Join Tania Ashton Jones of TJFrog as she takes you on a journey of how Dorset Buttons were used at the height of the Dorset Button cottage industry in the 1600 - 1800s, and how you can incorporate them today with your handmade woolly projects. Lots of ideas and samples will be shared from Shetland wool to hand dyed 4ply yarn, from cardigan buttons to shawl pins. Functional buttons to statement embellishments, be inspired to make Dorset Buttons to add to your creative projects!

Learn the art of needle felting and create your own stunning felted painting inspired by Scotland's rugged landscapes.

At the end of the workshop you will walk away with a stunning felt landscape of your favourite place to hang up somewhere special! We will learn some more techniques like how to add a fluffy highland coo or sheep to your felted landscapes. It’s one not to missed!

Our workshops have an emphasis on craft for wellbeing so we will talk about how to slow down and move into a flow state.

Learn Fair Isle knitting with expert knitter, Helen Chatterton. You will learn the techniques of Fair Isle knitting on four double pointed needles and how to read charts. You will start to knit a lavender bag and go away with the materials to finish it at home, including yarn and a small lavender pouch.

Wool is a wonderful, natural fibre. It’s soft and squishy and makes cosy clothing and accessories. But do you know what else it can be used for? By exploiting wool’s many beneficial properties discover how innovative companies have made, or are developing, products that can be used in sectors such as horticulture to peatland and countryside management, packaging and construction to cosmetics and healthcare. Now there are even more ways to add wool into our lives.

1998 saw the release of a new “old yarn”. Yarns International Shetland 2000 was a venture of US local yarn store owner Betty Lindsay and Jamieson & Smith, making available for the first time in the US, Shetland knitting wool that was undyed and came in multiple colours. Its release was the beginning of a new way of thinking about colour in knitting and helped change how yarn and designs are marketed. This talk tells that story and examines the role that Betty and her partners had in shaping our hand knitting industry today.

Join Nora L Howley - knitter, researcher and storyteller - for this fascinating tale! Nora is particularly interested in the stories of the relationships between patterns, yarns, people, and places.

Always wanted to learn tapestry crochet, or struggled to get the hang of it in the past? Come and learn the basics with experienced teacher and designer Merrian.

This talk from professional textile conservator Isabella Rossi will explain how to care for the objects that you’ve spent dozens of hours knitting and crocheting. We’ll cover the ‘agents of deterioration’, the elements that turn your garments from masterpieces into rags. These include moths, holes from use, light fading, wash fastness, and unwanted felting. The talk will explain how these problems arise, how to address them, and how to prevent them in the future.

Assigned pooling turns knitting upside down by letting your yarn lead the way with your stitches. Using The Wool Kitchen's unique zip yarns, Helen will show participants how they can create special stitches with each zip of colour as it appears in the yarn.

Come along and learn how to dye your own yarn, join Lisa, a master dyer, to create a rainbow of your own making.

Susan has been inspired by vintage aesthetics since an early age, and has been designing vintage inspired clothing since she was a teenager. In this talk Susan tells you how her career began and about some of her most ambitious projects, such as The Vintage Sheltand Project and most recently, A Stitch in Time Volume 3 - The Colourwork Edition. Susan will also explain how she 'reads' and interprets original vintage patterns and provides her tips on where to start.

Learn basic intarsia skills and design your own shawl using your newly learned skills to create fun, custom motifs in a neckerchief.

We’ll start by learning about intarsia and practising swatches. Then we’ll use a pre-made chart to map out motifs from hearts, flowers, geometric; whatever you’d like. We can get started in the class and you can take your pattern home to complete. Your shawl can be in garter or stockinette stitch and we’ll treat it like a canvas to “draw” your intarsia design!

Do you fancy knitting delicate and beautiful lace, but it looks complicated and daunting? In this workshop, Samira will show you how lace knitting works, how to knit lace, how to lace pattern instructions and charts, and trouble shooting skills so that you can tackle any lace project with confidence. This workshop is suitable for knitters who already know how to cast on, knit and purl.

