Shetland Autumn 2023 Day 4 and 5/ 5th/6th Sept

As we woke up in Hoddam it was very foggy and for the first time in a long time I put on a thick jumper. We always enjoy the journey from here going further  north and over to Perth. The roads will be even quieter and the scenery is great. First stop would be Cairn Lodge Services at Happenden, this is a model for a good service station in my mind. It is off the main road, there is plenty of parking, the facilities are good, the food offering is varied, ie sweet and savoury, and of good quality, there is a farm shop and also a gift section of nice things. It is now part of the Westmorland  group and has thus recently improved greatly over the years we have been stopping here. 

Getting into the wool vibe, I treated myself to some sheep inspired poems….

The journey on to Perth was uneventful until we reached Perth and I missed the turn off! For the first time, but not the last, we would be very grateful for using Google Maps as a back up  Sat Nav, Michael was able to redirect me using his phone. (One of the many wonders of technology.) 

As always the campsite at Perth (Scone Palace) was impeccable and it makes such a difference! It would be a real treat to have Wi-Fi and Radio 4 too. Unfortunately DAB, and hence Times Radio, which I have come to prefer to Radio 4 are off the agenda until we are back into England for us. I am usually able to take photos of some super fungi around the Perth campsite. However, I could not find any this year which must say something for the weather, so instead I walked along the perimeter and just enjoyed the woodland. 

These succulents seemed to manage ! 

a beautiful autumn day 

So tomorrow we would drive a short distance on to Aberdeen and complete the first 523 miles of the journey. We had a leisurely start and just drove east of Perth for a second breakfast at Glendoik Garden Centre, another spot we really like. Food is good, lots of savoury choices for me and nice views over parts of their gardens. 

Looking down on the garden

I would also be able to look round the garden centre and try and spot some bulbs to take back with us when we stopped on the way back. 

The Christmas decorations would be in the Garden Centre when we came back and one was keeping watch over the ‘facilities’ today. 

The plan today was to investigate parking at the quay at Stonehaven so we could make ourselves lunch and overlook the sea. We got there before lunch and found somewhere to park. It was nice to take my camera and potter on the beach and look at yet another collection of different stones which I find great for natural colours in knitwear inspiration. It also looked as if the the crossing tonight would be calm. We made lunch and then suddenly lots of other motorhomes arrived and then we realised they must be trying to find a ‘wild camping’ spot for the night. Our motorhome is the size of a delivery van and we like to stay on a campsite and also add to the local economy where we can. So to be hemmed in by massive vehicles was overwhelming and we decided to move off. 

We arrived at the ferry terminal late afternoon and for the first time, we were let into the holding area before the official opening time as the queue for the ferry was reaching back to the main road. We had not experienced this before. If loading went as usual we would be one of the very last loaded. This was the case tonight too. Departure time was 19.00. Once the van was parked on the car deck I went to the Magnus Lounge to get a table for dinner and was very surprised how quiet this was given the number of cars and motorhomes taking the ferry that night. There were many more motorhomes than we could remember seeing before and wondered how busy the campsites would be in Shetland. We had a lovely dinner and I did not need to open my new packet of Kwells! We chatted to people in the lounge after dinner. It seemed that getting a cabin on the ferry has become a real problem. A Shetland lady had been to a funeral on mainland and had to wait 8 days to return to Shetland. She was bemoaning the fact that the ferry is a a lifeline service but that is not that at the moment. The construction of the wind farm and extra workers for the space centre in Unst were thought to be adding to the lack of capacity problem. 

I did some knitting! The fingerless gloves to match this year’s yoked jumper are on their way (post of 12 Oct for the completed ones) 

Once I got to the cabin I was pleased to see the complimentary Shetland Times had the results of classes at Unst Show. Scanning through the knit related  results I noticed several names I knew and was pleased to see that Hazel Laurenson had won the Sandison Trophy for best lace, hand knit openwork article. 

How lovely to see so many classes for knit items, in the County show in Norfolk there are now no classes for handicrafts. Such a shame given the importance of spinning, knitting and weaving in the history of the county. 

