vegr vest

Hello, this past week was Shetland Wool Week (yes I am very tired..) and if you know about SWW you will know they publish a companion Annual to go with it. I’m very lucky that I have had patterns in every edition so far and my contribution this year was the Vegr Vest:

These things of course take a long time to come to fruition, I started thinking about it at the end of 2023 and had to get it all in for the beginning of May. I actually ended up having to knit two of them.. but I managed and I have had such good feedback that its all been worth it.

The Vest is really a Tabard, with buttons at each side. It is knit completely in the round, steeked and then edged with an icord and integrated buttonholes. The front is covered in an allover repeat then the back contains seeding motifs along with the strip of motifs from the front down the centre of the back.

I used Jamieson & Smiths 5ply Shetland, a range I worked on developing as part of my job there. I really wanted to use this yarn that was really made for Ganseys and Textured patterns in a Fair Isle design as I knew it would work well and I really like the colours (obviously as I helped choose them 😂)

I used shades Rust Twilight, Turquoise Twilight and Mustard Twilight, these shades are all overdyed on a Natural Grey base which means they have a mix to them and therefore a lovely depth. I wrote a post for the J&S blog all about the colours which you can see here.

In my other version I used the same two shades in Turquoise and Mustard Twilight but had Dark Navy as the main shade, it looks really different but equally as nice I think..

I could go into lots of depth about the design process but for me, this time was a bit trickier – I actually started with the tabard idea then had to work backwards to find a style and motif group I was happy with. Making two wasn’t in my plans but it meant I really refined the design and ended with something I am really proud of. Lots of people have bought the yarn for it this week – in my colours but also lots of different ones too. I think because its only 3 shades its maybe not too overwhelming to change the colours, unlike a more complicated Fair Isle garment.

As for the Name and story behind that, my thought process was that this a yarn perfect for Ganseys, a type of garment closely linked to the Fishing communities of the UK, Shetland included. My ancestors owned one of the largest Herring Fishing Company’s in Shetland: J&M Shearer. I have written about that before – see my post here. Lots of people made there way to Shetland to work in this industry, and people from here also travelled down through the UK to do the same. This design is a combination of a Gansey Yarn with Shetland motifs.. Vegr means ‘way’ or ‘path’ in old Norse and I thought its a combination of the path of fish, knitters, Shetlanders and my family.

The pattern for the Vegr Vest is only available in the 2024 Shetland Wool Week Annual until September 2025, I understand if that annoys you or you don’t want to buy a whole book for one pattern etc etc but please don’t feel the need to email or message me to tell me that, there are plenty of things you cant knit until then 😊 The Annual is filled with lovely patterns and articles and its well worth the money. You can buy digital and hard copies from the Amenity Trust here

With the release of the new annual this means my pattern from last year is now available as a PDF, the Hattie Yoke can be found on my Ravelry, Payhip and Lovecrafts. Linked here

And as an update to my last post, i did manage to mend somehting from my pile.. well Sandra that i work with helped me and I washed, boarded and wore one of the cardigans this week:

so despite the last month or so being a disaster for me in my personal life at least I managed to do that! I am more fragile than I’ve been for a while due to the actions of others. As always it seems ironic to be getting so much positive feedback about some aspects of my life! But that’s how it goes I suppose.

Speak soon xx