magpie's shiny things

In Sep­tem­ber of 2019 I joined my sis­ter Beth for Wool Week in the Shet­land Islands. These are the places that we went and the things we saw. (Click through the gal­leries for more infor­ma­tion in the pic­ture descriptions.)

Lerwick

Ler­wick is the capi­tol city of Shet­land. We stayed in an apart­ment just up the hill from the har­bor. A short walk down hill (through “our alley”) led to Com­mer­cial Street, the pedes­tri­an shop­ping dis­trict and a block lat­er the Esplanade — the har­bor frontage road. . The con­fer­ence was cen­tered at the Shet­land Muse­um and Archives. The HUB in the large mul­ti­pur­pose room being the cen­ter of all things Wool Week. Fur­nished with an endear­ing­ly eclec­tic vari­ety of chairs and couch­es arranged in vague cir­cles, it’s the place to sit and knit and meet up with folks from all over. There was a map of the world in which we were each invit­ed to put spin with home town on it. There was a big­ger map of the UK to accom­mo­date all the “locals” at the conference. 

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A Walk and Clickimin Broch

From the City cen­ter you can take a love­ly walk along the sea walls to Clickimin Broch. A broch is a type of Iron Age build­ing found only in Scot­land fea­tur­ing a round, dou­ble wall and a large inner court­yard area. Clickimin is notable because of its eas­i­ly acces­si­ble loca­tion and it’s loca­tion in the mid­dle of a small Loch. (Real­ly it’s easy to get to from down­town: walk down to the Tesco and cross the Lerwick-Sumberg road at the petrol station.) 

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Hats

Sun­day night was the Wel­come Cer­e­mo­ny at the Clickimin Leisure Cen­ter. The high­lights includ­ed tak­ing a pho­to­graph of some 500 peo­ple mod­el­ing their Road­side Bean­ies. Yes, there is an offi­cial hat for Wool Week. Actu­al­ly, it’s a knit­ting pat­tern you have to make it your­self. Here’s mine:

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Can you imag­ine that many peo­ple all wear­ing the same hat? Well, sort of the same hat — alter­nate col­or ways abound­ed as did the occa­sion­al vari­a­tion in form. (Stock­ing cap any one?) The occa­sion was also graced with a video greet­ing from HRH the Prince of Wales. Seri­ous­ly. Quite the treat for the colonists. 

Scalloway

Mon­day morn­ing we went to Scal­loway on our way to an after­noon class at Uradale Farm. We vis­it­ed Scal­loway Cas­tle and the muse­um there. We had lunch at a lit­tle cafe in town. Very good quiche. 

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Knitting at Uradale Farm

That after­noon we had a class in Bohus Stick­n­ing at Uradale Farm. Kits were hand­ed out and while we learned about his­to­ry of Bohus knit­ting, we start­ed our own Bohus style sam­ples. Here’s a look at mine start­ed, but not fin­ished. Also a cou­ple of images from Uradale Farm were the class was held. 

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A Day Out with Ponies and Chapels

On Tues­day we took our rental car and went all the way west arriv­ing in Sand­ness to vis­it with the ponies of Frances Tay­lor famous for their mod­el­ing of Fair Isle sweaters. Beth met her soul mate. We end­ed our vis­it when the sun­ny, windy day turned down-right treach­er­ous with side­ways sleet com­ing from the North. 

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We stopped in Walls for lunch. The town min­is­ter kind­ly assist­ed us in find­ing the Regat­ta Club where they were hold­ing a cafe and craft show. Warm soup and ban­nock for lunch and huge pot of very hot tea. We watched the seals play in the voe while we ate and picked ups few presents at the craft show. 

As we went fur­ther south the weath­er cleared a bit. Our next stop was St Nini­an’s Island to look for the ruins of a church. You can’t see any­thing that even vague­ly resem­bles a church from the Main­land side — not even with binoc­u­lars. But Beth insist­ed that there was a ruin out there so we crossed the tombo­lo to search for it. A tombo­lo is a path of sand that con­nects two bits of land and lies between two arms of the sea. The tombo­lo at St. Nia­ni­an’s is a semi-permanent fea­ture. Being impas­si­ble only in the win­ter when the rough and high seas wash the sand away. It returns in the spring. 

