When she heard of Sara's interest in photographing Shetland traditions, she called a woman named Hazel and we set up a time to go see her today. She has the amazing title of "fastest knitter in the world". They have competitions and she is the reigning champion at this point.
In the meantime, we went to the crofthouse museum. Crofthouses are very rustic farming houses. People who lived in croft houses rented them from lairds (rich, powerful land owners) because they didn't have enough money to get a place of their own. This particular croft house was from 1880. It was equipped with all the details of that time. Here are some photos. Read the information sheet before viewing each photo:
A discarded boat serves as a roof for this storage shed. Talk about resourceful!
Again, resourceful. They hold the thatch on the roof down with weighted rocks.
The man here was very helpful and informative about the croft house. We must have visited for over an hour with him.
Next we went to visit Tommy Isbister a local boatmaker. He is retired just this year but he visited with us for quite a while...it was very interesting and he was very nice.
Here he is showing us the oldest boat on Shetland...from 1880's:
Here's the last boat that he made:
This is a water mill on his property. It's several hundred years old and is only 1 of 2 operating mills on Shetland. It was used to grind grains such as barley.
The grain goes into the top bin and drops to the grinding stone. Water underneath the mill is a little stream that turns the paddle and grinds the stone wheels to grind the grain.
Tommy rebuilt the stone structure using all the same stones. Look at the amazing art of stacking and holding these stones together. There was no mortar used.
Here's a hand grinding mill. You grab the handle and grind the mill. You put the grain in the middle hole and the ground product comes out between the 2 wheels.
This was at his place. Look at the little one hiding in her wing!
We headed across the island to Hazel's place:
So Hazel is the world's fastest knitter and she is amazing! We went to her house and she was so nice to let us in and talk about knitting and show us some of the things she has knitted. She is so well known she has even published books of knitting patterns. The thing is, though, that she doesn't follow any pattern when she knits those intricate designs....she just starts knitting!
Now you're in for a treat. Here she is knitting....yes, her flying fingers are actually knitting a very complex pattern using 2 different colors of yarn...spun from the wool of Shetland sheep. I think her knitting looks like a spider weaving a web. Here's a video:
Here's another one...notice how she talks while she's weaving the pattern and doesn't even look at her hands!
We headed back to Jan and Pete's but first stopped in Brae at Frankie's fish and chips, the most northerly fish and chips place in the UK.
As we drove around the island, this is a typical road. Note how narrow it is. When you encounter a car coming from the opposite direction, one of you has to pull over to the side to let the other pass. Everyone...and I mean everyone gives a wave as they go by...some of them are the Nebraska wave with only 1 finger being lifted.
We got back to Jan and Pete's and had a short time to regroup before going to the community hall in Hillswick where we sat in on a practice session of some local fiddle players. I'm going to post this and then go with a separate post for the session since there will be several videos.
Location:Shetland
When I first read this, I thought you meant that a "Nebraska wave" was when someone flipped you off (i.e. a one-finger wave). Had to think about that before I understood what you meant, haha!
ReplyDelete