Episode 42 – Marie Wallin and Shetland Tweed

Marie Wallin joins us in Episode 42 of the Fruity Knitting Podcast to present her new Shetland collection. Formerly head designer at Rowan Yarns, Marie Wallin has based her latest designs on Jamieson’s of Shetland yarn Spindrift, with inspiration taken from the many islands of the Shetland group.

Tori Seierstad from Lillehammer, Norway, is our guest on Knitters of the World, and she shares her own beautiful Fair Isle designs. We take a look at Shetland Tweed with weaver and textile historian Andy Ross from Global Yell. Our wandering daughter Madeleine gives us an update from Australia, including a quick visit to Sydney yarn store Skein Sisters, and there’s a tutorial on combining Brioche and Double Knitting. We hope you enjoy the show!

Marie Wallin introduces her Shetland collection

I am a huge fan of Marie’s designs and so I was very excited to be able to do an interview with her when she launched for latest collection during the Shetland Wool Week. The collection is called Shetland and has 8 garments and 4 accessory designs for women. Each design is named after and photographed at different locations around the Islands, capturing the amazing beauty of this exceptional and remote part of the U.K.

During the interview Marie chats to us about the joys and trials of doing the photo shoot under unpredictable weather conditions. Marie also talks about styling her knitwear designs with her own vintage collection of kilts and tweed skirts as well as using some of Alison O’Neill’s gorgeous tweed designs. Alison is quite a well known traditional hill farm Shepherdess in Cumbria and has a side line of producing stunning tweed bags, and clothing designs. She is probably the best dress Shepherdess in the U.K.

I have bought the Spindrift yarn from Jamieson’s of Shetland for two of the designs out of the collection. Marie has informed me that my favourite design Samphrey (below) is the hardest and should not be done watching T.V. Unfortunately that’s the only time I get to knit, so it looks like I have an extra challenge on my hands!

Finding Marie Wallin and her Shetland collection

• mariewallin.com
• The Shetland collection
• Instagram
• We first interviewed Marie Wallin in Episode 17.

Andy Ross from Global Yell

Andy is the creative director of Globalyell which is a weaving center on the island of Yell in Shetland. Andy organizes a stay and make program at the center, where weavers can stay for an extended period to refine their skills, study and learn how to weave to an industrial brief. Andy has a passion for tweed and has been researching the history of tweed weaving in Shetland.

Finding Global Yell

• Global Yell

Tori Seierstad – Knitters of the World

Tori has been knitting since she can remember and making up her own designs for almost as long. After attending a design course during a Shetland Wool Week, Tori finally had the confidence to write up and publish her patterns. Together with her knitting comrades who she met through blogs and ravelry, Tori has published a beautiful hard cover book of mittens called Eventyrvotter. The designs are all based on fairytales and include very clear and well written charts.

Discount for Patrons – Blomekrans Vest

Tori is offering Fruity Knitting Podcast Patrons a 25% discount on her Blomekrans pattern. This is a perfect first steeking project to enter our #FruitySteekedKal with. The KAL runs to the end of January but with enough requests will be extend another month.

(Patrons can also get a discount on the recommended Jamieson & Smith yarn at The Woolly Thistle!)

Finding Tori

• torirot on Ravelry
• torirot.blogspot.com
• Instagram

Double Knitting and Brioche Tutorial

Brioche and double knitting have a lot in common so they can be combined very well together in the same fabric. Nancy Marchant does this brilliantly in her Paris’s Scarf design. One of the techniques they share is slipping every second stitch. But because you are wrapping the slipped stitches in Brioche but not in double knitting, Andrew was getting very confused and kept coming to a standstill at the changeover points. I decided that I needed to do a tutorial to help him learn to read his knitting. I hope you find it interesting and helpful too!

Andrea’s tweed skirt

After first editing Marie Wallin’s interview and then Andy Ross’s interview, I had a very strong desire to sew up one of the tweed fabrics that I bought at Jamieson’s of Shetland during the recent Wool Week. I finally settled on using a skirt pattern I had previously used. This time I cut the skirt panels on the bias to give the skirt a softer drape but at the same time I was dreading matching up the plaids on the seams. Well, I’m fairly satisfied with the results given my inexperience as a seamstress but I’m totally mystified at how parts of the pattern line up and other parts don’t. It doesn’t seem logical to me!

Update from Madeleine

Madeleine is having a great time in Australia. We are getting concerned that she won’t come back. Anyway, Madeleine checks in with a quick update of her experiences which include camping in the Lamington National Park with her aunt, learning to surf and learning some barista skills. Tina, one of our lovely patrons caught up with her and introduced Madeleine to the coolest yarn store in Syndey where she works – the Skein Sisters.

• Skein Sisters

We were wearing

• Andrew was wearing his Hiking Jacket, an (unpublished) design by Andrea.
• Andrea was wearing Temperate by Kim Hargreaves.
• In the interview with Andy from Global Yell, Andrea was wearing Henry VIII by Alice Starmore. You can hear all about this project in Episode 22.

Music Credits

• J. S. Bach, The Well Tempered Klavier, performed by Kimiko Ishizaka, used under Creative Commons Attribution license
• • Prelude No. 2 in C minor, BWV 847
  • Fugue No. 2 in C minor, BWV 847
  • Prelude No. 3 in C-Sharp major, BWV 848
• Kathy Lowe, Welcome the Water, from the album Above Water, used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
• Beethoven, Symphony No. 3 in E Flat Major Eroica, Op. 55 – IV. Finale Allegro molto, Public Domain
• Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky, SouvenirDeFlorence, Op. 70, 1 – AllegroModerato, performed by US Army Strings, Public Domain