Collecting vintage knitting patterns

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My progress collecting patterns related to the Hunter's of Brora Woollen Mill Hunter’s of Brora Woollen Mill in Sutherland, Scotland had a showroom that my granny worked in. As a child who lived abroad, I have a few distant memories of a shop full of woolly smells, checked patterns, and cones and hanks of wool. On summer holidays I remember popping in when wandering about the village, but I had to be quiet and behave because granny was working.
Shows a photo from the 1980s inside a traditional Scottish woollen mill shop. There's a large counter in the middle of the shop, with my granny and her colleague standing at the end of it. My granny is wearing a deep wine red skirt below the knee, and a matching jumper with a pink shirt below. She's got short slightly greying hair and glasses. Mhairi's also got glasses and ear length dark brown hair. We can't see what's she's wearing, other than a blue v-neck vest top with a shirt blue, because there are 6 cones of wool in front of them. Behind them the walls (fully wood panelled) showing hanging tartan tweed blankets, and shelves filled with hanks of wool. In the foreground is a cornflower blue scale, presumably for weighing the hanks.

I wish I’d started getting into knitting from this age, but I didn’t. I don’t think I was much interested in the tweeds and woollen clothes really. There was a much more exciting sweetie and toy shop called Cunninghams down the road that my other granny worked in, where I could spend an hour at the counter choosing my 10 penny sweets from the selection. 

Time moved on and so did granny. The Woollen Mill sadly closed in 2003, just a year before I got into knitting in a Big Way. I managed to secure some of the cones and hanks via my granny’s pal, who found them in a skip round the back (oh my God!). 

I didn’t realise until much later that there were hand-knitting patterns created for the mill wool, and I’ve been collecting them ever since. 

Shows the outside of the showroom. There's a sign in serif font "T M Hunter LTD". It looks like a house with a green door. There's 3 large windows, one to the right and two to the left with wool items on display. It's an old-fashioned box window, wood backed and probably had wee doors to enter to re-arrange the displays. They cover 3/4 of the window so the shop was always quite dark inside. There's another two stories aboe. The top story is in the attic with those attic windows.

 
Shows the pile of paper patterns I have. The one on top is a woman wearing a cream fair isle yoke jumper with green and yellow traditional 'X O X' patterning and deep red margins on either side. She's a 70's style woman photographed on a red background that matches the margin pattern colour. She has blonde short hair blow-dried to be full, and blue eyes.

The patterns I have are numbered between 501 to 516. Does that mean I’m looking for another 500?! I’m not sure.

Shows the scanned covers of all the patterns I have so far, arranged in a 4x4 grid.

 

The patterns I’m looking for are in bold, and are ‘Broraspun Leaflets’ unless otherwise noted. The pattern titles are as printed.

  • up to 500

  • 501 DK men’s and women’s twisted rib pattern cardigan

    • Stamped with Buchanans of Dunkeld Perthshire, Specialists in Shetland patterns and wools by mail order.

    • Price 1/- (1 shilling so pre-1971)

  • 502 Twinset with lace pattern jumper

    • Price 1/- (1 shilling so pre-1971)

  • 503 Jumper with round Fair Isle yoke

    • Price 1/- (1 shilling so pre-1971)

  • 504 Jumper with Fair Isle panel on front

    • Stamped with Buchanans of Dunkeld Perthshire, Specialists in Shetland patterns and wools by mail order.

    • Price 1/- (1 shilling so pre-1971) with a faded shop price label over it

  • 505 Lady's sweater & cardigan with circular fair-isle yoke

  • 506

  • 507 Girl’s Jumper or Cardigan with Fair Isle borders

  • 508 Gents’ Hose in plain or fancy rib with alternative tops

    • Price 9d (9 pence so pre-1971)

  • 509 Child’s Gloves (2 copies)

    • Price 20p (so 1971 onwards)

  • 510 Ladies’ Gloves and Ladies’ Mitts

    • Price 9d (9 pence so pre-1971)

  • 511

  • 512

  • 513 I believe this is a Shetland Shawl

    • Based on Carol Christiansen’s reply to Barbara’s ever-informative blog post

    • I have T.P.G. Series Leaflets 21 and 42

  • 514

  • 515 Allover Fair Isle Slipover

  • 516 Pattern booklet

    • Argyll Fair Isle Pullover

    • Twin Set

    • Fair Isle Sweater Beret and Gloves

    • Fair Isle Waistcoat

    • ‘V’ Neck Sweater

    • Sweater with Collar

    • Back says Peter Bryson Publicity Tel: 041 647 0174

      • Area code 041 introduced in 1958 so 1958 onwards

      • Glasgow changed to 0141 in 1995 so pre-1995

  • 517

  • 518 Cardigan or Waistcoat for Lady or Man in Hunter’s Brora Soft Spin

    • This pattern has a Hunter's logo and T.M. Hunter Ltd. Sutherland Wool Mills, Brora, Scotland, KW9 6NA

  • 519 onwards

If you collect these, or know anything about them I’d be so grateful for any information at all.

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