‘Sweet pea’ fingerless gloves 2023

I first designed a pattern for these, many years ago. It was prior to 2014 which when we moved back to Norfolk, so possibly 2006! Then they were called the Alchemilla fingerless gloves as they were to match a handbag that I knitted. Sadly I no longer have the handbag, it is one of the few bags I have sold. I still have the design work and the gloves though! 

Alchemilla gloves

They are excellent when I am doing photography in cooler or even very cold conditions! 

I made the next pair (left in image below) sometime in 2016 when I spun the yarn, from Shetland fleece and naturally dyed it to knit the first wool week hat, the Swook hat by Hazel Tindall. I called it my Skaw hat as I matched the colours to seaweed in a photo I took at Skaw beach on an earlier visit to the most Northerly beach in Unst, or in fact  the UK. I wear these a lot and it a usual day of somebody, usually a stranger,  doesn’t have a conversation with me about them. It’s nice that they spark a knitting/ spinning/ dyeing conversation and I have introduced several to Shetland Wool Week through these gloves. 

I had so much dyed Shetland wool left the year I knitted the meadowsweet jumper and the hat and the notebook cover that I knitted another pair in those colours! 

….and now in 2023 I have knitted another pair using the colours in the yoke of my Shetland Wool Week jumper yoke. There is one slight variation from the yoke - I used a stronger coloured pink in the centre of the yoked jumper motifs but thought there was enough pink showing in these fingerless gloves to use the wool that I dyed and did not use in the yoke. Also this year it is the first time I have used all the colours in sequence and arranged them so that the colours run in sequence across my left hand, outer to thumb side, then across my right hand thumb to little finger with palms down.

The clips show where the stitching for the thumb slot will go 

There is an invisible graft in the picture. (I hope it is invisible) 

I have learnt the graph I used from studying videos and articles from Joni Coniglio who does, in my mind, ann excelled 2 sided lace knitting graft. It took me time and many trials to ‘get’ this but more than worth it. I have described this I detail I previous posts, such as http://imagejem.blogspot.com/2021/11/grafting-2-sided-lace.html

This shows the trial of the graft

Preparing  for the graft 

Showing the foundation rows in waste yarn 

 Graft complete

Removing the waste yarn from the left 

Each time I have knit them, since the first there has been a modification, or improvement in my mind. Perhaps now the pattern is static and perhaps I might publish it! 

My aim at first, and remains, was to run the stripes down the hand. This lengthens rather than widens my (to me) broad hands. 

You can read about the jumper and the natural dyeing using cochineal and indigo in the post of 8 Oct 2023

Shetland jumper 2023

I have got into the rhythm of knitting a new jumper or cardigan to wear in Shetland during some of wool week. I have a number of criteria for this: it will be unique to me; it will fit me well; it will be warm; it will be made of Shetland Wool; it will co-ordinate with what I will be wearing. Over the years, I have mainly dyed all or some of the yarn for it. 

I liked the two yoked jumpers I had done previously and decided another of those would be just the thing this year. The ones I had done were in yellow / green tones and this year I decided I would concentrate on the purple/ pink colour way. The previous colourways were naturally dyed and this set would also be naturally dyed.

I am very particular about ‘fit’ at the yoke as the whole point to me of a yoked jumper is that it fits well at the yoke, back and front. I would knit the front, back and sleeves on my knitting machine. I have made a custom pattern for this with the back being higher than the front and the sleeve top sections therefore  being lower at the front than the back. I have talked to several Shetland knitters of yoke jumpers, both hand and machine knit bodies. This has worked well for both the previous jumpers, even though I used different yarns and therefore different stitch numbers. 

I thought I would do a different yoke pattern this year and spent a long time, months, playing with motifs and colour variation and stitch counts. But I do love how the tree removes stitches to do the decreasing. One morning I got up and decided I would actually much prefer the yoke pattern that I normally do and just work on getting the colours and the sequence of these as good as I could. I was going to use the grey main yarn I used previously and a dark grey to act as a border for the yoke and natural white as the background. (1) 

So on to planning the colours. The plan was to dye some small samples of yarn using cochineal and indigo. This proved to be some of my most difficult natural dyeing. Usually I start with a main colour and then use additives to alter this colour to give the others. They then all ‘go’ together well. 

