Great excitement! When I got up this morning, after dressing and feeding the cat, I opened my iPad as usual and there was a message from Jen Arnall-Culliford. She it was (it turns out) who designed the Museum Sweater for Jamieson & Smith, at their request, to show off their new (at the time) line of Heritage yarn. 

She has written some interesting blog entries on the subject. I thought I could link you to them, because I can get them on the iPad. It says “jenacknitwear.typepad.com” at the top of the page – but an attempt to go there on this laptop ends in a morass of confusion.

You are cleverer than I am – what is wanted are her entries for December 14 and December 5, 2012. If anybody can do it, I am sure others would be interested in the result.

Jen A-C was asked to write some patterns based on pieces in the collection of the Shetland Museum (shades of the Vintage Shetland Project!) The piece she was working from in this case was a fairly battered fragment. She credits Grace Williamson with knitting the sweater from her pattern – that will be the one illustrated on the Jamieson and Smith website.

Then after all that, Felicity Ford (Knitsonic) spotted the illustration in Mary Jane Mucklestone’s book – the one that started me off, the other day. It was obviously the same sweater, in a sense, but not quite. Jen asked Carol Christiansen at the Shetland Museum and learned that the Museum had had replicas made of several items in the 1990’s – that’s where that one came from. The main difference between the replica and Jen’s J&S pattern is that the replica continues to vary the lozenge patterns on the back of the sweater.

I wouldn’t be telling you all this if I could master that link, as Jen (obviously) tells it better and more immediately, and also includes an illustration of the battered fragment from which all else derives.

I had a good day with Tannehill, and lack only a couple of rows before the front, and therefore the body, is finished.