What do you get when four knitters stay in a flat in Shetland, within walking distance of Jamieson & Smith? I think that the answer, LOTS OF YARN, is hopefully fairly obvious. We visited J&S almost every day of our stay.
Just look at the effect it had on us...
By us, I do of course mean Nic...
How could we not get carried away? There was just so much inspiration. I kept spotting more and more colours that I wanted to knit with... and they weren't all teal!
Well, not quite anyway...
Ella and Sandra gave us lots and lots of help and encouragement with chosing combinations. They really are fantastic!
Many thanks to Ella for taking this lovely picture of us against the wall of yarn. Left to right we are: Jen (that's me), Nic, Sarah and Rachel.
Rachel and I were also lucky enough to have a brief chat with Oliver Henry about the grading of the Shetland clip. He talked us through the qualities of Shetland wool, and showed us how it's all sorted by hand. It was absolutely fascinating!
Finally, on Monday I taught a lovely class all about pattern writing, as part of Shetland Wool Week. It was great to work surrounded by all the delicious yarn, and the class were brilliant! Thank you all!
I didn't take any photos at Kate's trunk show - I was too busy picking colours for the hoodie I'm planning to make from her new book. There will be more on that when my yarn arrives in the post (no spare space in my luggage!). I'm dreaming of my next (as yet unplanned) visit already.
We pooled our photos, so some of these were taken by me, and some by Rachel Coopey. Thank you m'dear!