HRH

On Tuesday of this week Prince Charles was gifted with a Shetland Rug and a scarf of Shetland Lace, hand-knitted by Mary Kay in Jamieson & Smith 1ply Shetland Supreme.

Prince Charles with his undyed Shetland rug. He'll be cosy this winter!

The colour lady

aka. Varian Brandon is working on a beautiful new Fair Isle design in the lovely Jamieson & Smith 2ply Jumper weight. Yum.

 x

sunday. sand. sea. salt. shells. sunset.

A little bit of Sunday inspiration and a 2pm sunset at Meal Beach. 

Setting the tone for getting back to J&S after a week off. 

Saturday night

Went to a birthday party last night and discovered this...

The lovely hostess, Kelly, had made the birthday boy an abstract Shetland Sheep in felt using left overs of undyed Shetland combed tops from the recent J&S felting workshop. The background is Shetland Black, middle is white and the detail is moorit. Amazing!

Aesop's fable

Kate Davies. What a brilliant mind to come up with this lovely Aesop's fables inspired Tortoise and Hare Gauntlets. And they're made in our beautiful 2ply Jumper Weight. The main colour is 2008 Katmollet, which is completetly undyed - Katmollet is one of the natural colours of our lovely Shetland Sheep.

Wild Weekend

We're forecast for a rough one. Thank goodness that we'll be all cosy at the Christmas Craft Fair with the cream of Shetland's designers and makers. Come and see our little stall...

It's official...

Real Shetland Wool is one of the most environmentally friendly fibres ever. Not only is it naturally sustainable because of the sheeps habitat and diet, but Haworth Scouring Company Ltd in Bradford, who scoure our lovely wol for us, have just been awarded the first Environmental Care Certificate for Wool Scouring. 

Dr Mike Madden, head of ENco, said: "At this point Haworth can rightly claim to be industry leaders."

David Gisbourne, Managing Director of Haworth Scouring, said "We are the largest wool processor and comber of our kind in the Northern Hemisphere and possibly the world and we are acutely aware of our responsibilities to the environment. We expect others to follow our lead."

Of course, we already knew they were brilliant, but this is such good news! Congratulations Haworth!

We did have a really busy week last week. On Saturday night we launched the Shetland Fine Lace Project, a collaboration between Jamieson & Smith and the Shetland Amenity Trust and Shetland Museum and Archives, which has been three years in the making. Jamieson & Smith, along with parent company Curtis Wool, developed a fine wursit (worsted) yarn to replicate the hand-spun yarn that goes in to Shetland Fine Lace (Shetland Supreme 1ply) and the Shetland Amenity Trust commissioned scarves from exceptionally talented knitters of Shetland Lace to be retailed through the Shetland Museum and Archives.

The short version of the story is that the Shetland Fine Lace Project aims to revive the craft to its glory days and, most importantly, value the knitters for the individual creativity, expert skill, imagination and time. You can read more about it here: Shetland News or here: Press and Journal.

We had great fun at the launch of the scarves, which come beautifully packaged and accompanied by a booklet and DVD on Shetland Lace. We loved Oliver's speech which, in true Oliver style, he opened with: "I'm a bit nervous. This is my first film premiere", much to the hilarity of the audience of Shetland Lace knitters, local designers, industry insiders and politicians. On top of that, Davy's (Shetland Amenity Trust) inventive image manipulation is priceless...

We spent last Saturday at the Shetland Marts, where Oliver (aka Wool Man extraordinaire) judged Shetland Wool 'on the hoof' and chose the Supreme Shetland Wool Champion 2010. This involved, as he puts it, 'gripping' a couple of hundred rams and examining their wool. 

Vi-Spring sponsored the Trophy and presented it in the ring to the overall winner Sean Graham of Gremista Farm here in Lerwick.

The Vi-Spring Trophy itself was crafted by local wood genius, Cecil Tait of Paparwark Furniture.

Shetland Sheep

The winners of our recent Jamieson & Smith photo competition, sponsored by Curtis Wool Direct.

 1. Jonathan Moar 2 Lisa Johnson 3 Marion Postlethwaite 4 Catherine Henry 5 Overall winner, David Cooper 6. David Cooper again!

These images will be used all over the world to promote Real Shetland Wool. Brilliant.

Photo Competition

We announced the winners of our photography competition on Friday night. Chris and Andrew from Vi-Spring, who we supply with Shetland Wool for their luxury beds, judged the competition. 
1st prize went to David Cooper for this beautiful image.

Runners up were:
Jonothan Moar
Catherine Henry
Marion Postlethwaite
David Cooper
Lisa Johnson

Congratulations guys!!! I'll put the runner up images up shortly.