Monday 21 November 2016

Shetland 2016 : Day Eighteen- - Shetland Guild of Weavers, Spinners, Dyers and Knitters Guild Sunday Tea


Sunday 2 Oct wool week day 9 

I guess it was inevitable that after 2 completely full days I would get a migraine. ( for those that are lucky not to suffer from this 'challenge', it seems for many of us that 'doing a lot' is fine but taking the foot off the body accelerator allows a chink for the migraine to creep in. ) Fortunately nothing much was planned for the morning so I took the medication, kept eating and drinking and hoped I would come round for the afternoon. It sort of worked! 
So we were at Tingwall early and while waiting showed a German Wool Week attendee around out Motorhome. ( I lost count of the number of tours we did while we were away!) so then into Tingwall Hall and as expected it was busy and already people had full plates for their 'tea'. We happened across Ruth Gough from Wingham Wools. Suffice it to say we have quite a history together  - M and I enjoyed many residential courses run by Ruth & her husband Alan in Borrowdale . Until Wool week it had been a while since we met!
It was a glorious afternoon of eating (£5 for a plate and choose from an extensive buffet), drinks brought to the tables non stop; catching up with friends; viewing the stunning knitwear and talking to members of the Guild who were demonstrating spinning and knitting - many of whom I had chatted to during the week. 
 Many thanks to Sarah Moran (1) for taking this photo 
 

It was lovely to see items from the Guilds's challenge for the year - which was an item inspired by the Guild's first book A legacy of Shetland Lace 
Just a small sample of this:
 
Individual members of the Guild were displaying their own items and there were  rosettes  for prizes awarded for the beautiful knitwear from many shows. An afternoon not to be missed in terms of stunning knitwear. 
I was also rather overwhelmed by the number of people asking to take photos of my meadowsweet yoked jumper - the ones I know about are going to places as far away as the west coast of America and Australia! 

Even Michael didn't escape the photographing, he writes: 'While having a quick look round I was quite surprised to be stopped by a charming American lady who asked for a photograph of my chest!  Well actually the fair isle sweater I was wearing on it.  I was of course happy to oblige but also  felt I had to admit that it had been bought for a few pounds from a vintage second hand shop in Beccles, Norfolk. Janet has knitted me a rather special fair isle jumper but not one to wear when messing around on holiday in the van!' 
The colours and design of M's fair isle jumper are superb and as it gets closer to it's end I need to chart it so I can get close to replicating it. 

What a wonderful penultimate day in Shetland - so much skill on display and so many items at the very top of the stunning scale! 
 
(1) Take a look at Sarah's blog - she was lucky enough to get to Fair Isle for a day during wool week, and lots of other great stuff too! www.didyoumakeityourself.com 

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