January 28, 2011

Old Shell

One of our lovely customers came in last week to show us the hap she's just finished. The hap is in natural colours, and features the Old Shell motif (one of my favourite Shetland Lace motifs). It's in Jamieson & Smith 2 ply jumper weight, which makes it lovely and thick, and it knits extra quick (ooh, that rhymes) in comparison to the 2ply lace weight. Beautiful!

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January 17, 2011

Frankie Morello

This really made me smile. Let's all stop casting off, and just leave the wires in! Good plan?On a more serious note, the exaggerated chunkiness and depth of colour in this scarf by Frankie Morello is the perfect example of how simple hand-knits can really hold their own. This piece demands attention, without shouting. (I'm thinking... heavy but drapey oversize jumper achieved through multiple (three, maybe four) strands of Shetland Supreme Jumper Weight in Shetland Black.)Hmmm, nice. Frankie Morello A/W 2011. Source: Dazed Digital

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January 14, 2011

The Middle

Yesterday Oliver and Derek made the first move into the aptly named 'Middle store', which is tucked between our Wool Store, where the raw wool is dropped off by our suppliers, and the yarn store, where we sell yarn and post out woolly parcels. They'll now start the mammoth task of individually hand sorting all of the coloured Shetland wool. They will go through every single fleece (all 7,000 of them or thereabouts) and separate the finer grades (for example the wool that comes from the sheep's neck) used in hand-knit yarns, knitwear and blankets from the coarser wool (for example from the back legs) which we put in our 100% Shetland Wool carpets so that nothing is wasted, and our suppliers get the very most for their wool.The contents of our middle store is really quite precious. Of the 250,000kilos of Shetland Wool that we deal with each year (which represents over 80% of Shetland's total wool clip), only about 10,000kilos of this is coloured wool. We give our suppliers a premium for their coloured wool to encourage the breeding of coloured sheep. I was talking with one of our suppliers just the other day and he was delighted that he'd managed to get a coloured ram, and is looking forward to coloured lambs this spring. So, first hand evidence that this work is paying off! Fingers crossed for a very colourful wool season in 2011...1 The wall 2 The middle store 3 The inroad4 The man (6' 4" Oliver)

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January 7, 2011

Friday feeling

Hey lovely woolly people. Have a good weekend. 1 Fair Isle Tea Cosy kit in Shetland 2ply Jumper Weight yarn. 2 The scene of a recent photo shoot - just because. x

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