All photos for this trip can be found in our
2019 Ireland/Scotland Photo Album
Look for the "Week 7" tag for photos added this week.
2019 Ireland/Scotland Photo Album
Look for the "Week 7" tag for photos added this week.
Monday morning, Wool Week day 2. Since Fjara is closed on Monday we started this week with a breakfast at the Peerie Shop Cafe on the esplanade. Another excellent place to have breakfast. Today, for us it was scrambled eggs with smoked salmon for Kris and a toasted BLT for Brian, along with the usual lattes.
After breakfast, I, Kris went over to the Shetland Museum & Archives (the main hub for Wool Week) for my knitting workshop "Knitting Traditional Shetland Haps" with Donna Smith'.
Meanwhile, I, Brian drove out to the Red Houss studio in East Burra...
... for my workshop "Making Silver Fair Isle Buttons" with Mike Finnie. Mike's studio is quite small so he takes only two students at a time. The 3 hour workshop doesn't provide enough time to do the acid etching of the silver so Mike did that ahead of time, but gave us a good explanation of how it is done. He then showed us what to do so we set out to make 3 buttons; we punched the button rounds out of the rectangular pre-etched silver pieces he provided, then filed, sanded, punched the button holes, applied the liver of sulphur then buffed and polished starting with 180 then moving to 240, 500, 800, 1200 and finally 2000 grit sandpaper. I think they came out ok...
After the workshops we met back at the apartment for lunch; salad with smoked salmon.
After lunch we drove over to Jamieson & Sons where Kris had bought some roving last week. She decided to pick up a couple more and have them sent home. It is quite possible that Kris has found the secret doorway to knitters/spinners heaven (just step through that cabinet door past the rovings)...
Late afternoon we drove back north for another dinner at Frankie's Fish and Chips in Brae. This time it wasn't quite a repeat of our previous visit as we shared a 1/2 kilo order of mussels along with a peerie portion of the breaded haddock and chips. Again delicious and more than enough...
... as lunch was not all that long ago. Back at the apartment we figured out how to get Kris' account working on Netflix so started watching the series Criminal UK, which we don't get at home.
Tuesday, Wool Week day 3 started with breakfast at Fjara then we drove south to Hoswick...
... to the visitor's centre and a few other knitting stores to get some ideas for a possible sweater for Brian. We also walked up the street to the nearby Laurence Odie Knitwear and, on our way back to Lerwick, stopped in at Shetland Designer. Found possible sweaters at both those locations. Still a few locations to check out before making a decision.
For the afternoon, after lunch at the Isleburgh Community Centre, Kris attended a workshop "Basic Brioche Stitch and How to Knit it" with instructor Amy Detjen. At one point during the session, Amy picked up Kris' knitted "Wool Week beanie", looked at it, turned it inside out and commented "this is perfect knitting!" to which Kris replied "it should be perfect, YOU showed me how to do the stitch, with the properly carried floats on the back, two years ago at Wool Week". Amy smiled widely and just beamed. Nice!
Late afternoon, back in Lerwick, we dropped into the Mareel for a glass of wine and beer then, for dinner, walked up the street to The Great Wall Thai/Chinese restaurant where a mixture of beef satay, pork, chicken, veggies and special fried rice more than did us. Very tasty.
Wednesday, Wool Week day 4, no sessions in the morning so after breakfast at Fjara (of course... and they know us there now so ordering is easy - "the usual; thanks") we headed down to Commercial Street to check out a couple more sweater places to see what they might have in stock. Nothing special. It was starting to rain a bit so we went back to the apartment for a nice smoked salmon and salad lunch before heading back downtown to catch a bus for the afternoon session "Jamieson's Shetland Wool Mill tour" for which the bus picked us all up at 2:00PM sharp. It was a nice drive , especially for Brian, who could sit back, relax and enjoy the scenery from the bus after driving all over these islands. Sandness is very remote on the far west of the Shetland mainland...
The mill tour was really interesting. Our tour guide, Gary Jamieson, explained how the wool is received...
... and graded...
... and cleaned, combed and dyed (you can see they were doing a blue batch at that time; the blue streak going straight up is newly dyed wool moving at a very fast clip)...
... and spun (a video clip would have been better here)...
... and wound into balls for the retail market (this was spinning really fast)...
... and machine woven into the beautiful Shetland sweaters (or jumpers as they are called here)...
After the tour we spent some time in their retail shop but still no sweaters that made Brian's heart sing. Many others on the tour came away with packages that will surely fill suitcases.
Leaving the mill, the bus ride back was not quite as scenic as on the way out as the clouds and rain moved in. Back in Lerwick, in the rain, we decided to hop up to the Grand Hotel for some of their haddock and chips for dinner to go along with wine and beer and watch a bit of a football game on the bar tv.
