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Scarfs

May 28, 2012, 2:11 pm
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These arescarfs that I have developed during the winter.

Two are snoods. One is in natural greys with an edge in a lichen dyes yarn. The other has 3 shades of cochineal dyes yarns. Both will wrap 2 or 3 times round the neck.


light moorit, fawn and black scarf

The Fair isle and Lace scarfs are long and twist slightly.

 
  

cochineal, indigo and silver grey scarf
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Hats and Gloves

June 2, 2012, 4:01 am
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 Much of the winter has been has been spent working on orders - winter is always the season for that - but stock has to be worked on as well. I have worked on yarn for 3 of my designs this winter - Bonxie, Trowie and Njuggle.

BONXIE


Bonxie Toorie 1

Bonxie Toorie 2























The colours for the Bonxie pattern are taken from the wing of the Great Skua which we call the Bonxie. Underneath the wing it has this nice flash of light colour among the dark browns and blacks.


TROWIE


Trowie cushion

Trowie square hat

A Trow is a Shetland Troll. Unlike the most common image of a Troll being large and often stupid, the Shetland Trows are small, clever but very cantancerous. You have to be very carful around Trows. You must never upset them.

My Trowie pattern is almost the opposite. It may look a little difficult but is really quite simple. It is rather deceptive so in that respect it is quite like the Trows.












NJUGGLE


The Njuggle is another of our 'mythical' creatures, a mythical pony, - perhaps they are real perhaps they are not.

This design is full of the very old cross patterns, with the greek key and the small flower both of which are found round the edge of greek carvings. As these are all ancient patterns the Heart pattern had to be included, and the anchour is a must for a design relating to the sea. Mix in all the natural colours with a dash of white to show the white horses on top of the waves and you have my Njuggle design.

Njuggle Dags (gloves)

All three designs are knitted in the Toorie hats, Square hats, Cushions, Long Dags, Rib Dags and FI Dags. The Trowie and Njuggle designs are also made up into kits that you can knit youeselves.
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Handspun Tablet Band Bridle

June 7, 2012, 1:40 pm
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On Monday I spent a glorious morning at Walls with Frances and Joe, a 3 mtr length of my tablet band................and of course not forgetting the models, Indy Ping-pong, the Shetland stallion and Haakon, the Icelandic stallion. The results were stunning.


Indy Ping-Pong looking regal
 


The band almost hidden under Indy's impressive mane



Haakon looking very comfortable in his colourful bridle



The colors of the band looked as impressive on both ponies.






































The tablets were set up with handspun yarns so that the band looked like knitted stitches not a woven band. The natural dyes are those used in the traditional Fair Isle of red, blue, green and golds. The red is madder, the blue is indigo, the green is from onion and there are 4 yellow colours from lichen, onion and nettle.

The wool band is much softer than leather and has to be comfortable as a bridle. And although the ponies could easily have objected to 3 metres of stuff being wrapped round their noses, they were not bothered in the least when Joe tied on this strange colourful piece of cloth.


 Ihave to thank Frances for the beautiful photos. My photography skills are zero next to hers. (But she does have a better camera than me)

There are more photos on Frances blog spot at http://www.shetlandponyeverything.posterous.com/take a look.
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Spinning Workshop

July 9, 2012, 10:22 am
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A group of girls from Norway visited for a week for a spinning workshop. We have a direct flight from Bergen through the summer. The girls came in on the first of these flights which coincided with Norwegian Independance Day on the 18th of May. So before we started spinning we had a great day out at Scalloway for the celebrations there.

There are always some celebrations for the 18th of May here in Shetland because of the connections we have. This year was the opening of the new museum in Scalloway by Norway's Prime Minister, so there were extra events on.

Then on to spinning.......



spinning and combing





preparation is 9/10th's of.....


We were not always so serious. We had great fun as well. We covered different fleece preparations with different qualities of fleece. Then spinning on different wheels to produce yarns for a variety of purposes.

