Felting Fun - Shetland Wool Week 2014

Amongst other things Shetland is famous for its sheep, its wool and its distinctive Fair Isle knitting which come together every year for wool week. Shetland Wool Week has been running for 5 years now and coincides with national wool week. This year I had visitors for a long "wool weekend". Wool week seems to be getting bigger each year and this year was a real treat. There have been classes and exhibitions dotted all over the islands. As I have mentioned before I am not a knitter but I loved the idea of doing something new and different so I signed myself, my friend and her mum up to a needle felting course. None of us had ever done it before so it seemed like a fun idea.

We had all tried our hands at spinning with mixed success earlier in the week and I soon discovered that I am just not coordinated enough to pull it off, in fact I feel I am so uncoordinated that I should be proud of myself for being able to walk. On the night of the felting we set out in a gale with crazy rain and went to the class in the Peerie Cafe in Lerwick. I was not sure how well the cafe would work as a setting, it is always bustling in the day and has a lovely atmosphere, so it was odd going at night but it actually worked really well. We were upstairs and there were just enough people to fill the tables. Everybody was really friendly and chatty.

The class was ran by Ana and Amy who were friendly and very approachable. They started with a short demo and then let everybody get stuck in. The principle is very simple, we were provided with prepared felt rectangles and there was a table full of prepared coloured fleece. The course information said to take an image with us and they provided books with extra. You place the fleece on the felt and stab with a barbed needle until the fibres fuse. In principle this is very straight forward and anything you are not happy with you can remove.

I had found it difficult to choose an image but when I saw the box of  beads and embellishments I decided on Mousa as the postcard I took along had flowers in the foreground. The difficulty for me came in the fact that you just have to "go with it" as its not marked or traced. I started out trying to draw and realised I had to just do it and see what happened. Initially I tried layering colours on top of each other but it was looking too stripey so I took it off. I then pulled it into little pieces and mixed it back up. It is a huge advantage that you can put something on with a few stabs of the needle and if you are not happy you can lift it back off. I loved the way that you can build up the colours and picture and I marked out my fallen walls with thin wool and felted over them to give texture.

I felted my broch separately to try and get the shape and then I felted it onto my hill. I had been quite aggressive with my felting and some of the colour was showing on the back - this was easily solved by adding another pad of felt to the back and felting it on. I added in my beads in the foreground and suddenly felt comfortable again with a "normal" needle in my hand. I blanket stitched around the edge to neaten it up and down to curiosity as much as anything I wrote 'Mousa' in local wool on the back and felted it in. I took a few minutes to decide what to write as my first thoughts were longer words and I imagined me trying to scrunch the letters in like a badly designed poster at school.

I was impressed that I had produced something in just under 2 and a half hours. It was fun to do and my piece was neat and recognisable even if I had taken a little artistic licence with proportions. What amazed me was the array of fantastic pieces around the room although I got broch envy at a much larger more detailed broch!

My friend produced a fantastic postcard based of St Ninians with a stunning moody sky. She was far more bold in her approach and balanced colour and texture with well placed embellishments. My friend's Mum excelled despite also being a beginner, she chose a Ram that she had found in the wool week promotional bag - the original design was a bright watercolour. She translated the head with fantastic accuracy and added detail to the nose, eyes and horns and it was looking lovely. She then took it a step further and padded it creating a 3D rams head that made it pop. She backed it on darker felt and blanket stitched the edge. This gave it a fantastic professional finish.

It was a lovely night to spend a night and everybody was friendly and shared ideas and designs. I will most certainly be looking out for any more classes next year.

St Ninnians by Maria Bell on the left, Wool Week Ram top right by Glynis Bennison and bottom right is my Mousa.

Entering an Art Competition - Shetland Open

I decided to enter the Shetland Arts Open Competition. In some ways this is odd as I have never classified myself as an artist, but they do have a craft and design section. It is a local competition for those with a connection to Shetland so as a resident I could enter. I was expecting the competition to be fierce as there are a lot of incredibly talented crafters on the Isles and it is open to all abilities. It is also only ran every two years. With all this to consider I wondered a couple of times why I was putting myself through this and the answer was simple - I wanted the challenge. Not of winning or even competing but of making something that I am pleased to put my name to and happy to have hanging on the wall of a gallery I love.

The entries are displayed at Bonhoga which is one of our frequent haunts. It is a converted Mill on the West mainland of Shetland. It has a lovely modern gallery with a wide variety of exhibitions, a charming gift shop and a fantastic cafe with a conservatory that looks out over the burn. The cafe has the best cheese scones and onion chutney as well as being very child friendly. This years competition is celebrating the conversion of Bonhoga 20 years ago and as Bonhoga means 'spiritual home', the theme is 'home'.

I approached the theme in my usual way which was to jot all ideas down for 3 days until something stuck. To stick it has to be true to the theme, I had to be able to visualise it, it had to be a little arty and different and I had to be happy to put my name to it. I find it hard to get the motivation and drive to make something for the sake of making it or to appeal to a lot of people. So I had to design something that I knew at least one person would love and that was a little personal to me. One of the conditions for entering is that the piece has to be offered for sale, but if it does not sell then I know where I am sending it, although if it does sell I may have to use some of the techniques and do another piece!

My ideas ranged from obvious sayings like "home is where the heart is" to movie references - I wanted to stitch red sparkly shoes. I thought about playing on the theme of bringing home the bacon or home sweet home. I spent time thinking about spiritual homes and places that matter. I almost used the stained glass windows in our library as a starting point as I think libraries are where I have always felt at home and the one in Lerwick used to be a Church.

