Shetland Wool
Chris Cope talks to the talented women who are dedicated to keeping tradition alive whilst always moving with the times.
THE remote Shetland Islands are well known for knitting, from Fair Isle cardigans to lace shawls.
But at the heart of every piece of knitwear is its wool.
Jamieson & Smith have been buying wool from local crofters and farmers in Shetland, a small cluster of islands at the north of Scotland with a population of 22,000, and selling it on since the 1930s.
They purchase wool from over 700 people – which equates to 80% of wool produced in Shetland – meaning that Jamieson & Smith play a vital part in keeping the isles’ traditions alive in the 21st century.
They sell wool from their headquarters in Shetland’s capital town, Lerwick, while they also offer knitwear. A quick scan around the shop and you’re greeted with a kaleidoscopic rainbow of coloured yarn.
Two people helping to keep the heritage flowing are Jamieson & Smith staff members Ella Gordon and Sandra Manson.
The company has moved with the times, with mail orders – which they have sent out since the 1960s – now joined by online orders from around the world.
All of the products carry a three-sheep logo which means the item is made from 100% real Shetland wool from sheep born and bred in the isles.
The wool is taken into a large sorting shed next to the shop and is graded by staff before it is sent to the UK mainland every couple of weeks to be spun and dyed, then returned to Shetland to be sold.
“In the past couple of years we’ve started doing the knitwear as well, and Sandra organises that,” Ella says.
“That’s things like the yoke cardigans. We get the bodies knitted for us by somebody in Whalsay and there are different hand knitters all over Shetland who do the yokes.
“We are paying them well for it, as we’re trying to make it a worthwhile thing for people to do. It used to be that you got so little for knitting a yoke, so why would people do it nowadays?”
“There’s one old lady who knits for us who said she used to knit the whole body and the cardigan, and she’d only get four pounds for doing it,” Sandra adds. “She can’t believe how much money she is now getting. It’s great, and it makes you feel like you’re kind of helping a bit.”
Sandra feels it is “really important” to keep the knitting tradition in Shetland alive in a digital age where smartphones and social networking rule the roost.
But she says it is changed days from when she was younger and she was the only knitter in her social group.
“When I was a teenager and when I was growing up – I’ve knitted for ever – I was the only person I knew who did it,” Sandra says. “I’d never tell my friends, for fear they’d just torment me.
“If they came knocking on the door, it was off with the knitting belt! It was kind of funny – folk never really knew I knitted until there was something printed in ‘The Shetland Times’ not that many years ago.”
Ella, however, does not have the same problem. She blogs about her own designs online and enjoys a strong presence on internet platforms like Youtube and Instagram.
Compared to Sandra, Ella is something of a late bloomer, only picking up knitting in her later years.
“When I learned to knit at school I had no interest in it
“If I don’t know how to do something, I’ll just find Youtube videos”
at all,” she says. “When I finished school and went to college to do textiles, I was doing machine knitting and weaving.
“I got my Saturday job here when I was at college and that was what got me into the hand knitting. I’ve only really been hand knitting for nearly six years, and I’ve been teaching myself as I go. If I don’t know how to do something, I’ll just find Youtube videos.”
Both Ella and Sandra agree that it is important to mix the traditional with contemporary to keep knitting fresh.
“I think that’s the only way things change,” Ella says. “There’s a reason why we’re not all knitting and wearing things that were being knitted in the Thirties. But there’s always a place for the traditional, and we find that the best patterns we sell are traditional.”
“Everybody has their own way that they put colour together,” Sandra adds. “Ella’s way is totally different from what I would do. I’m old school, I suppose you would call it. It’s good to have Ella because we help each other out.”
It’s clear that the future of knitting in Shetland is in very good hands with people like Ella and Sandra involved. The designs continue to prove popular around the world, with fashion house Chanel putting Fair Isle-influenced patterns on the catwalk a couple of years ago.
In addition, the annual Shetland Wool Week, which features a number of workshops and events and was initially founded by Jamieson & Smith eight years ago, has become hugely popular and attracts global visitors. This year it’s running from September 23 to October 1.
“You can see things everywhere in the world now,” Ella says. “With social media like Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, you get so much more feedback, and you’re speaking to your customers more.
“We pride ourselves that we’re real people. I think, for us, that’s our most important thing. And when there’s things like Shetland Wool Week, we just see so many people, and they come back year after year.
“Every year there are more classes going on. We’re so lucky that we don’t have to try that hard in some ways, because Shetland wool has such a good reputation, all we have to do is to make it easy for people to get.”
“But there are so many people who are scared of it,” Sandra adds. “‘Oh, no, I never do that’, they say. But why not? I don’t think I was even ten when I tried to knit a bootee out of a pattern that Mam had. I never knew anything about the right size of needles, but I went ahead and knitted it, and it was huge. But I knitted it. I thought, wow, it’s huge, but I’ve actually made it all by myself.” n