We ended with a try on the great wheel which is wonderful to spin on - such a smooth and satisfying process.

setting up the wheel for a demo




then Kristi had a go


All too soon the week was over and the girls went home. The house and studio was much quieter again. And I had to get back to spinning myself.
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NEW BABY - NEW BABY SHAWL

July 14, 2012, 7:43 am
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Well, a new baby has arrived in the family and so a new baby shawl has been spun and knitted. Really it should be called a hap. 'Hap' means to wrap warmly and so as that is the purpose of a baby shawl then it should be called a hap. Increasingly they are being called shawls but in our family they are still haps.

I knitted haps for all my children and then grandchildren as well nieces and nephews and some of their children. I have loved knitting haps ever since I knitted my first one. It is my most favourite thing to knit.


My own shawl



I have made one small hap for myself. I mixed black and white fleece to get perfectly shaded greys. It has been used for many years. As a scarf in the winter. Or bundled in a bag and easy to carry on holiday in case of a summer shower or a chill breeze. Really cosy when you feel unwell.







The first handspun hap I made (from my first handspun yarn) was started for my middle daughter but only finished for my youngest. So when my middle daughter had her 1st child she asked for a hap. I asked, 'what colour', the reply, 'doesnt matter as long as it is handspun'. Maybe as she didn't have a handspun hap she thought her children should.






Spun from a nice soft prize-winning grey fleece. The pink and blue yarn in the stripes was plyed with silk. Including blue and pink made it unisex as we did not know if it was a boy or a girl.







Then a second baby was due and she said, 'I need a hap', my response, 'you have one', her response, 'new baby, new hap, it needs its own hap'. And so a second was made.









This one was in fawns and we didn't know if this was a boy or girl either so we kept it neutral.









That was 2 girls, then came a boy and she needed a blue hap,......



We knew this one was a boy, and so it just had to be blue. A very soft fleece with 4 colours of grey and an almost black shade  and I had 5 colours to dip in the indigo vat. The result was gorgeous shading and something in the indigo seems to make the wool softer. It just felt as if it was melting.





......and now another boy and the order was - light with a little blue if you want. Well, I love blue.



I raided the lace yarn oddments box and found leftovers from the 3 previous haps, two greys from no.1, a fawn from no.2, and little bits of all the blues from no.3 and so with a mid grey and a silver grey spun from a soft and very silky fleece I had the colours for this next hap. 






These are family haps, but I have made others for sale and for commissions. I will take an order for a hap at any time and enjoy the knitting.

I have a commission for a shawl with madder red yarn. I will post a photo when that one is finished. I am still working on getting the shades of red and orange red correct. But it is looking good.

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Beautiful wild flowers

September 6, 2012, 4:12 am
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Coming home after visiting my daughters family was wonderful. Although I missed them all, Shetland looked beautiful, sunshine, vistas, blue seas, the rim of clouds on the horizon every pastel colour there is............and the wild flowers in full bloom were georgeous.





The hawkbit and sorrel were a carpet in this field. 

The hawkbits were electric yellow in the sunshine and danced in the wind. 














Red clover was everywhere and is always beautiful.

Buttercups, vetch and scabious were growing here with the clover.







My photos could be better, but really you had to be here to see the whole picture.

I then got involved with work and would forget to go take more photos.

The Agricultural Shows came and went. I was at one show .........  forgot the camera  ..........  but was so busy there would not have been time to take photos.

So we have had our first winter gales, early this year, but it has reminded me to get on to summer blogging. Ah well, next year.

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COMMISSIONED ALLOVERS

September 23, 2012, 4:23 am
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Two of the allovers waistcoats I made this year were commissions.



I mostly work from a portfolio of designs, but these can be changed, the motifs can vary and the colours can change. These two allovers are from my current designs but with changes that the customer requested.

NJUGGLE


Njuggle dags in original colours

















customers colour choice



The customer wanted changes to the colours used in the Njuggle design. There were 4 onion colours, 2 greens and 2 very soft orange/yellows which she liked and wanted to include in the allover. Then she spotted 4 lichen dyed colours which she liked as well. The lichen colours were 3 shades of rust, 1 rich rust and 2 lighter shades and 1 grey/green.

