Shetland and Back Again…

I hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday Season and is ready for the New Year!

Both times we visited Shetland I bought a lot of yarn. The first time we went Daniel was a baby, so we brought a duffle bag full of diapers that went back to Germany stuffed with yarn. The second time we went (posts are here, here and here) there were no pretenses…. I brought an empty duffle bag to be stuffed with yarn and it was…. a lot of yarn and two fleeces from Jamieson’s and Smith in Lerwick.

With the trip back to Shetland in a few months I decided I wanted to take some of that yarn back in the form of a Shetland Shawl. I finished knitting Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Stonington Shawl a few weeks ago. I almost had a little glitch. I knew I was going to be playing yarn chicken and this time I lost. By a hair. I crossed my fingers and placed an order from Wool Warehouse in the UK and the yarn I needed was here in about a week. I lucked out. Now that the shawl is finished, I can not tell where the yarn purchased 13 years ago and the new yarn changes over. Crazy.

I used the plans from Kate Davies’s blog to build a stretcher. That was the easy part. I’m glad there’s no video of me trying to get the shawl onto the thing. lol. It was like wrestling with a slick pig. Getting that shawl onto that thing was no easy task, but I won. And then the wind hit, took it down and knocked the shawl off of the frame a couple of minutes later. Grrr. It was dry by now, so I got it back on frame, sprayed it with the hose to get it wet again which allowed me to adjust it because it stretched more. It wasn’t perfect, but it served it’s purpose. The lace points are beautiful and the knitting is blocked and set. The difference between before/after blocking is incredible. And let me tell you, those Shetlanders knew what they were doing. It is so light and airy, but incredibly warm and will be so welcome on chilly evenings when I’m staying at Fair Isle Studio.

You can see lots historical photos of shawls and women dressing them on frames at the Shetland Museum’s website and on Jamieson and Smith’s website.

I finished up the Tencel warp that I wove the set of twill scarves on. Had I known there was only a cowl’s worth left on it, I’d have finished it sooner. I’m getting the looms ready for more weaving to restock the shop. So thankful for all the support and that the shop is almost empty. I have a special project I’m working on for my grandfather first and then I’ll get back to shop weaving next week.

I tied on a few leftover warps that I dyed a few years ago. These bits were leftover from shawls I wove in 2017. I had to wind another warp to fill in as there weren’t enough ends for the 200 thread dummy warp on my Baby Wolf. I chose a pretty blue solid tencel. More pictures on that later.

I want to leave you with one little tip, but it’s a goodie. While I was tying that hand dyed warp on I remembered this handy trick for holding the cross. I’m almost positive I learned it from Weaver’s Craft in my early weaving years. It’s very handy and all weavers have thread on hand. I especially like this trick when I have multiple threads in each cross group. When I wound these warps before dyeing them, I held six threads. They stick together a lot and that spells irritation when holding the cross in your hand or the other ways I usually do. You can see in the photo here that thread is used to hold the cross. At each loom I have a bobbin full of multiple threads that I use for lashing on or whenever I need something strong. That is what I used here.

Until next time….