Getting several different shades that form a coordinating gradient from two different dye baths  was a completely different process. The indigo vat would get colder and the yarn would therefore need to be in it for longer but if it was in too long then the hue would be much bluer but I wouldn’t know how much bluer until I had let the air get to it and the yarn colour developed! 

Add to this that I like to put yarn into indigo at least twice to get a good indigo dye and the fact that wet wool is darker than dry wool and you can understand what I was grappling with. Then there was the indigo, I need 5 lots of indigo dyed yarn, should I put them all in at once? I decided this was not the most sensible idea as I might want a quicker dip for some purples. But then what would the concentration of the bath be when I put the different yarns in at different times? For the actual jumper I was going to dye 25 g of each colour. 

I already knew that it mattered which way the dipping went- cochineal then indigo is different from indigo plus cochineal. I do keep copious notes, but to be honest none of that helped much with this dyeing! This was about experience and trusting my processes. 

So after the sampling I more or less had a plan, I think MIchael went and hid and I decided I just had to get on with it. I mainly do my natural dyeing outside or in my dye/ fleece shed and I seemed to spend the whole morning wishing the wool dry on the line.

These are the colours after they have come off the drying line

I was pretty happy with the results, and made the yarn into balls which I rearranged until I got the gradation I liked. 

When I knitted this I could see some of the yarns needed to change places. So a second sample was needed and that was OK except for the central pink. 

That just looked too ‘weak’. So I sorted round to see what other cochineal dyed pinks I had, I had quite a few in my stash and decided on a stronger pink! 

This also shows the inspiration photo I used for the colours and the first and last sample I knitted for the yoke.

So at this stage I was ready to pick up the stitches, checking that the centre front and back motifs were spot on central and then all that was needed was to knit the yoke! As before I used a knitting belt, and 3 double pointed needles as I have learned to do in previous Shetland Wool Week workshops. 

Beginning the yoke knitting 

After this I kept on hand knitting, adding extra decreases and knitting a ribbed neckband that fits my neck.

I had previously washed and dressed (flat) the jumper pieces and joined the raglan sleeves on the sewing machine. (2) 

Dressing the jumper pieces 

I then finished the making up of the jumper and it had another warm wash and finish. 

I was pleased with it and glad I had gone to some trouble to get a jumper I really liked and I hope suited me. It was great to wear it to Shetland Guild of Spinners, Knitters, Weavers and Dyers  September meeting and get compliments, so much was going on that day that I had forgotten I was even wearing it. 

The crowning glory was when we visited Wilma Malcolmson - the Queen of Colour- and she told me how well the colours had worked, without then knowing I had naturally dyed them myself. 

The only pictures of me wearing in Shetland! 

I had just been admiring the work of spinning and  fine lace knitting of a beautiful shawl made by Satoko. We met at a wool week many years ago and as one does with wool week kept in touch by social media. She had brought two hand knitted ‘friends’ with her with different clothes ! 

This photo made me think I could knit a matching cardigan  for the jumper, using yet more of the dyed yarn, that would Co ordinate with the yoke of the jumper but not replicate it! More to add to my knitting list! 

I decided to use some of the remaining yarn to knit some more of my design of fingerless gloves to go with it during our time in Shetland. I will detail these in the next blog post. 

I usually name my jumpers, this one is now called ‘sweet pea’. The colours of the sweet peas still in bloom in the garden when we returned from Shetland were the colours of the yoke, these are some remaining today as I write this.

Notes

1. The main jumper  was knitted in Jamieson’s Graphite and the background of the yoke was knitted in Jamieson and Smith Natural White, which was also used as the base of the dyed yarns.

2. More about how I use a sewing machine in construction is on post of 6 April 2018

3. Even getting the correct ‘grey’ to work with the naturally dyed colours took 3 samples before I hit upon the ‘right’ one. I enjoy sampling and find it is essential when doing colourwork like this. The grey on the left in the photo below has quite a bit of red in it although it does not show up well here. I selected the middle grey to use here.  

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