Yarndale Success!

What a whirlwind Yarndale was this year!  As some of you may know, Yarndale is a yearly yarn festival taking place at Skipton Auction Mart in North Yorkshire, England.  It took place last weekend, the 26 -27 September.  As I’ve mentioned in a previous update of my blog, we decided to try a different layout for our stand this year.  One which gave a preview of the Vintage Shetland Project.

What wonderful feedback and interest we received!  We had three of the garments from the Project on display for people to examine and lust over, with a preview brochure for you to take home.  Plus we also had a ‘squishing rail’ of hanks of our lovely Fenella yarn with shade cards available.  My colleagues Tracy, Jo and Tess were also on hand to answer any questions, take pre-orders of the Vintage Shetland Project book and orders for all our yarns and kits.  We were overwhelmed by the response to the garments and the interest in the book.

Included in this post are photos taken by one of our fantastic customers, at the Yarndale show.

Here you can see the Beaded Yoke Sweater knitted in Limoncello from our Fenella yarn range and also a beautiful cardigan which is knitted in six shades of Jameson & Smith 2ply jumper weight.  This particular garment is one which I’m also displaying at my mini trunk show during Shetland Wool Week.  Here’s some more photos showing some of the detail on this very wearable cardigan.

My colleague Tracy’s, favourite garment was also on display.  This beautiful slipover is knitted using 5 shades of Jameson & Smith 2ply jumper weight and is such a timeless piece.

I know she is itching to start knitting it for herself!

It was such a pleasure to be able to share these garments with you at the show and to receive such positive and supportive feedback.  Thank you to you all.

For now,

Susan xx

Home and Away

Autumn has arrived in this part of the world, the days are getting shorter and cooler and the mornings often begin with a mist laying heavy over the valley. It’s a beautiful place to live and work, but at the moment, I’ve had little time to contemplate those lovely views.  We are hard at work knitting, finishing, writing, pattern sizing etc all day every day often through to the early hours to make the Vintage Shetland Project the best it can possibly be. 

Last week, we began a series of photoshoots which are going to be taking place over the coming month.  This first shoot included some of the garments from the Project. 

There were also new versions of favourite designs which are being relaunched as single patterns very soon.

Here's I am in photographer mode photographing our fabulous new house model Becky wearing 'Diamonds are Forever' (in a range of suitably sheepy shades) and surrounded by some of our sheep. You can see the 'rear' of our gorgeous new Icelandic ram as he's being fed by Becky. And below, you can just see me going to any lengths to get just the right shot! You can also see 'It Cannot Fail to Please' knitted in Excelana 4ply Damson Wine again being modelled by Becky, braving the brambles and nettles to harvest some of Monkley Ghyll's very own Damsons.

Here I am styling the lovely Becky in the beaded yoke jumper from Vintage Shetland Project with a spectacular 'skirt' created using 8 metres of Vaila Organic Shetland Tweed.

I was so pleased with the photos from this shoot and can't wait to share more of them. In fact if you come along to the Yarndale show at Skipton, North Yorkshire, this coming weekend more of the images will be on display along with some of the finished items from the book. There will also be the opportunity to pick our new promotional brochure with images and previews from the book itself. With so much to do, Gavin and I won't be manning the stand this year, but our wonderful friends and colleagues Tracy, Tess and Jo will be there to help everyone visiting our dedicated Vintage Shetland Project stand. So if you are coming to the show make sure you call at stand 100 to get the chance to see these beautiful pieces from the book and don't forget to pick up a preview brochure.

Due to the huge demand for Fenella during and since the pubslush campaign our stocks are extremely limited until more undyed yarn arrives in October ready to head off to the dyers. Therefore at Yarndale we are only taking orders for Fenella not selling it at the show. There will be lots of information about yarn quantities and colours for the patterns along with the chance to pre-order kits for the likes of the Rose Cardigan. 

Along with your brochure you can also pick up the new Fenella shade cards featuring all 25 of our gorgeous colours, including the new colours - Sloe Gin, Alta, Melancholy, Balado, Rannoch, Verdigris, Caramel and Dolly Blue (my favourite) - more about these very soon. Kits for designs made using Jamieson & Smith yarns and our other limited edition yarns will be available to order on the website before Christmas.

