fun class to do! Tuesday night we had a trunk show for Monique Boonstra, Monique is a fabulous lace knitter and she had samples of her lovely patterns and knitting Haps with Gudrun Wednesday led to more lace knitting, Haps with Gudrun in the Morning and more lace with Elizabeth in the afternoon. Gudruns Hap class is always very popular and she has the students make a mini version of her Hansel hap, it's very manageable for the length of time of the class and gives everyone a taste of all the elements of this traditional Shetland garment. This is the only photo I got on Wednesday of Elizabeths second lace class but it looks like they are learning a lot! Elizabeth is always great to have at Wool Week and she teaches lots of classes in Hoswick also. Of course, we have spent the week spotting crofthoose hats too! It's great to see all the different colours people have chosen. Thursday morning had Hazels second Fair Isle class, she had the ladies knit in the round and then steek! Everyone seemed to have a great time and I loved the samples at the end. Friday morning we had no classes so we got caught up on our post and then in the afternoon Monique Boonstra was back with a class using 1ply Shetland Supreme Oliver has been doing his tour this week too, and yesterday was the last day of that, he has it down to a fine art and we always get lots of people coming for the tour. photo by Scott Goudie Today is the Makers Market and Flock Book and tomorrow is the fabulous Sunday Teas hosted by the Guild so I'll be back next week with a few photos from that. It's been a great week and as always we are so proud to be involved in Shetland Wool Week!Save Save Save Save
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Shetland Wool Week 2016
Can you believe it? Shetland Wool Week 2016 began today!!! Shelves have been filled and the shops as tidy as it will be for the next week! We are hoping orders and email disruptions will be kept to a minimum but we might be a bit delayed in getting back to you, just know we are working as hard as we can to keep getting orders out as fast as we can. This is our busiest week of the year and we love seeing all the people who have come to Shetland for the event. We have classes every day and three tours on so lots to do! We will be blogging throughout the week so keep an eye out for out posts about Shetland Wool Week at J&S.
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Shoormal Hap
As soon as we saw the Shetland Heritage Naturals we all knew they would be perfect in a traditional Shetland Hap, Sandra quickly got to work and just in time for Wool Week the Shoormal Hap is the result! The Bestway K133 pattern booklet is full of inspiring Shetland patterns, (we have a photocopy of the pattern booklet for sale here) They are all written out longhand in very small writing but we were very inspired by the 'Scalloped Shawl' pattern, its a traditional Hap which you probably know has been everywhere lately. They have been made and worn in Shetland for centuries and we knew the nature of the Shetland Heritage Naturals would be ideal to recreate this pattern. courtesy of the Shetland Museum and Archives. We have used shades White, Fawn, Moorit and Shetland Black in the Shawl, Oliver has told us many times that the Heritage is very similar is weight to the old Hap weight of yarn, long since discontinued but the soft and strong properties of the Heritage yarn especially in the undyed colours harks back to this historical yarns. We have added charts for the border and edging sections of the pattern as well as keeping the written instructions so you can choose which to use. The construction of this Hap is that the centre is worked first followed by the four sides which are all worked individually and sewn onto the centre and each other, finally the edging is worked and sewn on. This makes it a great portable project as you are working each element separately before sewing it all together. The finished shawl is approximately 45 inches square making it very large, warm and cushy. It's knit on relatively large needles for the yarn (4mm and 5mm) which creates a warm and lofty fabric, perfect for wrapping yourself up in, keeping on your couch or wrapping around a baby. If you would like to knit your own Shoormal Hap you can buy the kit here! Happy Knitting! Save
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Shetland Wool Week Mitts-a-Long
Hello everybody, specifically those of you who can't make it to Shetland Wool Week but would like to be involved... The wonderful Felicity Ford AKA Knitsonik has been busy working away on an idea just for you: Introducing the Knitsonik Mitts-a-Long for Shetland Wool Week! 'Yay' I hear you cry, well Yay indeed, read on for the details. The idea is to design your own stranded colourwork using 'Fingerless Mitts' as the base for your explorations. There are two kit options for you to choose from, each one has been carefully thought out by Felicity and includes the pattern along with the corresponding 8 balls of our lovely 2ply Jumper Weight (a 4ply weight yarn). The first theme is the Crofthouse Museum, situated in Dunrossness in the South Mainland of Shetland. It is set up as it would have been in the 1870s so you can get a real feel of what it was like to live in a typical Shetland home at that time. The second theme is taken from knitting sheaths in the Shetland Museum & Archives. These were in use before knitting belts and were made with feathers to grip and hold a needle in place while working. The Knitsonik Mitts-A-Long 2016 coincides with Shetland Wool Week 2016 starting on the 24th September. It will continue until the 24th October with lots of places to share and discuss your progress online - you can find other participants by following the hashtag #knitsonikmittsalong on Instagram and Twitter, and on the Knitsonik Ravelry forum. We have a limited amount of kits in stock so if you would like to knit your Shetland inspired mitts with wool all packed up by us in Shetland, this is your chance!
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Visit us at Harrogate!
We're so excited to announce our attendance at The Knitting & Stitching Show 2016 in Harrogate! It's been quite a while since we were last there so we're really looking forward to it. Myself (Kharis) and Sandra will be there to meet you all, to offer advice and answer any questions you may have. On the stand we will have kits for sale, some of which will be available in our brand new gift boxes! We plan to have samples of all our yarn weights so you can have a proper look and feel before placing an order. Also, we hope to have our undyed combed tops available for you to wind off to your desired weight. The show is at the Harrogate International Centre on Kings Road, 24th - 27th November, we'd really love to see you all there! We will be back with more information nearer the time, but if you have any suggestions about what you'd like to see then you can share in the comments below.
