My Shetland experience heavily influenced the few projects I managed to complete in September. It was such an amazing and transformative trip for me, and it's evident in my knitting because I'm more confident with lace and colour work. Quite a few of my new friends wore their Aestlight Shawls on our trip, and I immediately fell in love with drape as well as the way the birds eye lace showed off the colour of variegated yarn such as the MadeleineTosh I used on my first Aestlight! I tried to follow expert lace knitter and Shetlander Elizabeth Johnston's advice about really opening up the lace during the blocking process. Elizabeth was one of my favorite people on the trip, and her class definitely made lace less intimidating, especially her encouragement to stick with techniques I know instead of deferring to the fancy techniques knitwear designers sometimes suggest.
I am most excited about my finished Bressay Dress. Originally, my friend Nicole suggested a Bressay knit-a-long in anticipation of our Shetland adventure. Although I missed the pre-trip KAL, casting-on just four days before leaving, it was nice working on the fair isle dress while motoring by Bressay! I actually finished this in August but then accidentally, and tragically, cut a hole in it. In my delirium from the miserable Pennsylvania heat, I mistook a pulled stitch for the pocket being sewn to the back, taking the snips to it without careful investigation. It was an easy repair once I stopped crying. Snaps were also held up as I waited for the colours of fall! I love this picture, not just because it shows off one of my favorite FOs of all time but also because the sun is hitting the midges, making them visible! I wore the dress to work on the first crisp, fall morning we had; unfortunately, the weather warmed by 10am, and I spent the rest of the day a tad too warm. It will be fabulous in the middle of winter when the heat at school doesn't work! 
All three of my September projects are from knitwear designer and trip leader extraordinaire, Gudrun Johnston! I had started a summer tee but tossed it aside when Gudrun did an early release for this hat pattern from her new book, Shetland Trader- Book 2. Gudrun gave us a preview of her new designs on our trip, and the Hermaness Hat was one of the patterns I was especially taken with. The book has since been fully released, and I've already ordered the yarn for my next project, the Belmont (a cropped cardi).
I have tried a number of times to blog about my Shetland Adventure but it's hard. For now, I'll just reveal that the trip was an impulse purchase that I hoped would help me feel closer to my grandmother, who passed away in January, by exploring the craft for which she nurtured my passion. We enjoyed knitting together right up through our final visit, less than a week before she died.
Although her Alzheimer's and arthritis prevented her from knitting herself, we still talked about my projects, she complimented or corrected my stitches, and we tried to figure out troublesome patterns together. There was a cardi I always hoped to make her but never did; the yarn is impossible to purchase in the U.S. and I doubted my ability to complete a fair isle project. On my last day in Shetland, my companion Alice and I popped into the Jamieson's store to purchase the yarn. It will be the first project I cast on once I'm finished my Christmas knitting and am able to fully focus!
.jpg)
Right now, I'm working another project I brought home from Shetland: the Stevenson Sweater. This project is particularly exciting because the main colour is yarn I purchased from Ronnie and Sue at Uradale Farm . They opened their house to our "smallish" group to talk Shetland sheep and crofting. For this project, I'm using their organic, natural jumper yarn mixed with two contrasting colours from Jamieson and Smiths.
I'm marking time with this sweater while I wait for more of Uradale's yarn to arrive so that I can begin Bill's Christmas sweater. He picked a project that is certainly going to put my new fair isle knitting skills to the test so stay tuned for updates on this year's Christmas sweater and that blog devoted entirely to my Shetland adventure!
