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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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peoples friend shawl
It was back in 1968 the Jamieson & Smith introduced knitting yarns to help add value to the Shetland Island clip, as mentioned in the last post the wool was graded and sorted by hand into its various quality's before being sent away to be spun into whichever yarn we specified. Nearly 50 years later we still do the same. Knitting in Shetland has been one of our main industries throughout the centuries* and we are lucky to have patterns passed down throughout peoples families but for those out with Shetland it was tricky to access these traditional patterns. Sandra Manson who works at J&S has been knitting since she was a child, the skill's passed down to her from her Granny and Auntie. Sandra is always on the lookout for vintage patterns and one she has recently reknit in our Shetland Heritage range is a Hap taken from the Traditional Shawls and Scarves book (which we have on our shop here) Some of these vintage patterns need a bit of work so Sandra has made a few changes to hopefully make it easier to knit and you can find the pattern in this weeks edition of The Peoples Friend. Almost since we started doing yarns in the late 60's we have had patterns in various magazines, before the days of Ravelry, Facebook and Twitter that was the main way we could reach our customers all over the world and for many people without access to the internet it is still a way for them to hear about Jamieson & Smith Yarns. If you don't have access to the Peoples Friend Magazine we will be releasing the kit ourselves in the upcoming months, but for this week it can be found in there. Happy Knitting! *If you are interested there is a day all about Shetland Knitting being hosted at the Shetland Museum and Archives this Saturday (March 5th 2016) and it can be viewed on-line, for more information see here
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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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Up Helly Aa 2016
We will be closed this Wednesday 27/1 as its a public holiday the day after Lerwick Up Helly Aa, no orders or emails will be dealt with but we'll be open again on Thursday as normal. For more information about Up Helly Aa see here, and if your interested in seeing more there is a live broadcast which can be veiwed here Three Cheers for Up Helly Aa!
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Winter Woollies KAL 2015
We have had a busy few weeks since we came back after the Christmas break, so one thing I haven't had a chance to do is reveal the winner of the Winter Woollies KAL we had towards the end of last year. If you want to read more about what we did, see here and here. So after a lot of deliberation we choose Bev's project as our winner! Bev actually used all the shades in her Hat and Mittens, we only required 5 or more to be used but we thought she put them together so well in her finished project, look at that lovely corrugated rib! For her prize we sent her a copy of our book Knit Real Shetland and a selection of 2ply Jumper Weight in her choice. If you want to see some more examples of what people made, have a look at the finished objects thread on Ravelry here. If you have any ideas of different kinds of Knit a Longs you would like us to do, leave a comment here or send us an email: mailroom@shetlandwoolbrokers.co.uk we had great fun doing it and would love to do more! Happy Knitting xx
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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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Winter Woollies KAL: colour and patterns
Hello! We are so excited as to how many of you have picked up the colours for the Winter Woollies KAL! there is still plenty of time left to get involved so today I thought I'd share some of our thought on the colours and a few ideas for free patterns available on Ravelry. As you know the Knit A Long requires you to use at least four shades so we (Me -Ella, Amy and Kharis) tried to pick 2 lots of four shades of 2ply Jumper Weight that worked together. Our first group is shades 1,203,FC34 and FC41 To us these colours make us think of dark nights, snow, ice, stormy skies and seas.. all typical of a winter in Shetland! our second group is FC43, FC38, 65 and 9113 These colours are more 'inside' inspired shades - roaring fires, christmas trees, baking and mulled wine. We hoped by having these two groups it might give people more ideas - of course you can mix and match to your hearts content, it is just a starting off point and by changing one or more you get a different look - Sometimes it can be daunting to try and come up with a pattern too, even once you have decided on your colours.. To that end I thought I'd show you some fun patterns all available for free on Ravelry - they all call for fingering weight yarn which is what 2ply Jumper Weight comes under and a few even call for 2ply Jumper Weight exactly (Fair Isle Cuffs, Kite Mitts, Shwook hat) so all you have to do is pick your colour arrangement.. clockwise from top left; fair isle cuffs, kites, far me socks, classic colourwork cowl retro sampler, snowflake fingerless mitts, solidago socks, shwook hat sheep may safely graze, tourbillon, stem and leaf cowl, fair isle flower sock You will see some of the patterns only use 2 or 3 shades, all this means is you will have to add a couple more shades in to get to your 4 colours. This is easily done by doing a bit of background shading or foreground shading. If you feel you need to rechart the Fair Isle into your colours there are a few good free options - one is this Chartmaker which is free, there are also a few good tutorials online about using Microsoft excel to colour a chart (like this one) I hope this has given you some ideas! We cant wait to see peoples ideas begin to take shape - remember to tag your project on ravelry and instagram using #winterwoolliesKAL and to share your projects in the group on the Jamieson & Smith Lovers group page Happy Knitting!
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