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Heritage Natural Cones
Hello, thank you all for the kind comments on the last blog! We have been so pleased with how well the new Natural Heritage yarn has been going and now you can get it on cone!! We get the cones for machine knitting but you can hand knit with them of course, the Heritage yarn is slightly waxed on the cone so it goes easier through a knitting machine. So we would always suggest washing your finished item and even your swatch if you are using coned yarn to get the accurate measure of your gauge. We have a lot of 500g cones is all the shades and a number of 1kg cones in most shades so if you are planning a project using a lot of one of the shades it works out to be a great deal! The 500g cones are £27.00 which is equivalent to about 20 balls and 1kg are £54.00 which is like 50 balls. You can see them on the website here. Happy Knitting! PS. you can now pre-order a copy of the 2016 Shetland Wool Week Annual! see here if you would like one.
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Ollies Visit to Papa
Oliver recently spent the day clipping sheep on Papa, an island off the west side of Scalloway. Papa Isle is owned by the Smith family, the founders of Jamieson & Smith, he headed there with my (Ella’s) Uncle James who runs Berry Farm and a group of willing clippers and packers! arriving on Papa Papa Isle is one of the now many uninhabited islands in Shetland. Shetland is made up of over 100 small islands but only 16 are now lived on. Nearby to Papa there are a number of similar isles - Hildasay, Oxna, Linga, Havra and Langa were all at one time inhabited like Papa but as times changed and Island life became harder people gradually moved to the more easily assessable islands, part of Oliver’s family came from Hildasay. Preparing the cro Gathering the Sheep James looks on while the sheep are rounded up Brian watches as the Sheep enter the pen Oliver hand shearing the old way! Shearing by power - the modern way! Papa is now the home of approximately 90 sheep who are quite happy living on the natural grazing and feeding on seaweed. They are handled only twice a year for shearing and later in the year for taking home the lambs so with the exception of necessary drenching are virtually organic and quite self-sufficient! They are able to survive and reserve energy and fat for the harsher winters, Hill Sheep have very good wool, the environment and grazing usually leads to a very fine quality of wool. All clipped and back to the hills! Lots of Oo ready to head to the J&S Woolstore There are still many examples of Papa being inhabited, the two below pictures show the plaque erected by the Slater Family and the remains of the Slater family Croft house which was attached to the school. The next two pictures show the Papa Kirk, you can see Oxna Isle in the background with the house used for Lambing. Papa in Old Norse means the Island of the Priests and people came from all the surrounding Islands for the Sunday service. It was still active in the early 1930s and an elderly neighbour of Oliver’s said he would row over from Burra for the service. The image with the stone before it shows the rock on which the late Robert Fullerton told Oliver a Bible would be laid onto, the people in Oxna would look for this through a spyglass and if it was there they would climb the hill behind their house and wave a bed sheet which would have been seen on the Islands of Hildasay, Linga and Langa. The congregation would then row or sail over for the service. If the Bible wasn’t there it meant the weather was too poor for the minister to make it to the kirk from Scalloway. The 'Crying Knowe' can be seen in the picture below, this was a small hill used by the residents of Papa to shout across the sound to the people on Oxna You can still see remnants of the Papa Peat banks like in the picture below, many people still use Peat to heat and warm their houses in Shetland today but it was a complete necessity for people in isolated Islands like Papa. You can see a bit more information about Peats in Shetland here. I hope you've enjoyed this quick look into a bit of Shetland History, you can see on the Map I've included above from 1806 nearly all the Islands in Shetland are named, probably because people lived on most of them! Papa is located directly across from Foula on the mid/bottom left hand side. Happy Knitting! Save Save
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Waas Show
Hello! last Saturday dawned a bit damper as me (Ella) and Sandra headed out to Waas for the Walls Show. Spirits were not dampended however and we soon got to work (after a cup of tea and a bacon roll!) judging the colourbox. This is our first year having the colourbox at Walls so there wasn't too many entries but next year I'm sure there will be more! As with all shows in Shetland there were plenty of animals to be seen.. and lovely knitwear.. We weren't able to stay until everything was fully set up but I'm glad we got a few pictures! Thankfully it dried up and the rest of the day was much better than the morning. We were amazed on the way back to town how lovely the heather is at the moment in Shetland.. You can see why we have so many heathery shades in our Jumper Weight range (FC55, FC56. FC14, 87, 133 to name a few!) FC11 and FC12 are good matches for the grass too! There are a few more shows still to come (Yell and Unst) but we probably won't make it to those so I hope you've enjoyed our trip around the mainland Shetland Shows! Happy Knitting :) xx
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Heritage Hap Kits
You'll remember a few months ago I did a post about a pattern we had in the People's Friend Magazine, we couldn't believe the amount of orders we had for the yarn so we are very happy to say we now have the pattern available to buy as a kit! The pattern was developed by Sandra from a vintage pattern, and she decided to use our Shetland Heritage range as it so closely resembles the old Hap weight of Yarn. The pattern makes a brilliant first Hap, you begin with the centre panel then pick up each four sides individually and knit them. The edging is then knit and either sewed on or you can knit it on as you go. The slightly thicker (than traditional 1ply) yarn and bigger needles (it's knit on 5mm) makes a quick but warm and drapey hap. If you order the kit you will receive Snaa White heritage but feel free to choose any of the shades from the Dyed Heritage and our new Natural Heritage range, just leave a note in the delivery comments box! Happy Knitting! Save
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