The dark onion green and light onion yellow were used for the ribs, and the dark green and rich rust used in the motifs. The remaining colours were used for background colours replacing the greys in the original colourway.

The result was a beautiful blend of colours.

SELKIE in greys



Selkie design in grey colourway



Original Selkie colourway



The request for a second commission was to change the colourway of the Selkie design from Fawns to Greys and include a madder red and an onion yellow. I used the dyed colours mostly on the ribs but using also them alternatively for the centre row of each pattern.

The result was a very striking garment. In these colours it is now not a 'Selkie' design. This colourway will be renamed and added to my portfolio, but perhaps not with the dyed colours, or with different dyed colours. 




I had thought that the changes to the Nuggle colours would be quite easy and changing the Selkie from fawns to greys would be more difficult to do. In fact the Selkie in greys was quite simple and introducing the dyed colours into the Nuggle design, was to begin with, very difficult.

Happily both customers were very pleased with the results.











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Its December, what happened

December 1, 2012, 6:08 am
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Wow, its December, what happened. The last 2 months seem to have passed by so quickly. So, lets see, what did I do.

Ok, October started with getting ready for the next 2 months. Housework all needed to be done; there was a plumbing problem that needed sorted out; the house and Studio had to be ready for visitors and a few projects; the shed needed to be tidied up before winter and ready to take in the winter supply of hay for my 2 sheep; the garden needed a tidy up (and that didnt happen); orders to be finished and the next work items to be sorted. So, what was I getting ready for?

It started with Wool Week. The studio was open for a spinning clinic on Mon, Tues and Wed. So was I going to be busy or not? Luckily there was a nice steady steam of people through each day, not too many at any time, just nice and time to talk to everyone.

Then I had to miss the end of wool week to head off to the States - I was teaching a Fair Isle class at John C Campbell Folk School in North Carolina the following week - bad planning. I love the Folk School though, I have taught there several times. The class went well, each student choosing colours and planning their design. Hats, gloves, and ipad covers were all knitted.



A hat nearly finished. This was a fairly new knitters first 2 colour knitting, first knitting in the round, first hat, and all designed - colour and pattern - by herself.





The 3 stages of designing Fair Isle - maybe - charting, knitting the sample, and scratching your head and needing more coffee when it looks as if it is going wrong - sorry, Mary Jane, both your designs worked beautifully.




An ipad cover nearly complete



A sample knitted as a wrist band.
Not my colours but my favourite design of the week. 


















After a couple of days off to go to a craft fair in Ashville, do some Xmas shopping and repack the suitcase, I set off with Martha, a friend from North Carolina, for Seattle and then out to Whidbey Island to teach another Fair Isle class.

Visit http://nordichomecraft.blogspot.co.uk/  for a very good report on the class by one of the students.

That was the teaching over so it was holiday then with Martha and Wendy, except for the knitting we did round the fire in the evenings. We hired a log cabin overlooking the beach right out on the Olympic peninsular on the Pacific coast. Big beaches, big seas and big sky with huge trees as driftwood.







This was our beach. Can you spot the eagle - the big eagle? It gives you an idea of the size of the beach and the trees piled up on the top of the sand.


Cant see the eagle?

Try the next photo.








Can you see the eagle now?

Can you find it in the photo above now?

Big beach isnt it.

Check out the same eagle in the next photo.


Big eagle

Walking the beaches was great but then there are the forests, - and yes, you guessed it with big trees.....

Here is Wendy with the big Cyprus....amazing.











But then we were here in the fall and there are also rain forest here.














After a wonderful adventure, I took a flight from Seattle to Aberdeen, via Amsterdam, and with a couple of days to recover with family, I took the boat home with only 2 days to get ready for the Craft Fair in Lerwick.

I had visitors the next week to work on the warp-weighted loom so still no days off to settle in back home.

