Shilasdair Skye Yarns

Finally finished! Shilisdair Skye jumper 3 years in the making...

2012 is going to be the year of completing unfinished projects. I think it is also going to be the year of the home made garment, the year of wool and the year of the cape...

Just before Christmas I finally finished my Shilasdair Skye Yarns sweater which has been sweatering away in my knitting bag for a shamefaced 3 years. This is 20% cashmere, 40% angora and 40% lambswool and it is so beautifully soft and warm I am delighted. Also it survived the first wash without much shrinkage at all and looked even better (a small miracle).

For anyone planning a trip to Skye, I recommend dropping in on this place. Most of the yarn is Scottish wool, hand-dyed using natural dyes on Skye. Except blue I think, which needs to come from indigo or something along those lines...which I think means green too has to have a little helping hand.

There is a choice of buying the kit (wool, wooden needles, pattern, buttons, all in a nice cotton bag) or the buying the knitted garment. I chose this design because it looked easy, though I struggled a bit to get the collar to lie flat, and I may yet make it a bit bigger - the only criticism I have is there is no picture of the actual design in the kit, so after 3 years I really couldn't remember what the collar was supposed to look like. Having just looked at the Shilasdair shop website I think I have just realised that it is supposed to have more of a mandarin/grandad collar:

No matter. The jumper I REALLY liked (and maybe one day will have a go at something similar) was not available in a kit because it had lots of rows of different yarn:

Shilasdair Yarn gorgeous knit

Shilasdair art sweater