In an earlier blog on my Wool Week experiences I briefly mentioned both the charity auction project and the competitions; I will now add a little more detail. The winners of the two competitions were announced and presented with their prizes at the opening ceremony of Shetland Wool Week.
Seasons of the Shetland Crofter follows on from the highly successful Real Shetland Yarns book of 2012 where people were asked to share their individual stories and images involving Shetland textiles, crofting and farming. The main sponsors, Vispring presented the winning entry with a handmade luxury bed. Earlier this year people were asked to send in their pictures and short stories representing the four seasons in Shetland crofting and farming. The images and stories highlight the changing seasons by camera and words of life on the croft and farm in Shetland. We have even had four seasons in one day as I write this! I walked our granddaughter’s dog in bright sunshine, went over the hill and struggled against 50 mile an hour winds, a short time later encountered heavy hail showers. There were many entries in the 4 categories, spring, summer, autumn & winter. The overall winner received a Vispring bed valued at £5,000, also a 2 night stay in the Sumburgh Head complex, donated by joint sponsors Shetland Amenity trust, and a Seasons of the Shetland Crofter book.
1st place category winners in the four seasons received £100 of J&S vouchers, a Vispring branded J&S R.S.W. Throw and a copy of the book. 23 shortlisted entries received a throw as above, a copy of the book and a pair of Real Shetland wool J&S worsted socks.
The Seasons of The Crofter Book is available to buy from Jamieson & Smith for those who are interested!
Jamieson of Shetland also had a competition for people to enter participants were asked to contribute their favourite stories & images from their experience of visiting their company in the 10 years of Wool Week. There were quite a few entries and the winning images and stories were displayed in Jamieson’s shop window, they also received in store vouchers.
The Shetland Wool Week Scarf project was the work of Faye Hackers of the Shetland textile college. The project involved people from the Shetland Textile Industry; I was delighted to take part in this as Wool Week patron. Faye collated their various comments about what they liked about Shetland. This was then taken by Faye and designed into one – off scarves which were auctioned off for charity at Shetland Wool Week. In total the auction raised £1,776.00 which was split amongst charities which were chosen by the individuals involved in the project. Cancer Research, Shetland MRI Scanner, Mind Your Head, Global Yell, Lerwick Brass Band and the Whalsay Heritage Centre.
All the yarns used in the project were donated free by Jamieson & Smith, a continuation of involvement with the Textile College since its conception over 20 years ago. We consider it vitally important that we continue to sponsor and encourage our young textile students which are the lifeblood of our future textile community. I am very pleased to say I have been involved in all these sponsorships since the opening of the college all those years ago.
I will post a blog on our work with the college at a later date.
My Life with Shetland Wool 