Thursday, Wool Week day 5, no sessions until late afternoon so a bit of an errand day. After breakfast at Fjara, we dropped off a load of laundry (hopefully our last on this trip) then headed south toward Hoswick to check out a sweater we saw on Tuesday that was a possible for Brian. On the way, we spotted a road sign for Barbara Isbister Knitwear and decided it was worth checking out as well. Several miles off the highway along a narrow single track road with fabulous scenic views out over several islands and the ocean, we finally found her home and studio. Talk about a crammed studio (ok you might say "what a mess!"). WOW.... and she had only 3 or 4 completed sweaters in stock (she normally does custom order work) ... BUT... one, that was a combination of several natural wool colours, fit Brian too a tee (the arms are actually full length but are just hanging over the edge of the table for this pic)...
... she didn't accept credit cards so we had to whip back into Lerwick, pick up some more cash and head back out there arriving minutes before her sister picked her up to head into Lerwick herself. Whew.
Back in Lerwick we went straight to the terminal for the ferry over to Bressay. The ten minute ferry ride runs very frequently so no lengthy wait there. We toured a bit around the small island before stopping in at the Spediburn Cafe for tea and a piece of cake followed by a visit to their special Wool Week Craft exhibition. Very nice. Back on the mainland we picked up some groceries for tonight's late dinner and retrieved our laundry then back at the apartment for a rest. For the evening Brian went to see the movie The Shiny Shrimps at the Mareel Centre while Kris attended a talk, at the Shetland Museum, with the topic "Elegant and Handsome Specimens of Knitting: Shetland Lace Close-up" which focused on cataloging and imaging historical Shetland lace patterns. We met up for a nightcap in the Mareel cafe and decided both events were excellent.
Friday, Wool Week day 6, started with the usual breakfast at Fjara's followed by Kris attending session "From Lace to Chunky: Knitting Traditional Shetland Lace Patterns in Heavier Organic Yarns", with instructor Sheila Fowlie, while Brian went to the post office to mail home what should be the last package of yarn for this trip. When Kris' session was finished we went over to the museum where they had a couple of Shetland ponies on display, all dolled up in their Shetland sweaters...
In the afternoon we spent a couple of hours in the Shetland Museum followed by some tea in the cafe where we chatted with a couple from England who were waiting for the ferry to return home the evening. They were in the process of selling all of their worldly goods and moving to France before Brexit (end of October). Friday evening we attended a session "The Sounds of Shetland" at the Mareel Centre. Fun evening listening to groups and individuals playing traditional songs of Shetland. Look on our photo album for this trip, (look past the Week 7 marker), to see a number of short videos of these performers.
Saturday, Wool Week day 7 and it's last, started with our last visit to Fjara for this year. After breakfast we drove around a bit, looking at more Shetland ponies...
... before taking in the Makker's Market where various vendors, associated with Wool Week, displayed their wares in one last attempt to lure a bit more money from Wool Week goers. Actually an excellent set up at a local high school with lots of room compared to the cramped venue two years ago at the community centre. Later in the afternoon we drove north to Brae (a little over half an hour) for one last meal at Frankie's Fish and Chip shop. This time we tried the King Scallops...
... along with a couple of orders of the peerie portion breaded haddock. Another excellent meal. On the way back into Lerwick we stopped and filled the car gas tank so we'd be ready to return the car Sunday. For one last Lerwick night cap we walked down to the Mareel centre where the cafe was doing a fairly brisk business this Saturday night. After a couple of drinks we headed home to complete most of our packing.
Sunday morning we finished packing, loaded the car and headed for the airport. Interesting way to "hand in the car"... simply drive into the parking lot, at the airport, park, put the keys above the sun visor, leave the car unlocked and walk away. That's it! Nobody to check anything. We were a couple of hours early but got in the Loganair check-in line anyway, so we were done and through security well in advance of our flight. A bit bumpy flight to Edinburgh. Arriving in Edinburgh we decided to save a bit of cash and take the 300 Air Link bus which ended up with a stop right outside our B&B. As we were getting checked in Brian told Mary, our hostess, how this year he had managed to book a room in a place "much closer to downtown", but it turned out to be right next door to the place we stayed in last time (but it was closer to downtown!).
Our B&B was situated on major bus routes into the centre so off to downtown we went. When we got on the bus, we asked the driver if we could buy a couple of day passes. "Well", he said, "yes and no. If you have a credit card, you just tap it on the reader. Use the same card all day for all your rides. At night the system will determine how much you owe and will cap the charge at the daily pass rate" Cool... hope it works. The cost per ride is 1.70 with the daily pass set at 4.00. Going downtown and back should cost us 3.40 each. We'll check in the morning. Downtown, Kris bought one jacket and ordered another from Marks & Spencer. The ordered one should be there Monday. On the way back to the B&B we got off the bus about 6 blocks from the B&B, wandered along the street, stopping at Souq for a lovely dinner of Turkish/Mediterranean food. Too bad the wine was horrible; Kris ended up sending two glasses back and settling for a glass of water.
All in all a very good week at Wool Week with great weather. Hope for decent weather in Edinburgh and Dublin before heading home next Friday.
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