Mincemeat Crumble Tarts This was first posted on 24th December 2018 Christmas wouldn’t be the same in our house without a fully stocked tin of mincemeat tarts. I have experimented with recipes over the years, adjusting the quantities and proportions of ingredients, and have found a recipe that works well. I often get asked for the recipe and I thought…
Langsoond Laceweight Yarn is Not as it Seems This post is a copy of the newsletter I sent out on November 23rd November 2023, in case customers affected are not on my newsletter list. In the last newsletter I spoke about how excited I was about the new Langsoond lace weight yarn (I still am!), and it was very well…
Wearing Jumper The next pattern in the series of designs featured in the book, Langsoond, A Shetland Yarn: 10 Modern Knitting Patterns Inspired by my Island Life is the Wearing Jumper. The Wearing Jumper, as the name suggests, is a very wearable garment, suitable for everyday use. It is often desirable to have an item of clothing that is easy…
Brake Blanket Over the past several weeks of I have been unwell with a nasty virus and ear infection and I have spent a lot of time lying down under a blanket. It therefore seemed appropriate that my next blogpost in the series about the patterns in my book, Langsoond, A Shetland Yarn is the Brake Blanket, one I have…
Scarpigert Cardigan After a bit of a delay I’m back to writing the series on the patterns that make up my the book, Langsoond – A Shetland Yarn; 10 Modern Knitting Patterns inspired by my Island Life. The Scarpigert Cardigan is the first pattern I designed for the collection in Langsoond Double Knit yarn; at the time I wasn’t planning…
Jacobina Cowl Over the next few blogposts I will be sharing the patterns that feature in my new book LANGSOOND – A Shetland Yarn. The first pattern seems an appropriate one to start with, a cowl named after my Granny, Jacobina who lived next door when I was growing up and played a huge part in my life. She was…
February 9, 2021 The first few months of the year can be challenging living on an island in the middle of the North Sea; all the festivities of Christmas are over (although those were a bit different this year), it’s dark, it’s cold, there seems to be a pressure on us to make a new start with the beginning of…
November 27, 2020 I have been watching the weather forecast lately like a hawk. I have been looking for a weather window which could allow me to dye up a batch of yarn with indigo as I like to hang the dyed skeins outside on the fence between dips. The Shetland weather in winter isn’t generally suitable for me to…
September 15, 2020 It’s good to be able to show you the Peerie Leaves Jumper, my contribution to this year’s Shetland Wool Week Annual! Earlier this year the organisers of Shetland Wool Week, an event that takes place in Shetland every autumn to celebrate the wool, sheep, textiles, traditions and people of Shetland, made the difficult but correct decision to…
May 18, 2020 For the past year or so I have been thinking much more about using what I already have. This could refer to my clothes, materials or the land (for example I kept my old sitting room curtains a while back with he view of making a coat from them one day). I have always been interested in…
April 30, 2020 A couple of weeks ago I went for a walk along the west coast of the island of Burra and shared the photos on my stories on Instagram. I got so many responses and messages I thought it would share some of the pictures on here as well as some details about the history of the place…
February 23, 2020 At the beginning of this year, I decided that instead of making a New Year’s resolution I was going to tackle my “to-do” list rather than adding more to it. I tend to thrive on coming up with new ideas and researching new projects but often doing this means I don’t actually get anything done. Over these…