Practice using a Shetland style stuffed leather knitting belt and long double pointed needles. Later in the class you can try adding a raepin string at the bottom of your knitting to discover if this changes your tension, speed and knitting position. In the workshop you will start using 2 long double pointed needles (30 - 40cm long) and a knitting belt. We will also look at different techniques for holding your yarns during fair isle knitting and knitting in the round with the belt and 2 colours is an option. 

I've often heard machine knitting referred to as "cheating". In this talk I'd like to present the case for considering it as a separate craft with its own skills and traditions. We'll have a tour of historical knitting machines and look at the 20th century boom in domestic machine knitting. I'll illustrate the talk with examples by local knitters from the 1980s and dip into the maker/hacker movement of the early 2000s. I'll end with a round up of the present culture of machine knitting at home and as a studio practice and perhaps even a short fashion show.

Join Helen on a walk through the surrounding area taking photos of landscapes or small close-up shots. Returning inside we will look at how our surroundings inspire colour within textiles, and how to incorporate these colour proportions into knitting and quilting projects. You will create yarn colour stripes based on the photos you have taken.
The walk will be approx. 3km with a mixture of the built environment and green spaces. This workshop combines Helen’s 30 years career in the textile industry and experience as a hill walking guide.

Make your own stitch markers! Join jeweller and knitter Rebecca Anderson, AKA Songbead, as she teaches you how to make your own stitch markers from scratch learning basic wirework skills. You will learn how to work with jewellery pliers, make turned- and wrapped- loops, how to securely work with jump rings, and get advice on the best supplies to use and how to ensure your stitch markers and progress keepers are snag-free! You will leave with your own unique set of stitch markers, and the skills to make more.

Learn the ancient style of Swedish Crochet Nålebinding and help keep an historical, almost lost technique alive. Students will be making a small mitten using Scottish wool.

This Indigo Plot is a Natural dye garden in the Glasgow Botanical garden curated by textile artist Elisabeth Viguie Culshaw. Set up in Covid crisis time to grow Japanese Indigo and Woad it is 3 years old and used to educate about the connection between plant and colour.

Elisabeth grows 1000 Japanese Indigo plants yearly to share with the general public.

Sustainable dyeing is a subject close to Elisabeth’s heart but she wants to raise awareness about the current risk of binging from Nature by taking out too much in a consumerist way. She wants to tell us about noticing the seasons and working accordingly.

Learn about the story of wool in Britain, breeds of sheep and their wool qualities and uses from Rachel of Balmerino as she reflects on the impact sheep have on our landscape, a farmers perspective on wool and the future of wool in Britain.

Join Janette Budge - one of the most popular speakers and tutors of Shetland Wool Week, as she shares her deep knowledge of the history and heritage of Fair Isle yokes.

Come along and learn how to dye your own yarn, join Lisa - a master dyer - to create a rainbow of your own making.

You will be supplied with all the materials you need to create a stunning skein of yarn (100g) plus 5 mini skeins which you will be able to take home and turn into a true one of a kind masterpiece! 

Assigned pooling turns knitting upside down by letting your yarn lead the way with your stitches. Using The Wool Kitchen's unique zip yarns, Helen will show participants how they can create special stitches with each zip of colour as it appears in the yarn.

Tunisian Crochet is a great technique that combines some elements of both knitting and crochet yet can end up looking completely different! In this workshop, Samira will teach you what Tunisian Crochet is and how it works, all the techniques and standard stitches, basic shaping techniques, how to read and follow a Tunisian Crochet pattern, and give you an overview of the range of fabric possibilities using Tunisian Crochet. 

Join Tania of TJFrog to learn how to make contemporary beaded Dorset Buttons to embellish, personalise and jazz up your beautiful handmade projects making them unique to you! This workshop will cover two different ways to add beads to Dorset Buttons to bring extra colour, texture and a bit of sparkle! All materials are included.

This all-day workshop is perfect for yarn lovers and your first steps in natural dyes! You will learn to dye your fibre from start to finish: preparation to the finishing stage.

Using Scottish yarn and plants, you will learn to create a green colour using foraged or grown plants as well as an Indigo process.

You will leave with sample yarn in yellow, green and blue, and with new knowledge to repeat the process.