1 10 2 https://www.artisansinscotland.shca.ed.ac.uk/files/original/23221bfc0ecbe0bf9badbb122df40c8b.jpg df532e784121a2dd114455ef9a052907 Exhibition Item Category Textiles Image copyright Shetland Museum and Archives Item Location Shetland Museum and Archives Description This is a photograph of the Petrie family dressing lace shawls on Shetland in the early years of the century. Shawls were hand-knitted by women of the island then shipped by merchants or middlemen to be sold on the mainland. ‘Dressing’, sometimes known as ‘blocking’, was usually the last stage of Shetland shawl production. It refers to the process of dampening the finished shawl before pinning it with gentle tension to a prepared frame and then leaving it to dry in the stretched position. This process opens the lace construction of the knitting, creating a flat, evenly-tensioned surface that shows the full beauty of the shawl and its patterning. Shawl pattern names often reflected the landscape of the Islands, for example, ‘old shale’ and ‘print o’ waves’ were frequently-used Shetland lace patterns. P.E. Petrie was listed in the Mansons’ Shetland Almanac Directory as a ‘cleaner and dresser of Shetland hosiery’ at Albany Street, Lerwick, though, as this photograph shows, several female members of the family were involved in the process of preparing shawls for selling. Historian Lyn Abrams has noted that dressers worked for either the knitter or the selling merchant, and that a hand-knitter could do business with a merchant or sell her goods directly to island visitors or travelling salesmen. When selling to merchants, shawls were often paid for in essential provisions rather than money with merchants providing the wool to island women who knitted shawls and hosiery in between their other crofting duties. Miss Algy Peterson grew up in a two-bedroom cottage in Shetland, and when interviewed in 1902 about her family life and childhood recalled that her mother knitted shawls in between other tasks of working on the croft or gutting herrings. When Queen Victoria was gifted some examples of fine knitting from Shetland in 1837 a fashion for Shetland shawl knitting followed and patterns were published in women’s magazines and sewing manuals. In 1846 W.S Orr & Co of London published Mrs J.B Gore’s pattern for ‘The Royal Shetland Shawl’, which illustrates the skill, intricacy and patience involved in Shetland-style knitting. The instructions for the shawl border alone were to cast on 600 stitches, repeat four rows of pattern to the length of half a yard, then finish with a 21 rows of edging. This photograph was taken by John David (Jack)Rattar, a Shetland-based photographer who documented the island’s landscapes, wildlife and craft traditions. Rattar’s photographs appeared in The Manchester Guardian and the Society magazine Country Life, but he also ran a thriving business in Lerwick selling framed copies of his photographs and postcards as keepsakes for tourists visiting the island. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Petrie Family, dressing shawls, Shetland, ca.1910 aristocratic patronage fashionable consumption knitters photographers shawls Shetland women’s industries https://www.artisansinscotland.shca.ed.ac.uk/files/original/e4e6665368524276f9e1e496a15395b7.jpg e85b5aea4c80b5eb559af55b8c1ac5fa Exhibition Item Category Textiles Image copyright © Shetland Museum and Archives Item Location Shetland Museum and Archives Description This photograph shows the eye-catching Shetland Stand from the Women’s Industries section at the Edinburgh International Exhibition of Industry, Science and Art in 1886. It represents a group of women knitters as a community of craft workers, though three of the girls were from Mainland Shetland and three from nearby Fair Isle. The standing figure is Barbara Muir, sister of Margaret Currie who ran Currie & Co a truck-free shop buying and selling Shetland knitting from premises at Freefield Docks in Lerwick. The women attended the exhibition to raise awareness of the skills of Shetland’s knitters and to sell hand-knitted goods made on the islands. The unusual shape of the stand reflects its construction from whale jawbones, prize remnants from another important Shetland industry. Shetland flags are displayed on either side of the Shetland coat of arms with its distinctive longboat motif and a horizontal banner reads ‘Zetland and Fair Isle Knitters’. The display includes a spinning wheel, a woven kishie (basket) perhaps to hold skeins of wool, and tables on each side of the stand that are draped with fine lace knitted squares. A large lace shawl is one of the many items pinned and draped above the knitter’s heads in this photograph. Fishing and crofting were key industries on Fair Isle and Mainland Shetland but knitting was also economically important to the islands’ communities of women who supplemented their family income and sometimes fed their families on the proceeds of their handiwork. Girls were taught to knit as soon as they were old enough to hold needles, creating items of clothing - shawls, vests and socks – that could be sold to visitors or brokered through merchants. Cash payments for knitting were known but knitted items were more frequently exchanged for essential goods and provisions through Shetland’s cashless truck system. This came under scrutiny in 1872 when a Parliamentary Report revealed the economic realities of Shetland knitting. At a time when four-fifths of all the island’s women were thought to be involved in the hosiery industry - whether as spinners, hand-knitters or in subsidiary tasks such as carding wool of garment finishing - claims were made that when paid in goods rather than money the true value of knitting valued at nine shillings was often as low as four shillings (Report to the Board of Agriculture for Scotland, 1914). The Shetland Stand at the Edinburgh Exhibition was organised by G.H. M. Thoms, Sheriff of Orkney and Shetland, Currie & Co and Mr Laurence of Fair Isle as an educational spectacle where visitors could see the processes of the industry – carding, spinning, dyeing and knitting - ‘practically shown’ by the deft fingers of six young women dressed in national costume. (Official Exhibition Catalogue p. 280). The Scotsman newspaper highlighted the display as one especially ‘worthy of notice and proving of great interest to visitors’. It offered an opportunity to bring makers and purchasers together, though prices had to be clearly tagged and items could not be removed by purchasers until the end of exhibition. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The 'Jaw Bone' Stand at the Edinburgh International Exhibition, 1886 aristocratic patronage Edinburgh exhibitions Glasgow home industries knitters shawls Shetland women’s industries