Knit Real Shetland

Noticed today that Jamieson & Smith's new book Knit Real Shetland is at last published.  It seems like a lifetime since I was asked to submit a design.  As Ralph Lauren used a lot of J&S's yarn, I thought it  appropriate to feature one of the original designs I did for Polo in the late 80s.  From what I can see on the J&S site, it's a collection of fifteen wearable and doable projects by some great designers.

In my sweater, Olly's Allover (mark, name not chosen by me), the main aran design was taken from Gladys Thompson's fantastic book Patterns for Guernseys, Jerseys & Arans.  There were several mistakes in her written pattern and it was a minefield to navigate. However, I know that ultimately I must have got it right as we made about 500 pieces for Polo and then an order came in from the womenswear line and many more were made without further correction.   In those days delivery dates were strictly adhered to and we were often left with many sweaters which didn't make the shipments.  We used to have pre-Xmas sales of unlabelled sweaters in Kensington, London and I remember selling off the excess production from this design and being amazed by how many media people bought it -  Jenny Agutter particularly springs to mind, she looked gorgeous in it.