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We did even­tu­al­ly find the ruins. Thought to call it a church is being gen­er­ous. It’s a tiny 12th cen­tu­ry chapel whose out­lines and a few tum­ble­down walls are indi­cat­ed by a hol­low in the hill­side. The site is impor­tant most­ly because of a trove of sil­ver objects found by the school­boy Dou­glas Coutts in 1958. (No we didn’t see them; they are in Edin­burg. Though there are some copies of some of the pieces in the muse­um in Lerwick.) 

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Knitting a Peerie Hap

Wednes­day we start­ed the day with a class in mak­ing tra­di­tion­al Shet­land haps (shawls) And here, for ref­er­ence, is a pic­ture of the peerie hap that is sup­posed to result when I get my lit­tle lace project sewn up. Not near­ly as impres­sive as this huge hap, on it’s stretch­ing board. And yarn bombers were about, here’s a lit­tle mes­sage that they added to the Shet­land Sign on the Esplanade. 

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Jamieson’s Mill

Lat­er in the day we went back to Sand­ness in the west (by full-sized tour bus on one-lane roads) to vis­it the Jamieson’s mill where they spin and dye Shet­land wool into yarn. They also do a bit of weav­ing. I made this lit­tle video of tweed weav­ing on a jacquard loom. 

Bressay Island and Garth’s Croft

Thurs­day we made the 10 minute cross­ing to the island of Bres­say on a lit­tle fer­ry that car­ries maybe 15 cars. The park and ride on the Bres­say side was full. Lots of peo­ple who live on Bres­say work in Ler­wick. On Bres­say we toured Garth’s Croft the home of Chris Dyer and his flock of Shet­land Sheep. He’s also got pigs, chick­ens, and hoop house for grow­ing fruit trees and ten­der veg­eta­bles that can’t stand the Shet­land cli­mate. He’s also a mas­ter builder of dry stone walls. 

Then we had a light lunch at the com­mu­ni­ty cen­ter in the old grade school and vis­it­ed the stu­dio of RAM knitwear. I bought a love­ly cowl assist­ed by the moth­er of the designer. 

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A Brewery and Some Vikings

In the after­noon we went to the Ler­wick Brew­ery — per­haps the most north­ern brew­ery in the UK. And final­ly the MRI Maak­ers sup­per at the Town Hall where we looked at some nice stained glass win­dows and met Vikings. We also had some mut­ton, pota­to, and lentil soup. (I think that I will make it a “tried it once” thing.) 

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Experimental Lace Knitting and a Spree

Fri­day we took anoth­er lace knit­ting class, this one about mix­ing yarn weights and nee­dle sizes and the effects both good and bad that you can achieve. 

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Fri­day night there was the Spree — a tra­di­tion­al Shet­land rave-up — where Beth con­vinced me to dance. And there is, thank­ful­ly, absolute­ly no video evi­dence. I am com­plete­ly inca­pable of fol­low­ing even the sim­plest of phys­i­cal direc­tions mak­ing the task of teach­ing me to dance the Boston Two-Step neigh on impossible. 

Tour of South Mainland

Sat­ur­day, ear­ly in the morn­ing, Beth left for the air­port and the long trip home. I went on a tour of the South Main­land. We start­ed with the Croft House Muse­um. A recre­ation of a typ­i­cal croft with two small liv­ing rooms, a store­room, a barn, and thatched roof. While we sat inside next to a (smokey) peat fire, local story-teller David Coop­er told us a ghost story. 

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Scat­ness is an Iron Age vil­lage (and broch) that has been exca­vat­ed a cou­ple of times, most recent­ly in the 70’s. You can’t just go wan­der­ing around here; you get a guid­ed tour. We were lucky to find one of the arche­ol­o­gists in and got a very infor­ma­tive tour. She point­ed out that the broch is the old­est of the build­ings that they have exca­vat­ed so far but that there is anoth­er lay­er under­neath. When or if they will work that old­er site isn’t decided. 

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Final­ly we vis­it­ed the light­house at Sum­berg Head where there was cake, amaz­ing views, and the very large engines that make the fog horn work. 

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Sun­day I spent most of the day sit­ting in the HUB knit­ting and chat­ting with the folks stay­ing ’til the very end of Wool Week. Had love­ly din­ner and then packed up for the trip home. 

I am now on an air­plane very far up in the sky — fly­ing very fast on the way home to Seat­tle. And in a cou­ple of days you all will get to see this report.