Arts / A celebration of lace knitting – broadcast live

A SHETLAND textile designer is embarking on a 12-hour live broadcast from Unst to celebrate traditional lace knitting.

Sitting in a deckchair overlooking Burrafirth and knitting with handspun yarn, Helen Robertson said she hopes to honour the lives of her ancestors and their ability to create such delicate lace knitting in a life that was most of all dominated by hard work.

Helen Robertson

Helen Robertson

“I see this as tying together various parts of my own and others island heritage. For countless generations, Shetlanders were reliant on the sea and knitting for their survival,” the creative practitioner said.

And she shared a wedding photo of her great granddad and his wife wearing a hand knitted Unst stole.

She said the performance was an attempt to “tie together the sea, the lace and the knitting” and to highlight how much relative leisure and ease “we have in our life compared to what they had”.

“So, it is kind of a memorial thing but as a celebration. It pays tribute to the hard work and skill of the past generations, while acknowledging and symbolising our own modern possibilities for leisure.”

Her knitting marathon will be broadcast live on Shetland Webcams starting on Tuesday (tomorrow) at midday.

Produced with financial assistance of Shetland Arts, Helen hopes her performance will give Shetland lace knitting a wider audience and, more generally, create a new platform for viewing and engaging with Shetland crafts.

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