Features / Textile museum exhibits global neckwear
NESTLED between Lerwick Power Station and a phalanx of industrial buildings at Gremista, the Shetland Textile Museum is currently hosting an exhibition consisting of finely crafted woollen neckwear of all different shapes and sizes. The pieces were collected during a competition this spring that attracted a host of international entries, and Louise Thomason went along for a look.
“What can you wear around your neck and shoulders to keep you nice and warm? And look good at the same time?”
This was the question put to knitters by the Shetland Textile Museum recently, as part of a competition inviting folk to create a unique piece of neckwear.
Open from 25 April to 1 June, the competition saw a wide variety of items sent to the museum. In total 26 entries from around the world – including Japan, Poland, Denmark, England, Scotland and, of course, Shetland – each with varying styles, patterns and colours, were received.
Among them were some traditional looking scarves and shawls as well as the more unusual: a small white scarf, hand-knitted in Shetland 2-ply jumper-weight, in double moss stitch to create a self knotting effect, for example; and a delicate lace necklet choker knitted with 1-ply Shetland lace-weight yarn with tiny blue beads knitted in.
The competition offered winners goodies from Jamieson’s of Shetland, with the criteria including knitting a piece of neckwear from Shetland wool. To win, the judges were looking for originality, technique, colour and the ”wow factor”.
Finding winners in each of the five categories – lace, handspun, hand-framed, Fair Isle and “everything else” – was no mean feat given the high standard of the knitwear sent in.
Each of the winning items were notable: in the Fair Isle category, Tomoko Yamaki from Japan won with a snood-like short circle scarf. Taking inspiration from the Nanzenji temple garden in Kyoto, the piece was knitted using eight colours – lavenders, greens, charcoals and blues – to create a fusion of Japanese and Shetland styles.
Winner of the hand-framed category, Juliette Labourne, of Shetland and England, took inspiration for her piece from fabric woven at the Bressay Lighthouse during Wool Week 2015. “Lighthouse Lace”, a soft fawn wrap in 100 per cent organic Shetland Vaila wool, features bands of textured lace alternating with plain knitting. The pattern was inspired by traditional Shetland lace and Adies of Voe’s pinstriped tweeds, and achieved by manipulating stitches on a machine by hand.
Shetlander Mavis Ross’ beautiful and delicate beaded shawl won the handspun category. She used turquoise tops from Jamieson and Smith and grey handspun yarn to create her piece, using a theme of flowers, trees and leaves and plain and garter stitch to achieve a textural finish and tiny beads shoulders and the edging.
A white lace scarf from Shetland’s Elaine Nicolson won the lace category. Featuring a hood, the piece was inspired by lace garments belonging to her family, and knitted as part of the Shetland College textile department’s end-of-year exhibition by third year students.
Meanwhile, Tove Hendriksen from Denmark won the “everything else” category with her striking double-knit “klipfisk” cowl. Knitted in green, from Jamieson’s fern and leprechaun double knit yarns, the collared piece reflects on Shetland’s knitting and fishing traditions using motifs representing the split dried cod of its name – klippfisk – in Danish. This piece has been taken into the museum’s permanent collection.
Shetland Textile Museum’s exhibition manager Brita Hovenmark said: “We were really, really pleased with the variety of the entries. There was everything from quirky items to beautiful lace.
“It was very slow to begin with, in April and May, and we thought this was no fun. But then it just exploded! So to have ended up with 26 entries is not that bad.”
She said the museum were very grateful to Jamieson’s for providing prizes.
- All of the entries will be on display at the Shetland Textile Museum at the Bod of Gremista through Shetland Wool Week, and visitors are invited to cast their own vote on the entries. The public vote will be open until the end of the month.
Louise Thomason
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