Shetland Wool Week 2015 - Day Two

Yesterday was day two of Shetland Wool Week.  I spent most of the day at the hub chatting with people and then was at the opening ceremony in the evening.  It was too late to blog when I got home so here we are now on day three!

The photos below show some of the highlights of the day and the opening ceremony (I didn't get a chance to take many photos at the opening ceremony).

 

Knitters gathering at the hub at Isleburgh Community Centre:

 

 

 

 The opening ceremony about to start:

 

 

Hjaltibonhoga Fiddlers opened the ceremony.  They are wearing outfits designed and made by Shetland based Niela Nell Designs

 

Beautiful (and tasty) Shetland Wool Week cakes:

 

 

Cutting the cake....I am wearing a tank top in ShetlandWool I made to wear at the opening - I will blog about it once Wool Week is out of the way!

 

 After the speeches and Q & A speeches we were entertained by the brilliant Felicity Ford AKA Knitsonik, who wrote this song about Shetland last year

And then she was joined on stage by Louise Scollay (who many of you will know from the Knitbritish podcast), who became Knitting Pundits - what would it would be like is knitting became as popular as football and was reported on the news?  Hilarious and very entertaining!

 

 

The evening was rounded off by the lovely Claire White, who was our compare for the evening, she sang a beautiful song she had written about the tale of Betty Mouat, who in 1886, set off to sail from the south end of Shetland to sell her knitwear in Lerwick.  A storm came up and the crew were lost.  She drifted for 9 days before she hit dry land - this expedition made her a bit of a celebrity.  You can read more about her here or by reading the essay about her in the Shetland Wool Week Annual Volume One.

 

 

There will be more pictures from today later on!

Shetland Wool Week Day One

Photo: Misa Hay

 

Today was the first day of Shetland Wool Week 2015!  This year, many of the classes take place in the Wool Week Hub, Isleburgh Community Centre and it is also a place to sit and knit, drink tea and coffee and to meet other knitters.

 

 

 

 

 Visitors are arriving from all over the world:

 

 Publications on sale in the hub:

 

 Project bags designed by the fabulous Felicity Ford AKA Knitsonik:

 

And here she is wearing her Baa-ble hat:

 

 

I spent most of my day teaching a group of lovely ladies a class on designing their own "toorie hat" or beanie:

 

 

 Some of my hats with Felicity's one in the front:

I will be at the Hub tomorrow afternoon and the opening ceremony in the evening. 

 

Maybe see you there!

 

 

 

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.

 

-

 

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

Bairns' Baa-ble hats

 

 

I get asked often how to convert the Baa-ble hat pattern for bairns, you can either knit the pattern in a thinner yarn as I did in the Peerie Baa-ble hat or you can resize the original as I will show you in this post using Aran weight yarn.  I have given details for two smaller sizes which I will call small and extra small.

 The small should fit an older child or a small adult head and the extra small should fit a younger child (age 3 - 5).  The models here are both 4 but there is a big difference in their head size!

Size small:  Circumference: approx. 46 cm / 19.4 inches; Height from edge of hat when turned up: 20cm / 7.35 inches.
Size extra small: Circumference:  approx 41cm / 16.25 inches; Height from edge of brim when turned up: approx. 17cm / 6.75 inches.

Firstly download the Baa-ble hat pattern from the Shetland Wool Week website, if you haven't already!  I have only given details on stitch numbers etc. in this post so for more details (and the chart of course) you will have to use the original pattern.

Size Small

With Aran weight yarn and size 4.0mm needles cast on 84 stitches.  Work 20 rows of 2x2 rib. 

Next row: Keeping the rib correct increase one stitch after 4 stitches and then after 3 stitches.  Repeat this for the remainder of the round. (This means you increase 2 stitches for every 7).  (24 stitches increased making a total of 108 stitches)

Switch to size 4.5mm needles. 

This is when you start following the chart with the sheep motifs.  As the hat crown decreases are in multiples of 12 you will need to remove 12 stitches from one repeat of the chart.  You need to remove the last sheep (the large sheep), except for the first stitch of the sheep.  This stitch should be black instead, or whatever colour you are using between the sheep.

An easier way to do it is to knit to the end of the round, you will be left with one stitch where the large sheep would be starting and knit another stitch the same colour as the one you have just knitted. 

Follow the chart to row 20.  Do not knit rows 21-25 but jump to row 26 and follow the decreases for the crown. 

Complete the hat by following the instructions on the pattern. 

 

 

 

Size Extra Small

 

Cast on 76 stitches.  Work 2x2 rib for 20 rounds. 

 

Next round: *K2, P2, M1*  Repeat from * to * to the last 4 stitches, K2, M1 ,P2, M1 (20 stitches increased making a total of 96).

 

Switch to size 4.5mm needles. 

This is when you start following the chart with the sheep motifs.  As the hat crown decreases are in multiples of 12 you will need to remove 24 stitches from the round (two decrease sections).  You need to remove the last sheep (the large sheep) from the chart, except for the first stitch of its fleece.  This stitch should be black instead, or whatever colour you are using between the sheep.  Your chart will now be a total of 48 stitches, half the number in the round.

Knit this new chart from right to left as normal and then repeat to give you a complete round.

 

Knit rounds 1 - 16.  Do not knit rows 17-25 but  jump to row 26 and follow the chart for the decrease section.   

 

Finish the hat by following the instructions on the pattern.

 

I hope this makes sense - it is easier to do than to explain so just give it a go!

 

 

This shows what mostly went on during the five minute photo session - They say you should never work with children or animals, at least the animals here are behaving! 

 

 

 

 

Wool Holiday Workshops

Sorry for the lack of blog posts of late - it has been a busy few weeks with holiday things, other work and some deadlines.  Shetland Wool Week ran two holidays during the summer, one inJuly and one in August.  The holidays consist of 5 packed days of sightseeing, workshops on Fair Isle knitting, lace knitting, spinning and visits to woolly places and I had the pleasure of giving the lovely ladies a couple of workshops.

Hazel Tindall ran the first workshop of the holidays, she did an introduction to Fair Isle knitting.  The class made "Mug Haps" or mug cosies (so called as in Shetland a hap is a large shawl you can wrap up warm in), and I did the second part of this where we looked at steeking, and finishing methods.

The class I took was held in the long room at Busta House in Brae, a lovely setting for a relaxing afternoon knitting.

 

These are the lovely ladies in the July class, we had a surprise visit from Susan Crawford (of the Vintage Shetland Project), Ella Gordon of Ella Gordon Designs and Louise Scollay (AKA KnitBritish)  Hazel Tindall also popped in to see how the group were doing.

 

 These are the lovely ladies from the August group

In the evening after both classes I ran a workshop of basic wet felting techniques, it was a short workshop since one half of the group did some spinning and the other half did felting and then they swapped over half way through.  There is so much that can be done with felting and this was very much a taster session, I think many of the ladies were keen to try it again they found it quite therapeutic!

 

The next wool holiday is planned for Thursday 19th November - Wednesday 25th November and again in March (dates to be confirmed) - this would be a perfect way to break up the autumn months before Christmas.  For details see the holiday page on the Shetland Wool Week website by clicking here. 

I quite fancy going on it myself!