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Shade card love
Just popping in to say that our new shade cards are now available online. You can choose to buy the full collection, or select your preferred weight of yarn. Each shade card comes in a folder for keeping patterns and notes beside your favourite shades of Real Shetland Wool. Hurray! Each one is handmade here in Lerwick and they come in to us in batches looking like furry sea creatures before being tucked away in their folders, ready for a new home. x
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Sheep Carousel by Kate Davies
We've been impatiently waiting for our postie to bring us a whole load of Sheep Carousel patterns. Well now they're here! This is the latest in a series of sheepy designs by Kate Davies. Kate is dedicated to the British wool industry and her designs celebrate and support native breeds. That's why we love her Shetland sheep collection - Sheep Heid, Rams & Yowes and now the Sheep Carousel. We especially love this new one because every time we see it we think of plinky plonky fairground music. There's no way this tea cosy won't make you smile (especially in the middle of this rather grey summer).
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Shetland's Wool Season kicks off
So we're a month into the wool season, which officially started in June. However, bad weather has meant that it's only just starting to kick off - until now our crofters and farmers haven't been able to get their sheep clipped because of wet, cold, windy days. This isn't terribly unusual, because most folk do only start clipping in July (starting with gimmers - year old lambs - which are usually nearer the house and aren't busy feeding lambs). Despite the slow start to the season, we put over 2o tonnes of wool (known at J&S as 'Load 1') off to the scourers on Friday afternoon. We'll then spin this wool into our J&S yarns, or sell it on directly to our partners like Vi-Spring and The Real Shetland Company. This is the earliest that Load 1 has ever gone out in at least the last five years (we'll need to go and dig in our archived black books to see further back). We're hoping this means that there are more sheep around, and therefore more wool. It will be towards the end of the year, when the season is well and truly over and Load 12 (making the total around 240 tonnes) has left us, that we'll know more about exactly how much wool we've taken in. Fingers crossed. Until then, thanks to you all for your continued support of Real Shetland Wool. Image: Bales of Real Shetland Wool piled to the beams of our wool store on Friday afternoon. Each bale shows weights, grades and identity numbers for traceability of each supplier's clip.
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Real Shetland Wool Duvets
So we're always trying to find new ways to add value to Shetland's wool clip for our local crofters and farmers, but our latest product is one our favourites. The team here have all been desperate to get their hands on one. They're safe, fire retardant, breathable and keep you cosy when it's cold and cool when it's not. Basically, we love them. Thanks to Jordan (pictured), Ava and Annie for trying them out in the photographs. You can choose from single, double or kingsize here and then wait impatiently to have the most amazing sleep ever. x
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Happy Birthday Oliver
36 today (apparently) despite being in his 45th year with Jamieson & Smith. Have a good day, Oliver. xxx
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the one and only bmc
Have a look at Kate Davies' blog to see her new version of the BMC, in lovely shades of J&S 2 Ply Jumper Weight. Can you spot which shade is which? Yum. x
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Cones
Cones. Not the kind with ice cream... But just as good, if not better? Oil on cone 2 Py Jumper Weight, for the first time ever at Jamieson & Smith. Find them here alongside the clean cones that have been with us for a while. Oil on cone means that the yarn is still in its spinning oil, so it's perfect for using with a domestic machine (though you can still handknit with it and just handwash as usual when you're finished). Longed for by hand frame knitters and textiles students. We're adding colours to this range the whole time, so keep a look out. x PS. Looking online? The description tells you whether it's in oil or clean but for a quick (and very scientific!) way to spot the difference, oil is on a white background and clean on the beige background.
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Shetland Wool Week 2012
The Shetland Wool Week website is now live at www.shetlandwoolweek.com. Have a look the events and see advice on how to get here, where to stay and how to travel all over the isles to take part in our packed programme. Meanwhile, here are some photos from last year's event. We'd love to meet you... Come knit with us? x
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New book - Real Shetland Yarns
Last night was the launch of Real Shetland Yarns at the Shetland Museum and Archives. The book is the beautiful end result of a collaboration with our friends at Shetland Amenity Trust, Promote Shetland and our partners at Curtis Wool Direct. The project, which began as a competition to write a short piece about life in Shetland in relation to wool and textiles, was sponsored by Vi-Spring and DNB Nor. Real Shetland Yarns: A collection of woolly tales and memories contains forty stories from people about their lives and their memories of Shetland, and how they are inextricably linked with wool, crofting and textiles. This collection of short stories, beautifully illustrated with personal photographs, invites the reader to experience and understand the writers' way of life and the islands themselves. Thankyou to everyone involved, particularly those who wrote down their stories, for a very worthwhile project and a lovely May evening. A copy will accompany each Vi-Spring Shetland bed sold worldwide to highlight the importance of Real Shetland Wool to the communities that depend on it, and give an insight into the people behind it.
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