Shetland Autumn 2023 Day 17: Sun 17th Sept: Cake, fleece, friends and food

We still had another week before we were starting the journey home. We would have liked to stay until the Tuesday of Wool Week but this was not possible. As anyone who follows Shetland News will know there is just not enough Ferry capacity. In fact coming over we chatted to a local lady who had had to wait over a week to get back, I didn’t ask her if this is because she wanted a cabin or had a vehicle as well. The reasons seem to be a complex mixture of wind farm personnel, personnel for the space centre and the fact that since Covid booking a place in a communal cabin is not arranged by Northlink. So we had to accept going home next Sunday or not coming to Shetland! 

We had planned to meet up with some friends, from England, during the week and also have a leisurely time fitting in a few ‘ must do’ things as and when. 

What was really noticeable this morning was the temperature. The display in our motorhome told us it was 6C outside when we woke up and 9C inside. Fortunately we have good central heating  and got this turned on, and by the time we had had tea and woken up properly it felt a lot better. It seemed more like Wool Week weather to us now, and the brilliant weather we had enjoyed since arriving meant no more summer and these clothes could be put right away! 

However, today I was starting off by making a cake. This is not something I plan to do while away, so this will be interesting. I had to think very carefully what to bring for this, such as the tin to bake it in, the lining paper, etc as well as make sure I could actually mix it up. I was making the cake to take to Shetland Guild of Spinners, Knitters, Weavers and Dyers to use on Sunday 24th September. I was a member of the Guild and could not offer much help whilst living in Norfolk but I could offer  a cake as a contribution to the teas for wool week I thought. 

I had decided to make Rick Stein’s lemon cake, this uses ground almonds and olive oil. (1) 

When we arrived at the  Cunningsburgh camp site I noticed there was a freezer, hence I could make the cake today and it would be fine for the weekend. I knew it freezes well, as I virtually always have one, in some citrus flavour, as a standby at home. I had turned the freezer on yesterday and once the cake was made and cool I wrapped it up, asking for it to be left as it was being donated to the Guild for a tea at the weekend. (In fact  news of the cake got to some members of the Guild before I turned up with it on Sunday). I also left a big note on the freezer plug asking for it to be left on. I kept checking during the week and it was fine.(2) 

Seeing to the cake took most of the morning. 

The cake

However, I did find time to do a bit of motorhome housekeeping and it felt much better for that. 

We were being picked up by friends at 16.00 and taken to their holiday accommodation which was close too, so that we could talk about fibre preparation and look at how I measure yarn, and now fibres with my digital microscope. We were then going on to  Sumburgh Head for dinner. 

Once we got to Gill and Gordon’s lovely accommodation (3) we got the microscope set up and I showed them the photos I had taken of the super thin spun yarn from Unst Heritage Centre (see my post here of 13 Feb 2024 for more about this). I had done the calculation for the plied yarn and this had come out to be a small number so we went through the calculation. I was not able to measure the width of the 1 ply yarn(4), so I had looked at the diameter of an individual fibre under about x200 magnification). 

Gill had some yarn from quality Shetland fleece from England and so we looked at the diameter of this. I had some yarn which Helen Hart had kindly given me from her prize winning coloured fleece from Yell and we looked at that. We are aware that Shetland Fleece from outwith Shetland is different from Shetland Fleece from Shetland. However, looking at a few fibres of a white fleece and comparing it to a coloured Shetland fleece, even though there were white fibres in it, would not give a definitive answer to the question, is Shetland fleece from Shetland finer than Shetland fleece from England. 

NB. in both the photos given below, the micron count can be deduced eg. 0.028mm is 28microns etc. 

This is a photo showing the individual fibres of Shetland Fleece from England that Gill had with her. 

This is a photo of individual fibres from a fine ‘white’ Shetland fleece that I had at home, bought from Jamieson and Smith some time back. The fibre is from the 2014 clip and you can see the lanolin as it has not been washed. 

Looking at these fibres in this way is fascinating and always raises a lot of ‘I wonder if…’ questions. 

It was also great to see what Gordon was working on in terms of a modification to the Ashford espinner to check on the accuracy of the spun yarn during spinning. Once an engineer always an engineer. (5) He also had a super present for me, this is just one item from my special pack! 

All too soon it was time to put all these things away and make for Sumburgh Head for our booked dinner. It was a nice meal and so good to sit and chat with friends. It looked as if dinner was fully booked and we were amazed as there was still nearly a week to go before Wool Week proper started. 

Notes

1. I have been following the Zoe personalised food programme for about 9 months now. I have poor control over my response to increased blood sugar and this cake containing nuts and oil is much better for me than one with wheat flour. 
2. Several people have asked for the recipe, it is easy to make and very moist. I make one significant change to the recipe, adding 120 g of agave syrup rather than 160 g caster sugar. Again this helps to avoid me having a sugar spike or more noticeably a big sugar dip about a couple of hours later. https://thehappyfoodie.co.uk/recipes/clementine-almond-and-olive-oil-cake/
3. This was close by us in Cunningsburgh and belongs to the Mackenzie’s of Aister Oo yarn! 
4. The yarn had air in it so I would also have been measuring air! 
5. My father was an engineer too, but an agricultural engineer and always refining things and making things. He would be delighted to see the digital microscope and pleased that I now deal in very small numbers of measurements. He used to talk about ‘thou’ short for thousands of an inch! 
6. Gordon makes a number of super guides for a wide range of spinning and knitting activities, eg sock guides and guides to measure wpi for cobweb, lace and other yarn diameters. He can be reached via fleecelovedproducts@gmail.com