Let’s end the week with a real treat, shall we? Confident Knitting designer Janette Budge was kind enough to take the time to answer some questions about lambing and life on a Shetland croft! Janette’s lived on Shetland her whole life and is a woman who has worn many (hand-knitted) hats, from helping out on the family farm, to working in IT, to a career in Clinical Aromatherapy, as well as being a knitwear designer and tutor. So grab a cuppa and settle in for a great read!

KR: Can you start by telling us a bit about where you are in Shetland? Like most people, it's been ages since I've travelled, I'd love to armchair travel to your corner of the world!

JB: Absolutely, I live in the south mainland of Shetland, about 15 mins drive north of the airport at Sumburgh. It’s a beautiful spot with St Ninians Isle and its adjoining sand tombolo on my doorstep. St Ninians Isle was where a 28-piece hoard of silver was discovered in 1958 believed to have been buried in the 8th or 9th century. We built an off-grid house about 14 years ago and make all our own power through wind, solar and water with a battery storage that gives us about a days’ worth of power if I don’t use the washing machine or dishwasher! We also have a backup generator but thankfully only need to use that maybe 10 hours a month. I regularly share views of my walks on my Instagram and Facebook stories. (Kat’s note: If you’re not following Janette in those spaces yet, you’re going to want to fix that now!)

KR: What are your early memories of life on a Shetland croft? What were the first tasks you helped with? When did you start helping with the lambing?

JB: Probably my first memories of the croft are of ‘caddy’ lambs, these are the ones who need bottle feeding for a variety of reasons not always because they are orphaned. Their mother might just not have enough milk for the number of lambs she gave birth to.

My mother would mix up powdered ewes milk and pour it into an old lemonade bottle that you pushed a black and red rubber teat into. My mum had to help me hold the bottle as the lambs would suck so hard. It was a great chance to touch their heads and feel their soft wool. They would also try to nibble at my clothes and follow me and my sister around if they were hungry. Another early memory was my mother coming into my sister and my upstairs bedroom in the dead of the night to shine a torch out on the pregnant ewes in our back yard to check if any were lambing. If she was aware of us stirring, she would whisper ‘it’s just me’ in case we thought she was an alien or something with a big bright light, this was the 1970s after all! We soon got used to it and slept right through most nights.

I started helping with the lambing from probably age 8 or 9. Holding gates, passing things to my mum who would be holding the ewe or lamb, walking the fields with my mum checking the lambed ewes and lambs. Catching 2-week-old lambs who are in the wrong field can be a tricky business on your own! As I got older, I took on more tasks but never actually lambed a ewe until I was in my twenties.

KR: I have really enjoyed seeing snippets of lambing time on your Instagram feed. Do you help out every year? How long does the lambing period last – it seems like it can be quite intense!

JB: Yes, I can hardly remember a year that I haven’t helped with the lambing either on my parents’ croft or on my husband’s family farm. Some years more than others depending on work commitments. I would really miss that part of the year if I wasn’t involved. I love the whole process, but it is hard work to check your sheep night and day for maybe 4–5 weeks depending on how many sheep you have and your field and shed set-up. Family help at busy times can be a real morale and energy boost. Having a couple of nights in the middle where they get a full 6-7 hour sleep for a couple of nights can really recharge them. This year I have been doing the 7pm check which, with our 4-wheel-drive buggy, can take anything between 1–3 hours depending how many ewes are lambing and how many need help. If the weather is wet and windy it takes much longer as visibility is poorer and the new lambs more vulnerable and susceptible to hypothermia. I have a good mobile signal all around the farm so can call my nieces who own the farm if any ewes need catching and bringing in. It is almost impossible to catch a ewe in a field on your own, unless you have a good sheepdog. There were 300 cross ewes and 300 Shetland ewes lambing at my nieces farm. They are staged to lamb over different weeks but there could be 100+ to check at any one time.

KR: Are most of the sheep you see Shetland sheep? Or are there lots of other breeds around?