So now it is time for more housework, and I will forget the garden that did not get done, and work on more of those orders. It is also freezing outside and I have seen a few snowflakes this morning so inside is the best place to be.











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A Madder Shawl

January 7, 2013, 8:33 am
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The Christmas and New Year holidays are over, even Auld Yule here in Shetland has passed and it is time to get back to normal. Christmas decoration have been taken down and put away for next year, and hopefully most of the pine needles, the tinsel and the dust has gone too.

So I thought it was time to let you see the shawl I made for a birthday present. The birthday was on the 30th of November so I could not mention it here before then just in case the birthday girl saw it and made a connection.



The Madder Shawl
















The request was for a shawl in Madder oranges. Getting the right shade of madder can be difficult. Usually getting the orange/red colour is easy except when you get really good quality Madder, which is what happened. I did a test dye but on dying the handspun lace yarn it was just too red. The second try was luckily just right. It did take time though as some more yarn needed to be spun.



Yarns used in the shawl

There are 11 colours in the shawl, 7 dyed colours and 4 natural colours. The dying was done on white, 3 grey shades and 3 fawn shades. I included a touch of the 3 fawn shades that had been dyed and a Shetland black. The lace edge and the centre was in the mig grey from the first dye batch after I reduced the red by cooking it again in onion. It adding just a little bit of madder red to the mix.

And I still have a nice batch of handspun lace yarn in beautful madder reds to use.
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LACE CANDLE LIGHTS

January 28, 2013, 10:37 am
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So have I used any of the madder yarn yet? Well, yes I have, but not very much. Following the success of the Merrie Lace instalation at Mareel, our new music and cinema venue in Lerwick, one of my daughters came up with this idea for lace lights.



and the same candle lights taken with less light.



2 light shades of madder yarn







2 in darker shades



and then with less light to see their reflection























I made a few as Christmas gifts and now have them for sale. At the moment they are all in madder reds and will all be in lace weight yarns, but more colours will be added as I have them.

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Sunset

February 18, 2013, 9:30 am
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Sunsets never fail to impress me. Last night was no exception. Today has been a beautful , with warm spring sunshine, almost no clouds in the sky, and very light winds. Maybe tonight we will have a great sunset too.

But, here are last nights photos.....


 Starting with the western sky...

and moving a little towards the south west.......

now looking south west....

looking south........
and even in the eastern sky.
The north sky was a delicate shade of pink too, but too light to show up on my camera.

Next blog will be on textiles, I promise.
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Trowie Allover in Blues

May 10, 2013, 4:08 am
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A blog post is long overdue, but my days have been too full of spinning, weaving, and writing (other than my blog) - it has been fun.

Now it is time to catch up here.

One commission I had was to incorporate blues into my Trowie design. And why had I not thought of this before? Blue is my favourite colour and I have never used it in a design. But a customer asked and I was in heaven, knitting in blue.

The request was to change the black and moorit to blue, and the customer had good colour judgement as well as good taste. The colours were now 2 blues 2 greys and a light fawn. Fawns always go well with blue, but the 2 greys I knew would pick up colour from the blues and look beautiful. I dyed grey yarn with logwood for a dark blue to repace the black, and a lighter grey yarn dyed in indigo for the lighter blue to replace the moorit.




The result was, I think, stunning - but I would like anything is blue. You can decide for yourselves.
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Work in progress...

May 1, 2014, 10:00 am
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.......so what have I been doing since I last posted a blog?

Well really just the same as usual, spinning, knitting, teaching. There is too much to detail here, other than to list a few highlights, namely, teaching in Norway, the USA; Shetland Wool Week; setting up a broken diamond twill on the warp-weighted loom to accompany the display of a tunic dating to 300AD; loads of spinning; a little knitting; then writing for the book 'Shetland Textiles 800 BC to the present'; and spending time with family, especially the grandchildren.

Here is what I am knitting at the moment. It is a copy of an allover I knitted for myself several years ago, and this will be the only copy I will knit from it. It will remain an exclusive garment.






















