Shetland Knitting

Fair Isle jumper from Shetland Museum Knitwear Collection. Shetland label at neck. Tex 1990 – 541.

Over the past week, I have been looking at Shetland knitting after seeing some of the incredible items in one of my knitting magazines. I have done Fair Isle knitting in the past and do stranded knitting quite a lot, but I have never really gone the distance and made any Shetland garments. The blanket I am currently making is getting close to the end and I am doing the lace pattern edging now, so I thought I would look for something to make over the next few months, and a Shetland Kep seems in order. One that I have found that I really like is Uradale Fisherman’s Kep kit which I found at uradale.com site. It isn’t all that cheap, £42.40 including postage, in the kit you get a copy of the pattern and 6 balls of 25g each and 1 ball of 50g, a total of 200g of organic Shetland breeds wool. Not a massive amount for the money, but worth it as it is top quality wool which should knit up something special. If I get it, I will first try with other yarn to get used to the patterning again as I have not done Fair Isle for quite a bit and do not want to waste any of the good stuff.

Another project I quite fancy is home dying yarn. I have found a kit from UK Alpaca for £40.75 including postage. The kit contains 2 x 50g skeins of DK and 2 x 50g skeins of 4ply and of course, the dyes and full instructions. It looks like a lot of fun, and all I will need to do is find something that I can make with the skeins, I was thinking about socks, as that is the go-to for the 4ply, but the DK I am not too sure about at the moment.

Whilst on my Shetland journey I have also found a book that looks quite interesting and may give me an insight into the joys of Shetland knitting. It is suitably entitled “Shetland Wood Adventure Journal Volume 1”. Quite fitting I think for my latest adventures in knitting, and it has 6 patterns, recipes, walks and much more. £23.95 including postage. I am a sucker for a beautiful book on knitting and this one covers other topics that I love. Okay, so I have now ordered the book. I was writing this and thought, stuff it, I want the book. As I said, I cannot resist beautiful books. More on it when it arrives in the next week.

I look forward to showing some of the projects I will be embarking on, and if any of you have done any traditional Shetland knitting, please let me know, and as always, any handy tips and advice will always be welcome.

Topaz Blue Bear – Jack

Thought I would share some photos of Jack M’s dad’s dog. He is gorgeous, but I feel, starved of affection. He was great company for M whilst he was there. We will miss him loads, and were quite tempted to sneak him back with us, our girls would have loved him. His KC name is Topaz Blue Bear, in case you were wondering, and Jack is his pet name. Although we would have either called him Badger or Bear.

Jack

M & Jack

Me & Jack

Lurgan Park Lake

The days were filled with rain and dark skies apart from one day, when I managed to take a few good photos of the lake.

Three Bears

On our way home we decided to take a pic of us and Angelo before driving on to the ship. Made me smile.

Ireland – An End

M came back on Friday night, me and the girls could not wait to collect him from the airport. His flight was due to land at 6:50pm and the wheels hit the tarmac at 6:30. Luckily I was not too far and was there when the disabled assistance brought him out to me. We were both very glad to see each other. The dogs went mental licking and doing their hug things as they were in the car waiting.

M’s sister again did not offer to take him to the airport even though she was in the same house and had a hire car and quickly vanished to the room she was staying in half an hour before he left. I would say hiding in her shame, but she has no shame, just hiding as she just did not give a shit about her disabled younger brother. If hell exists there is a definitely a place for her. His dad was his usual cold self and when M left, his father let him struggle with his bag and when a few feet down the path he just closed the door behind M only leaving the dog to look out and watch M leave. M’s brother who lives 5 minutes walk never bothered, nor did any of the nieces and nephews who all live within 5 minutes walk. Cold callous bastards the lot of them. I guess birds of a feather really do stick together.

Now, you may think, what has M done to receive this type of treatment. Easy to answer, he is a decent human being, and that seems to be a problem with them all. Over the 21 years I have watched them stab each other in the back, fall out with each other, have fist fights with each other and exude general hate to each other. All of this M had no part and kept away from their arguments as it was nothing to do with him. M is polite, kind beyond normality to be honest, and nice to everyone, but this seems to have put him at a disadvantage. His dad is a homophobe, we accepted that a long time, and “puts up” with us when we have visited. He has taken advantage of M over the years by getting him to do so much for him, from purchase of laptops, phones, and much more to sorting out paperwork, policies etc., basically everything he could not do or could not be arsed doing/learning M did it for him. As mentioned, M’s brother lives a few minutes walk away, but does nothing, and M was guilted to do things. When lockdown started M bought loads of essentials from toilet paper to hand sanitiser, he bought lots and sent it over to his dad, to which he barely got thanks. M never complained and just went with the flow, so in answer to the question, he did nothing wrong. His family are dicks. If M was a back stabbing hater then he would have fit with them all and nothing would ever have been a problem. His siblings had a problem with him when he was young as he was good at school and ended up at the Grammar School, passed all his exams, and never go into trouble, unlike his siblings who were out petrol bombing, rioting and sleeping with everyone with a pulse, not to mention they were always out drinking.

Now M’s mum has been laid to rest he has decided that there is no reason to go back. I have to agree with him, and in all honesty, I never want to see any of his family again. Even if they all apologised to him and admitted they were wrong to treat him like that, I still would not go as I could not believe them.

Although a visit to them is off, I had been chatting to the priest via email and he has asked whenever we are next over there to let him know as he would love for us to go to dinner with him, which we will be happy to do. However, the visit will not be to see M’s family, it would be to visit his Mums grave and to have a holiday on the west coast with the dogs.

With that all, this is the end of that era. Time to move on and enjoy life without interference and hate.