JB: Most are probably Cheviot/Shetland cross breeding ewes although on the rougher hill ground, they are more likely to be pure bred Shetland sheep, mainly white, but I also see a lot more coloured sheep being bred. There are also some Texel cross, Llyen cross and Kerry Hill cross ewes, a few Dorset, and a small number have pure bred Suffolk and Cheviots. Farmers and crofters are mainly breeding for the meat market as the wool price is so low. They do get a little bit more for the coloured fleece which is good. They tend to cross the breeding ewes with Shetland sheep to breed a little more hardiness into them, plus Shetland sheep are well known to have a strong mothering instinct.

KR: For those of us who don't get to see sheep regularly, but love knitting, what do you wish we knew about sheep/wool?

JB:  I think, first of all, wool is such a sustainable fibre. Wool is in our sheep-farming community, whether the farmer can sell the wool or not. By that I mean the sheep need to get rid of their fleece every summer or they will overheat on a hot day, or there is more chance of them ‘going on their back’ when they have a large thick fleece. Sheep going on their back can be life threatening for them, so if you see a sheep with all 4 legs in the air, help them over onto their side. I would love to see wool have a higher value than it does, in all circles: from farmer/crofter, knitter/manufacturer to the general public. It is a tremendous fibre, I could do a whole blog post just on its properties! But the bottom line is it’s a dire shame that some wool around the world is just being composted. Why not use that available fibre to clothe us, to provide us with home furnishings, rather than have factories manufacturing oil- and coal-based fibres like acrylic, nylon and polyester? Even if we buy products or yarn with a percentage of wool in it, that is still a great step towards changing attitudes of the public and the manufacturers. I’m glad to say that to my knowledge none of the fleeces sheared in Shetland are composted; all go to be spun into fibre somewhere. Check out what happens in your part of the world.

I think wool has received a lot of bad press over the last few decades as more and more synthetics have become available. I think there is a wool out there for everyone, and no two breeds of wool are the same. Different wools can have different uses. Coarser wool would be great for boot socks or cushions. For scarves, you would want a softer, smoother wool near your face. Shetland wool has to be my favourite as I love the bounce and the warmth, but also the excellent ‘gripping’ properties it contains for Fair Isle knitting. It makes steeking and float carrying much easier. I don’t reinforce my steeks when using Shetland wool and have never had any problems.

KR: That’s a great segue into my next question – I don't want our conversation to end before we talk a little about your amazing knitwear design! Who taught you to knit? Has knitting always been a part of your life?

JB: My mother taught me to knit at around six years old, then we received knitting classes at school from the age of eight or nine until we were 11. I had a fantastic teacher, Zena Thomson, who was a very skilled lace and Fair Isle knitter in Shetland. I had a phase in my teenage years where I rarely knitted, then I began again in earnest when my sister was expecting her first child back in the mid 90’s. Shetland Wool Week and a career change gave me an opportunity for my passion to develop in another way and brought me to teaching Fair Isle, first of all with my mother, and now on my own as my teaching confidence has grown, plus my mum’s wish to take a step back.

KR: And are there any knitting or teaching projects you are working on at the moment that you'd like to share?

JB:  I’m developing an online knitting belt class at the moment, in between knitting pattern commissions. For those who don’t know about a Shetland knitting belt or ‘makkin’ belt as we would call it, it’s used along with long double-pointed needles (30–40cm long).  The belt has a stuffed pad and holds the end of the needle as you knit, helping you to knit faster and with a good posture. People can sign up for my newsletter at janettebudge.com to find out when these will be launched.

A massive thank you to Janette for taking the time to share about life in her corner of the world! If you’re not already, do follow Janette for lots more lamb, Shetland life and knitting on her Instagram and Facebook pages. And do visit her website to sign up for news of her online classes, but also to browse the beautiful array of finished knits, knitting belts and accessories and patterns! And, of course, if you’d like to knit your own version of Janette’s Variance Hat and learn more about catching floats in the process, you can find Confident Knitting in our online shop.