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Goody bag

Fair Isle Goody Bag = Perfect gift for a beginner, or a little treat to yourself. The goody bag contains a DVD with an introduction to knitting Fair Isle by Elizabeth Lovick, 4 balls of yarn, needles, stitchmarkers and a tapestry needle. The kit comes in one our lovely new bags - made from unbleached, Fairtrade cotton and produced in a carbon neutral factory. You can find these limited edition bags here, among our House&Home products.

Cosy Competition

The Real Shetland Company are running a lovely competition with the Campaign for Wool. The idea is that you come up with a slogan that promotes the use of wool and you can win a Real Shetland Throw, photographed above by Jared Flood of Brooklyn Tweed. Some examples: 'Wool runs on grass' and 'Wear British Wool; 30,000,000 British sheep can't be wrong'. You get the idea? The Real Shetland Company are pretty cool customers: they purchase the coloured wool from Jamieson & Smith to make the lovely throws, carpets and rugs. Cosy cosy. They've had some hilarious entries from all over the world already. The competition has come at a good time too, with Wovember in full swing (a reminder of why it's so important to promote wool, as well as a source of inspiration). Good luck...

T'internet

Hello all, We're back online after internet problems that caused disruption to our email systems. Will catch up with all your messages tomorrow. Phew! Best wishes All at Jamieson & Smith x Image source: Shetland Museum and Archives

WOVEMBER

Yay! Wovember is here, recognising that Real Wool comes from Real Sheep. Wear as much Real Wool as possible throughout the entire month of November. Two main reasons: 1. it's amazing 2. as a protest to manufacturers and retailers who label their goods as wool, despite it having no wool at all or a tiny teeny little bit mixed in with a load of synthetics. Sign the Wovember Petition and enter the Wovember Competition to show your support for the sheep and the people involved in producing Real Wool. x

Launching...

A lovely shiny new book with 15 knitting projects in Real Shetland Wool by 14 designers. Introduction by Kate Davies, tech editing by Jen Arnall-Culliford, interior and cover design by Laura Palumbo and photography by Dave Donaldson. We'll be launching the book digitally, shortly but there are only a limited amount of real live glossy versions here. The book is available worldwide, including the USA. As a special launch offer, UK postage on the book is free until this Friday 21st October 2011.You can see each of the kits for Knit Real Shetland here. Eeek, we're so excited. Will post images of the launch where Kate Davies, Masami Yokoyama, Mary Jane Mucklestone, Mary Kay, Sandra Manson, Gudrun Johnston, Lesley Smith, Joyce Ward and Hazel Tindall joined us on Friday night at the Shetland Museum. xPS. If you're a retailer and would like to stock Knit Real Shetland, please contact us at sales@shetlandwoolbrokers.co.uk

New pieces

Some special releases from the Jamieson & Smith archive, because it the company's 65th birthday! And some new designs...Specially for Shetland Wool Week 2011. 1 Eva Shawl 2 Fischou 3 Yuglet Socks 4 Yuglet Hat 5 Harpa Gansey 6 Winter Yoke 7 St. Ninian's Scarf 7 Eid Top x 65, and feeling fresh.

Wool Week is here

We've been very quiet in the run up to Shetland Wool Week, but now that it's here we're hoping to get lots of posts in.Last night there was a felting class here at Jamieson & Smith with Norwegian artist Karin Flatoy Svarstad. Place the Shetland Combed Tops ever so carefully, then add some spelsau for the sea, then destroy it all with water and roll roll roll until VOILA, a beautiful 'wool watercolour', as Karin calls it. And here's my (rather flustered) attempt - with the dark Shetland winter in mind. xPS. Have you seen Sheep Heid. It's possibly the most brilliant piece of genius I've seen in a little while. Kate triumphs again!

Shetland Wool Week

Shetland Daisies

We're delighted to have put a kit together for Shetland Daisies by Kieran Foley of Knit/Lab. Ooooh. Lovely, no?The design combines intarsia, stranding and lace stitches. After drooling over Kieran's images for a while, we've decided that this combination of different techniques makes Shetland Daisies even lovelier because it's challenging in a way that makes you consider the colours and stitches, and revel in the finished piece (while everyone else goes green). Wool (2 Ply Jumper Weight) here, and Kieran's beautiful pattern here. x