Stasis Jumper - another FO

I mentioned in the last post that I had two FOs: the second one is this Stasis Jumper I made for myself.

The pattern was designed by Leila Raabe for Brooklyn Tweed and can be found here on Ravelry.  If you are a knitter or crocheter and haven't yet been on Ravelry, I urge you to do so now - you will need to create a user name and password to sign in, but after that you can browse through squillians of patterns and designs (many of the patterns are free), although be prepared to lose hours and hours of your time!  I am often amazed at the number of knitters I speak to that don't yet know of this amazing resource.

Getting back to the jumper, I knitted it in Shetland jumper yarn, specifically Jamieson's of Shetland Spindrift with the main colour being olive and the pattern being chartreuse (one of my favourites).  The pattern was very easy to follow and it really was a pleasure to knit.  I usually would wear a 33/34" but after swatching I decided to knit the 42.5".  The size came out exactly as the measurements should be and although it is slightly baggier than I would normally wear I know I will get lots of wear out of this one (I have already). 

In other news, I was recently asked to write a blog post for Lets Knit magazine. I have been thinking a lot lately about Shetland traditional knitting, and how it is sadly in decline out as patterns and techniques generally weren't written down in the past but were passed on from knitter to knitter.  Nowadays the younger generations do not have to knit for their living so these skills generally aren't being learnt.  I was inspired by a photo of my late Granny who knitted Fair Isle gloves and berets when I was growing up to earn some money.  I always regret not taking the time to ask her how she made them.

Lately, I have been trying to recreate the gloves I remember so well - that will be another post I think!

You can read the article, My Family and Fair Isle Knitting here.