Shetland Wool Week 2026

Like many people who have watched the show Shetland, I fell in love with the island (despite all the fictional murders!) without having seen it in person: the rugged natural terrain, the sheep dotting every pastoral view, the Scottish accent that sometimes required closed captioning, the Fair Isle sweaters.... It all spoke to me and said, "You need to be here...."

So when friends suggested a group trip to Scotland, including visits to Orkney and Shetland, my husband and I were on board, and in August 2024, six of us took the ferry from Aberdeen to Orkney, and then the overnight ferry from Orkney to Shetland, where we stayed for several days. That ferry ride through the North Sea was a little rough, but it was a great adventure and not so bad when you could be horizontal in a cabin!

I had heard about Shetland Wool Week before ever stepping foot on Shetland (and had knit a SWW hat for the trip!), but I hadn't yet entertained the idea of ever attending. However, since it was only two months away, we saw pamphlets for it at businesses around the island, and I, of course, picked one up. It contained an overwhelming number of knitting workshops, tours, and events. It was about 70 pages long! This was no ordinary knitting retreat! That was when my dream to someday attend Shetland Wool Week was born.

Earlier this year, when I mentioned the possibility of attending Shetland Wool Week to Jen, one of my very first knitting friends (from back in the '90s), she was fully onboard with going, too, and our planning began. The event tickets were still several months away from going on sale, but we found our accommodations and booked our flights (including a flight from Glasgow to Sumburgh [Shetland] this time--no ferry). And we waited.

In April, the Shetland Wool Week hat pattern was released. To be honest, this one is not a hat style I love (very slouchy), but, really, Jen and I felt we had to make it anyway. I had a couple misses with colour choices and combinations, resulting in two restarts. In the end, I won't wear it beyond SWW, but at least I have it for that. I think Jen's looks great, though! (This is hers!)

Then, in July, the workshops and events were announced, and we had to narrow down our choices to squeeze in what we most wanted to learn and do. A week later was the "on sale" date. It was a frenzy! We got into a virtual lineup and put our choices into our carts. We had a "divide and conquer" plan, and it worked--we got pretty much everything we wanted! We made a few duplicate purchases in the rush, but we sold those extras off in no time through a Facebook group. 

We've left a few holes in our schedule so that we can tour the island at leisure, go for a hike, visit the beaches and/or Viking settlements--generally seek out one or two non-knitting-related adventures while in one of Earth's most remote places.

We are now less than three weeks away from our first (and likely only) Shetland Wool Week! If you'd like to enjoy it virtually with us, revisit this blog between September 26 and October 4!