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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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Rainy day crafts
Pom pom mobile - a pretty cool way to use up your Jamieson & Smith stash and experiment with colours. Oh, if only we could have one with every shade. It would take up the entire roof of our yarn store... x
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Sheila's purples
Last week Sheila Williamson visited us at J&S Towers looking for shades of purple to knit her sister the Yuglet Hat. After some colour picking fun, off Sheila went armed with purple hues. Yesterday she returned, masterpiece in hand. We love how she's put the colours together with shade 1A as yarn A, FC51 as yarn B, 123 as yarn C, 202 as yarn D, 366 as yarn E, FC56 as yarn F. Pure colour genius. Her sister, who lives in Edinburgh, is one lucky lady. To knit in Sheila's purples or to choose your own six shades of 2 Ply Jumper weight, go here. 1. Sheila's Crown 2. Sheila's Yuglet hat next to Sophie, our little knitting girl 3. Lavender hanging in our store.
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i-D
Remember our collaboration with Lu Flux? Here's one of the garments in a beautiful spread by i-D as part of the i-Sustain series. These images made me feel all relaxed - I had to stop for a little moment. Sigh. Felix wears Lu Flux sweater, knitted using BSS80 and lovingly finished with Superfine Shetland Combed Tops.
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Snowy spring
Visual take on a strange week of icy blue (sea) and springy greens (land). Does anyone else have the April showers song from Bambi going round their head?
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More Leaves
We love it so much we can't get enough of the leafy goodness... Get it here, and stick it in a project bag. OOof.
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Karin and Two-Kates
We just got a lovely present: a project bag and handmade stitch markers for Sarah, June and Sandra. We do love our customers. Thankyou Karin!The project bag was sewed by Karin from a Kate Davies pattern, Two-Kates project bag, and the stitch markers are handmade from an Etsy seller.
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New Leaves
Remember in Shetland Wool Week 2011, my favourite hat sparked a Ravelry thread and a lot of excitement in general after appearing on Kate Davies blog? Well... here it is. I give you Leaves Tam, from the ridiculously talented Outi Kater, available as a kit from Jamieson & Smith. Outi hails from Finland, but now lives in the West Side of Shetland with her husband and two daughters. Leaves Tam combines a motif of Outi's own creation, plant leaves, on the crown, with book leaves - a well known motif from Finland - around the body of the hat. The book leaf motif is traditionally worked in two colours, but Outi's choice of shades makes the hues and patterns look like they're dancing. This is one seriously beautiful hat (I know, I know, we're all biased. But it's true). Leaves Tam is special in another way too - it marks the return of/introduces a lovely deep bright pink, shade 52 (available exclusively in Leaves Tam until May 2012). With new leaves and uplifting colours, and a week of bright weather in the UK, this design is very timely indeed. We hope you love it as much as we do. x
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Frozen Planet - Guest Blog II
Alexander Kumar is a 28 year old British doctor currently living at Concordia Station in Antarctica, where he and his colleagues are conducting Human Spaceflight research for the European Space Agency. The team are completely unreachable at the most isolated, coldest place on the planet until November. In Alex's second blog post he fills us in on his latest experience with his hat, which is hand-knitted by Sandra Manson in Jamieson & Smith's Real Shetland Wool. .................................................................................................................................................... Every month or so, we clean our melt water tank. The melt tank is how we get our water. We load fresh ice into the unit daily and then melt it. Every month the unit has to be cleaned. Before we clean it, we use the opportunity to take a swim in it. Bear in mind it is outside (and we live in Antarctica)! Having nearly lost my ears last time I swam, I decided to try out Sandra's Shetland hat. It was just the ticket - my ears survived. Here are some photos of me wearing the hat taking a swim in -78 degrees Celcius. You can see my colleague and Glaciologist, Sebastien Aubin, who was not so lucky to have a Shetland Hat- just take a look at his hairstyle... I was extremely grateful to have Shetland here protecting my head. Next time, I will take Sandra's knitted mittens in also. Cheerio, Alex ........................................................................................................................................................ Thankyou Alex, we're looking forward to the next instalment already! x
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