As I mentioned in my last blog post we've been welcoming many new family members to the farm and just this week we have had a very exciting new addition - Iris. Iris came to live at Monkley Ghyll only last week and has already made a huge difference to efficiency on the farm. Here she is. Our fabulous International 784 vintage tractor. She may look a bit rough around the edges but she's a hard worker and we love her.

When I revealed her on instagram a few days ago I was directed to the The Mike Sammes Singers who sung the jingle for a new version of the International tractor - it was for the 'hydrostatic' which is a much fancier version than ours, however the jingle is well worth a listen :)

Thank you to Felicity Ford for sending me the link to this.

Straight after the Yarndale show I’m heading off up the country to Shetland for Shetland Wool Week. I have a lot of non-wool week work to do for the book whilst I am there but will be hosting the Vintage Shetland Project Trunk Show at the Shetland Museum on Thursday 1st October from 1pm-4pm. There is no booking required and the event is free. I do hope to see some of you there.

For now,

Susan xx

Designed in Paris

OR

for the want of a stitch the pattern was lost!

Designed in Paris is a late 1950s pattern which appears in A Stitch in Time Volume 2. It is a beautiful tunic style textured jumper knitted in two colours of Excelana 4 ply. It has proven a very popular design but recently I received an email from a lady who was having trouble reproducing the pattern as it looks in the photos.

When I receive a pattern query I always return to the pattern and have a good check through it. When everything seems mathematically and typographically correct I usually knit a sample square so that I can provide the knitter with very precise instructions on how to cope with the difficulties they are having.

On this occasion I began to work the four row pattern and immediately realised that 1. On the first couple of pattern rows things didn't work quite according to the instructions and 2. By following the instructions I was getting a different pattern!

This obviously seemed very odd so I looked closely at the finished garment and the book photographs and it dawned on me that the finished piece had resulted in a quite different looking pattern than the instructions would suggest. So how on earth had this happened.

Below is the only photograph that the original sample knitter and I had to work with when we were creating the new version of the pattern.

Looking at it now I can see that there is a difference between this and the new version but at the time, immersed in rewriting 80 patterns I somehow managed to miss the fact that the stitch pattern doesn't quite look the same. What would appear to be the cause of the mistake in the knitting is that the very first set up row as written makes it difficult to work the first pattern row as described and the sample knitter had made a choice of how to proceed. Unfortunately looking at the pattern notes there doesn't seem to be any mention of the problem and I consequently have also missed it. 

So where does that leave the pattern? If you follow the instructions as written in the book you will actually get the stitch pattern as shown on the original black and white photo above NOT the stitch pattern shown on the new version of the garment although because of the set up row not being right it makes it very tricky to actually get started on this variation which is were the trouble begins. I am aware that most people when they are knitting this pattern want the stitch pattern as shown in the new version so first of all let me take you through how you create this stitch pattern whilst still being able to use the pattern as described in the book.

On rows 1 and 3 of the 4 row pattern you are told to 'knit into loop only below next st and drop st off needle'. Instead of carrying out this action you need to knit into the 'space' below the next st on the needle as shown below:

Step 1: Place right hand needle into space below next stitch on left hand needle

Step 2: Wrap yarn round needle knitwise and draw yarn through space

Step 3: Drop stitch on left hand needle off the needle

Step 4: Knit the next stitch. 

Step 5: Repeat steps 1 to 4 across the row.

All other instructions within the pattern remain exactly as specified. The only change is the stitch as described above. The set up row can also be left as in the book.

If however, you would like to try knitting the jumper using the stitch pattern as in the original pattern you need to follow the 4 row pattern as described. However in order for the very first row of the pattern to work you need to finish the stocking stitch pattern worked first on a right side row and then work a row of knit stitches from the wrong side of the work providing you with a purl ridge to work into. Once you have done that the pattern makes sense. Let me show you how to carry out the action 'knit into loop only below next st and drop st off needle'.

Step 1: Insert tip of right hand needle into the front loop (the purl ridge) of the next stitch on the left hand needle

Step 2: Wrap yarn around needle knitwise and draw through loop to make new stitch

Step 3: Drop stitch on left hand needle off the needle

Step 4: This creates a loop lying across the front of the work

Step 5: Knit the next stitch. This secures the loop at the front of the work

Step 6: Repeat steps 1 to 5 along the row.