Stock is low right now as I am spinning for further commissions, there is quite a full order book.



There is a stash of yarn but it is mostly being spun for commissions. These are yarn being set aside for 5 commissions. Mostly in natural colours, but there is one madder orange in there and some of the grey has to be dyed in indigo and logwood.

...then these

White and silver grey yarn waiting for a madder and an onion dye pot.

.. and the next fleece to be spun.


1.5 kilo of black, 1 kilo of dark grey and rowers (rolags), part of a 500 grms batch of charcoal. 

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Spinning Painted Roving!

May 13, 2014, 7:10 am
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Recently I spend time at the John C Campbell Folk School in North Carolina, USA, where I taught a class on spinning for Fair Isle with Martha Owen. We started with Shetland fleece in white, light grey and fawn which we dyed - natural dyes, of course - then carded, spun, and lastly each student knitted a sample swatch of their own design, with the yarns they have produced. An ambitious class but all good fun.

After all that hard work I though some fun was in order, so I took a class - spinning, of course, what else - with a good friend of mine, Melissa Weaver Dunning. A very different type of spinning for me. Not from my normal raw fleece and not Shetland fleece, but painted roving, and Merino and silk!!! 

It was a great week. The 'thinking hat' had to go on to begin with to decide on the colours I wanted, then after the first few exercises, how to continue to get the result I wanted, and also what I was going to do with the yarn when it was finished. I did most of the spinning and started the knitting during the week class and finished it at home.

Here is the result. I knitted a simple square with garter to mark where the changes in the yarn is. It can fit on either a single bed or a double (just), or round my shoulders, it looks nice over a chair or on the back of the sofa.
 


 







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My Shwook hat is ready for Wool Week

May 29, 2014, 1:33 am
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Here is a fun thing just for myself.

The Wool Week pattern from Jamieson & Smith, designed by Hazel Tindall came out a couple of weeks ago. The idea is to knit one and wear it at Wool Week in October. So I thought I would join in the fun - and maybe knit it now or it would never get done. It will be one for myself, I really like the pattern and the loose, slouchy fit. I can get it over all the hair. The handspun hat I have right now is getting a bit old and in need of a replacement.
  
 My handspun yarn is a bit thicker than J&S jumper weight so I had to think how to get it the right size - without knitting a swatch. Oops, you are always advised to knit a swatch. Anyway, I didnt, but luckily it came out right.
 
Love where the crown sits down the back of the head, shows it off really well. 

I knitted the small size for the number of stitches, and the next size up for the pattern but worked 1 plain row where the pattern said 2 plain rows. That reduced the number of rows sufficiently to get the 2nd peerie pattern in above the rib. With the thicker yarn and a bigger size needle, and thankfully, it knitted to the correct measurement for the size 2 hat and fits great.
 
I didnt change the colours too much. I did need more blue in it though, so a blue rib and the 2nd peerie pattern has a blue grund. Strangely I have less blue in the crown than was asked for in the pattern, but found that I had colours to shade through from the red to the blue.
 

This shows the slouch style of the hat

 
The yarn is all my handspun and from Shetland fleece. There are 2 natural colours - white and grey - with the other colours in natural dyed yarns. The dyes are logwood blue, 3 madder red shades dyed on fawn, mid and dark greys. For the yellow I found 3 colours, 2 yellows and an orange, which worked well together and as I did not have much of each of them (I was in a basket of clews for these), I just used all 3. The yellows are - lichen (dyed in Norway), and onion. The orange is from a mushroom (dyed in the US - we dont have any forest mushrooms in Shetland).
 
 
My hat is now ready for Wool Week and the winter. 
 
 
That done it is back to work - ah, more spinning and knitting. 
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My Shetland Vararfeldur

June 15, 2014, 4:07 pm
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This week I hope to post daily to show me and Sigrid making a Vararfeldur with Shetland fleece. We have made one in Iceland and one in Norway, so now it is my turn with Shetland fleece.

