Buggiflooer Beanie 1.

 Each year Shetland Wool Week has a competition for a hat design.  The winning entry is made widely available, local mills produce their own colour way for the hat and all over the world knitters join in. This year's winning designer was Alison Rendall with a design called Buggiflooer, a Shetland name for Sea Campion or Silene uniflora, which grows on the rocky shores of the Shetlands. 

I knitted several of last year's SWW hats, in 4ply cotton that I had in abundance. This year, because The Yarn Trader, my local wool store, had a good range of Jamieson & Smith wool, I decided to try knitting their colour way for this year's hat. The Yarn Trader did not have all the exact colours, but with their help, I got fairly close. 

There were challenges. The pattern controls size simply by varying needle size. I decided against knitting a swatch and opted for the smallest size needle I had in my ChiaoGoo kit - 2.75mm. 

I have a small head, and I can wear the result. I've tried it on a larger head and it's fine. Ideally I think a 2.25 might produce a better size, but that's a little tight for the thickness of the wool (and also not in my kit!)

It nevertheless looks pretty good. It will be quite warm - just what you want on Shetland.

Right is the top view, modelled over the basket in the back of the photo on the left. It has a really lovely top finish. The flowers are white in nature. I think the blue and white shading works quite well.

I wanted to finish this before our next World Embroidery Study Group meeting in early December. We are talking about knitting, and a friend and I are giving a presentation on Shetland knitting. 

In order to make a clear link to embroidery, I set about working the graph from this knitting pattern in cross stitch. 

I used thread I already had. The closest in my stash was in the DMC Etoile range - cotton with a thread of acrylic glint. 

I ran out of the dark blue background thread part way through.  Create in Stitch only had one hank in stock. It was almost enough to finish.  The orange is brighter in the cotton than on the hat, and I used it as a border all around. 

I finished the outer edge of the border in a slightly darker navy to get it done.

I turned the linen into a pouch, with a cotton lining in 

a similar colourway and a 5" zip.

Although not the original intention, the hat does fit inside the pouch. I’m not sure how many people would bother with this, but it might be useful when travelling.

It's a bit crazy, but I'm pleased to have worked the chart in two media. It is quite a different approach. It's easy to see why Fair Isle knitters used only two colours per row. The creation of floats on the back of the work adds to the thickness. Two threads add thickness, but not much bulk. More would increase the bulk significantly and risk tangles. When working the pattern in thread on a linen background, you can move where you choose, without carrying threads or increasing bulk. That produces more opportunities.

It's been a satisfying project. I'm now reworking the pattern with the same wool but remixing the colours.

Knitting: Shetland tunic

18 months or so ago I was inspired by a friend who had knitted herself a couple of lovely tunics to wear. I was staying with her when Bendigo Woollen Mill purchased a bale of Shetland wool to spin and offered the resulting Aran weight yarn to their regular customers. I bought what I hoped was enough to make myself a tunic. As I was travelling in the UK for much of the last Australian winter, I got going this Winter and knitted away for several weeks before my knee operation, trying to finish it.

The pattern I chose is great. It gives texture and interest but is predictable and memorable once you have worked a full sequence. I've been able to work without constantly consulting the pattern, and can tell very quickly if I have made an error. I would, however, have been better off allowing an extra ball of the yarn. The bale sold quickly and I have no chance at all of getting more. I want the tunic to be loose and comfortable, so it needs to be quite large.
This is the back - which would make a decent baby blanket!

It was lovely to knit - so soft on the hands.

The pattern is an easy one. It was easy to tell if I  had made a mistake and to retrieve it before I went too far. At the same time, there was sufficient need to concentrate to make it interesting to knit.

It took me about a month to knit the front and back, finishing the front while watching the long vote count on election night with friends. I knitted the first sleeve on my recent trip to NSW and the second on my return, finishing in time to go to hospital for my knee reconstruction!

Although I  had been worried that I had ordered enough wool, I did want this to be quite long and roomy, so made it to the prescribed body length. I rang Bendigo Woollen Mills and discussed substitutes, consequently ordering a couple of balls of 10ply merino. The match wasn't perfect but I thought I might be able to be creative with bands on the sleeves.

In the end I didn't need to supplement it and finished with a small amount left over.

It  could, I think, be a smidgen longer but, although it is clearly longer on the skinny pattern model, it is the length recommended in the pattern.  It is very warm and cosy - perhaps rather more than required in Adelaide but I have worn it all day a couple of times and found it comfortable - beautifully soft. It would go well with the alpaca hat I knitted a few years ago - if I could find it!

The imbecilic look in the photo is the result, not of the tunic, but of the need to focus on looking ahead rather than on the camera button on my phone.

Navia shawl

I have been working on a Navia kit for a shawl in the style of the Faroe Islands. Mine is in black. I wanted to try both the yarn and the pattern.

The yarn is a mix of Faroese wool, Shetland wool and Australian lambs' wool. I was intrigued by the history of the Navia company, which began in 2004 as a school project business plan on the Faroese Islands. Óli Kristian á Torkilsheyggi was so committed to the project he carried it through to a successful business.


I liked the story, had been interested in both Faroese and Shetland wool, and the style of Faroese shawls, which are knitted in the round with a gusset down the centre back, and shaped over the shoulders. The kit was very reasonably priced from The Fox Collection so I gave it a go. I chose black because I wanted to wear this myself, at home as much as when going out and thought that more serviceable.

The wool is lovely to work - soft,  firm, no splitting. The instructions were minimalist, but the chart clear. I soon got the idea and the rhythm. I enlarged, photocopied and folded the chart, marking  the panel of pattern repeats with highlighter to help my memory. The dark bits on the chart show the stitches that no longer exist.

I used ring markers to mark off the repeats and coloured rings to mark the central panel. I would not have managed without these, even though the pattern is relatively simple.

I am not usually a fan of garter stitch, but it certainly made for simplicity. Once the lace pattern was completed  the ring markers for the repeats could be removed and the pattern of decreases takes over the rhythm of knitting.

When the knitting was finished, I had the challenge of crocheting around the front edge. I got out one of my mother's books of crochet instructions and tried to teach myself a treble. I don't really think I succeeded, but I made a passable edge anyway. The instructions were for a panel of trebles and didn't transfer very easily to an edge. I suspect what I ended up doing was a double, not a treble, but it gave a finish to the edge.

The last bit was the knotted fringe. I had no idea how much wool it would take, but I made it with quite a bit to spare.

Best of all - it is astonishingly light and warm. I have been wearing it when it is not quite time to turn the heating on but a bit cool to sit still. It's a great shape; doesn't keep falling off as straight shawls tend to do.

I would certainly use the wool again, given the opportunity, and I will now try some of the more complicated patterns I have for Faroe Island shawls.