And there you have it. Two very different looking patterns created simply by working one stitch slightly differently on the two patterns. If you have the pattern you can now choose which stitch pattern you would prefer to knit. I'm rather tempted to knit myself the original version so that I can see how it looks compares to the new version.

but for now,
Susan xx

FENELLA LAUNCH

This week sees the official launch of my new 100% British wool, Fenella. Fenella is my first solo yarn project and it has been a very exciting if somewhat nerve-wracking experience.

Whilst working on the Vintage Shetland Project I have hit a snag with some of the garments that I wish to recreate. As most of the garments are from the 1930s to the 1950s, the most commonly used yarn weight in their construction is that all too elusive 3 ply. Added to this was the lack of appropriate colours available in any yarn that did happen to fit the weight I needed. I realised that the only way I was going to be able to successfully recreate these garments was to have yarn produced specifically for them. I felt it was important for me to make this yarn into a coherent range that knitters would be able to purchase so that they too could exactly recreate the patterns. There seemed very little point trying to do an exact reproduction that knitters then couldn’t do themselves. There is little more frustrating than not being able to get the yarns specified in a pattern.

The process of having a yarn commercially produced is a long, slow one. Each step takes many months and also requires a big commitment money-wise to have stock manufactured. Therefore I had to be very strict about how many colours I could actually have. Ultimately I chose 16 colours which cover all my needs for the garments using the yarn and also a couple extra which rounded out the range, making it look more of a collection rather than disparate colours.

After arranging with John Arbon for a 2 ply weight yarn to be spun, I then had to find myself a dyer who would produce the relatively small quantities I required at a commercially viable price. It is extremely difficult in the UK to find a ‘commercial’ dyer who will dye around 10kg of any one colour and then also ensuring that the cost is not too prohibitive. After a lot of searching I found such a dyer in the Scottish Borders. The next step was to provide Bill - the dyer - with colour samples from which he could create the colour palette for Fenella. This was the trickiest part of the whole process as the colours I required recreating where contained in the vintage garments housed at the Shetland Museum archive. Whilst in Shetland I had matched paint colour cards to the garments in order to use them on my return to England.

The electronic colour matching equipment used by the dyer however meant that I also needed to find textile and preferably wool samples for them to use in the ‘colour spectrometer‘ to measure which dye would be required to create each colour. My paint colour cards reflected the light differently to fibre samples and therefore couldn’t give an accurate enough reading. I somehow managed to find a textile sample to represent each of the chosen colours and sent them up to Bill. 

The next step required a sample cone of the yarn also being sent to Bill and small test samples being made of each colour required. Once I received the samples back I then needed to determine if any of them needed correcting.

These corrections would only be done at the ‘live‘ stage, so I wouldn’t actually know until their return whether all the colours where exactly as required. After what seemed like an agonizing few months several huge boxes containing cones of yarn in 16 different colours arrived at my home.

Much to my relief the colours were incredible. The next continuing step is to wind the yarn off the cones and into 25g hanks and then band them with their pretty Fenella bands identifying each colour.

There is:

Phthalo

Columbine

Atomic Red

Baked Cherry

Limoncello

Forget-me-not

Myristica

Myrtle

Roman Plaster

Jonquil

Constance Spry

 

 Marriner

 

Wheaten

Porcellana

 Delicot

and finally, Chalk

I’ll tell you more about the individual colours and how they will be used in the Vintage Shetland Project over the next few weeks, but in the meantime here is all the technical stuff you will want to know:


Each skein weighs 25 grams with approximately 124 metres (135 yards) on each skein. This wonderfully versatile yarn will knit to a wide variety of tensions so is perfect for matching up to vintage 3 ply patterns and I have suggested a standard tension of 30 to 36 sts per 10 cm (4 inches). The composition is 100% pure new British wool and is a blend of 70% Exmoor Blueface and 30% Blueface Leicester.

The yarn cost a very reasonable £4.00 per skein and can be purchased directly from my shop.

The yarn will be available to retailers and if you are interested in stocking Fenella, please contact me on wholesale@susancrawfordvintage.com

Look out later today for the launch of the first pattern in Fenella - Cresta Dell'Onda which I'll tell you more about tomorrow along with another new design just released in Pom Pom magazine.


In the meantime, I hope you love Fenella as much as I do.

for now
Ruby xx