Shetland Wool Week - who's coming?

I know I keep saying it but I really don't know where the time has gone lately.  I am teaching my first Shetland Wool Week workshop on Saturday and the official opening ceremony is on Sunday evening - already!

The first Shetland Wool Week annual has been published and I am honoured to be part of it.  It is a beautiful magazine, well laid out with a very contemporary feel.  I feel privileged to be featured in it beside my most admired knitwear designers and writers.  There are eight patterns (all using Shetland wool of course) by Hazel Tindall, Ella Gordon, Gudrun Johnston, Outi Kater, and myself, essays by Kate Davies, Laurie Goodlad and Carol Christiansen and interviews with the designers.

Gudrun Johnston's Belmont Cardigan

 

Ella Gordon's Rof Hat

 

An interview with Hazel Tindall and her Handwarmer pattern

Kate Davies tells the amazing story of Betty Mouat

 

The annual is currently available by mail order online through the Shetland Wool Week website and will be available to purchase at the Wool Week hub at Isleburgh Community Centre during the event.  I have been told that they are selling really quickly, so if you want one you better hurry!  They can be ordered here.

 

My offering to the annual is a pattern for my version of my Granny Maggie's gloves. 

 

 

 

 They use a traditional Norwegian star pattern on the back of the hand.  Granny almost always used natural colours (I remember she always had a lot of fawn) but I have updated them using blocks of brighter colours.  I used to always find that the little finger was too long, I have hopefully solved that by adding in a few more rows. 

 

 

The hens were quite interested in what I was doing!

 

 

In the pattern I include instructions for how to make sure there are no holes between the fingers - this can be a frustrating problem when making gloves!

 

I was very excited to see this years project bag - it has been designed by Felicity Ford AKA Knitsonik and she has done an amazing job!  Felicity was patron of Shetland Wool Week two years ago and will be teaching classes again this year with a Shetland Theme.

 

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For those of you who aren't going to be able to make it to Shetland or to any of the events, I will be blogging as much as possible with photos, I plan to do something everyday but that might be optimistic!  To make sure you don't miss anything you can subscribe to my blog by signing up to receive blogposts by email, the box is on the right hand side.  Just make sure to confirm your subscription by clicking on the email you will be sent.  I will also post photos regularly to Instagram. 

 

Over on Instagram you can also join in with #shetlandfauxweek , the brainchild of Atelier Meg who visited from Australia last year, as well as that you can join in with a Baa-ble hat Knit Along (KAL) over on Ravelry.  This is being co-ordinated by Melody of www.bmandarines.squarespace.com and there are prizes!  Melody lives in Latvia where she is extremely passionate about yarn and textiles and takes beautiful photos.  If you haven't seen her work you should check out her website.

 

 

 I am so looking forward to spending the week immersed in yarn and woolly things and spending time with lots of friends, new and old.  I hope to see you there!

 

 

Swatches for my Fair Isle knitting classes