If you don't know what it is, 'google' it and you will find photos of the other 2 we have made. But follow us this week and see this one as it happens.





The loom needed a few adjustments, but we managed to get it sorted so that it would weave the correct width of 102cm, and drilled the extra holes needed in the top beam. My sales wall was emptied, just leaving the wall grid. The yarn and knitwear arranged in a corner beside the wheels. And eventually we were ready to make the warp and get the stones ready.







Sigrid got busy marking the weights on the stones.
I figured the length of the warp and the number of warp threads and stared on the 3 metre/600 thread warp.



Next job for Sigrid was to start on the fleece, pulling out the locks ready to make the pile in the weave.

I had 3 different coloured fleece, 2 black, one grey and one fawn. Still more fleece to find for tomorrow, another grey and a moorit.




Warp on its cord and tied to the top beam.
Spreading the warp across the loom.








We got carried away with sewing up the warp that we forgot to take a photo. But here it is all sewn up .




Here is where we left it - stones ready in pairs to be tied on in the morning.
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My Shetland Vararfeldur - Day 2

June 16, 2014, 5:38 pm
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The loom was ready to put on the stones, but we thought we needed a few more, - so we set off to the beach to find some......2 hours later.....

back at the studio and tying on the stones

then on to the back chaining cord and .......


a mistake - 8 pairs of threads missing

Mistake fixed. The 8 pairs of threads put in place.
















Chaining finished. Next was the heddles.


Heddles all finished and time to test that the shed open properly and there are no more mistakes.
IT WORKED!





 Meanwhile, Sigrid had spent the most of the day (except for the walk on the beach) working on the fleece.
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My Shetland Vararfeldur - Day 3

June 17, 2014, 3:56 pm
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All ready to weave. The loom was all set up and the shed tested yesterday, so now we are weaving.

Very pleased with the row of stones.
They made a beautiful sound as the shed was changed.

Beating up the first threads on the start of the vararfeldur.
We gave some thought as to how we should use the different coloured fleece in the vararfeldur. We had to try to be artistic! The decision was a frame of black round all 4 edges then mix dark colours for the first part. I found some moorit fleece to mix with the black and the grey ....... then see what happens next.

3 rows of pile done in black for an edge to the design.

The start of the moorit and grey added in the next 2 rows.
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My Shetland Vararfeldur - Day 4

June 18, 2014, 2:04 pm
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From now on we will be continually preparing the fleece and weaving. We do 8 picks then add the fleece to make the pile.

Sigrid putting in the fleece


.....and more fleece (but she really just wanted her picture taken)

Thick mist this morning, then the sun came out so we took a break
....and went to the beach to look for more stones for loom weights
....well, we have enough but it was a good excuse.
And Sigrid really did want her picture taken!


The tombola beach we were on and St. Ninians Isle. Huge amount of sand on the beach this year.

10 cm woven yesterday, and now we have 31 cm woven.
Sigrid says 69cm to go.


Woven enough so the sides of the weaving needed to be tied to the sides of the loom. Tied over nice bone needles. 

The board we had been standing on to reach the top when we started working could be taken away too and the heddle bar lowered as well.  PROGRESS.






Full view of the loom at the end of today... there is still a lot to weave.
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My Shetland Vararfeldur - Day 5

June 19, 2014, 4:36 pm
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This was our day off from weaving. So what did we do?




We went visiting at a croft at the Dale of Walls and to help 'roo' 3 rams. Rooing is removing the fleece by hand. For the ram sales in the Autumn they look much, much better if the fleece is rooed instead of sheared.



Here is the black ram waiting in the pen, showing off his stunning horns.





There were 2 white rams, and just look at the amount of belly wool that had to come off. It is much easier if there is less on the belly.






..........and here is where the camera thought that it should run out of power............







Rams were rooed, but we had no more photos to show, either of the sheep or the croft.

There was a stop in Lerwick for a fish supper on the way home, but we still worked on some fleece for the pile (and had some chocolate) in the evening.














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