Up Helly Aa

The last Tuesday is January is the Lerwick Up Helly Aa. This is the largest fire festival in Europe and is dominated by Vikings. There is a buzz around Up Helly Aa that is hard to avoid or ignore, the shop fronts in town all have displays and a lot of places close on the Wednesday after. I also felt more of a build up this year by attending children's activities with my daughter. After a special Bookbug session (music and stories) with songs such as "Old Man Olaf had a Farm" and a special craft afternoon at the museum making shields and helmets I was very much in the mood. It was lovely to see a group of children in a procession around the museum knowing that they will be the squads of the future.

Things start to warm up before dawn when the Jarl squad unveil the proclamation in the centre of town. The proclamation is a tongue in cheek look at local news and events. Later in the morning the Jarl squad parade through the town with the 'galley', a specially made longboat, before spending the day visiting local schools and groups. The parade is accompanied by a pipe band and a brass band. Normally the galley is taken down next to the Bressay Ferry terminal in front of the harbour for photographs, however this year it was moved to the town hall due to the gales.

The main procession takes place in the evening with all of the squads lighting their torches simultaneously from flares. This year there were 47 squads/ groups of men with the Jarl squad being the squad that dress as Vikings. The other 46 squads have a theme and fancy dress. They parade through the town carrying the torches, singing and following the galley. At the end of the procession the galley is burned (in a children's park of all places). The costume of the Jarl squad is a well kept secret and the craftsmanship is amazing. This year it was all black and white with amazing chain mail and cow skin capes. The helmets were incredibly heavy and the shields were beautifully decorated. Sadly it was very windy but the procession went ahead and it is a fantastic spectacle to see thousands of men march through the town shouting and cheering following a galley. The burning of the galley is impressive as is the ceremony of the whole thing. There is a firework display after. The atmosphere is great and there is a definite buzz of excitement.

Torch lit procession

Following the procession we headed to the hall. The halls are run by a dedicated team of volunteers and for most halls you need to get a ticket from a host or hostess. Each hall is different but the one I was at had a great atmosphere and an amazing band who played through the night in between acts. There was food served along with hot drinks and soft drinks all night. The 47 squads tour around the halls each performing an act. The quality of these acts varied greatly but all had something to offer from sleek choreography, a local campaign, an in-joke at the Guizer Jarl or just men in drag dancing to Beyonce. They were all fun and entertaining. In between the acts there was dancing, I am awful at Ceilidh dancing and have only picked up bits in the last few years but the atmosphere was great and people were more than happy to talk you through it. There were slots allocated to the hosts where they take over the kitchen, I was happy to help my hostess at this point and it was great fun with a lot of banter and a lovely atmosphere. The home bakes that had been donated were amazing and I went through the night on some very yummy cakes.

Burning the Galley

More photos of the day can be found here

Northern Lights

Photograph of Northern Lights, Sandwick Shetland 07/02/2014 Kevin Riley

There are lots of advantages to living in Shetland and many beautiful things to see and experience. The winter night sky is one of them; it is fantastic on any clear night and shooting stars are a regular occurrence. This winter has been dominated by great views of Jupiter and some of it's moons. The Northern lights are a real highlight and there is something special and spectacular about an aurora especially when it catches you by surprise. This photo was taken by my husband who was out stargazing and no aurora had even been forecast. We get a faint glow quite often but a 'full show' like this is special, it gets really light and the sky ripples as curtains of light move across.

We have been lucky to catch five such auroras that stand out in the five years we have been here. Each one being different and having its own merits from being right overhead to having red amongst the green and huge 'curtains'. It is stunning and it makes you feel rather small in the universe. The more I think about the particles causing it the more mind blowing it becomes. This photograph has not been manipulated and it taken from a bridge camera with a long exposure. I like it as it is a good reflection of the strength of the aurora albeit not able to do the ripples justice.

Westerwick Walk

When we first moved to Shetland we initially explored with the help of the Walk Shetland routes, which are well marked and cater for mixed abilities. With a break in the wet and windy weather we wrapped up warm and took to the cliffs last Sunday.  We headed to the West of Shetland on one of the few walks we have not done and it was amazing. To get there we drove through Skeld taking the turning for Westerwick and Silwick and then followed the signs to Silwick. As with most coastal walks in Shetland we began by driving to the end of the road and finding a place to park. For our car this was easily out of the way of the large agricultural building but I would not recommend taking a bus. We walked along a private road next to the agricultural building and from there the cliff top walk was signposted. One of the lovely things about this walk is that you get great views from the start, with these stacks visible about 100m from the car.

Stacks at Silwick, photo Kevin Riley 

The cliffs and stacks are superb and the cliff faces were alive with fulmars. We saw hauled out seals and generally managed to blow the cobwebs away. There was not a lot of wind but the residual swell caused the waves to break nicely at the bottom of the cliffs adding to the spectacle. Looking due South we could see Fair Isle on the horizon and Foula to the West as well as a fine view of the South mainland of Shetland and the Burra Isles. The cliff tops were all fenced off at this point but as we headed down towards Westerwick the fences dissapeared. Crossing the burn at Westerwick was made easy by the gates, styles and bridge. The burn itself was rumbling and a healthy peaty orange colour.

Hauled out seal at Westerwick, photo Kevin Riley

It was slightly wet underfoot and there are some steep areas as we headed west out of Westerwick. It was fine to do with a toddler in a backpack-style carrier and would be okay for anybody with a basic level of fitness but a good pair of walking boots would help at this point. We finished our walk at Giltarump stack and headed back the way we came. The Walk Shetland route is longer and circular but we were testing the patience of our daughter. The whole walk took us just over 2 hours although this included a stop for a picnic and plenty of photo taking. 

Giltarump stack, photo Kevin Riley

It is a really pretty walk even by Shetland standards with some stunning geology and lovely wildlife, I would highly recommend it.