The Petrie Family, dressing shawls, Shetland, ca.1910

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.