Back from Scotland

I apologize for the gap in posts--somehow once I've been away, it takes me awhile to get back to a routine. The trip to Scotland last month was memorable and I'll share more of our experiences in future posts.

Members of our Scottish Skeins group in July were privileged to have workshops and to meet with talented members of the Shetland Guild. As we looked at their beautiful lace in detail, it gave us all a deep appreciation for the talents of the Guild members . We even made the local newspaper, The Shetland Times, which featured a photo of our group with members of the Guild, and an acknowledgement of our contributions to the building fund of their new museum.

One day on Orkney we visited the tiny village of St. Margaret's Hope, locally known as 'The Hope'. It is the site of an excellent little craftshop, called the Workshop, which carries the creations of a number of local artisans. Many of our group went home with North Ronaldsay yarn, jewellery and other treasures.

We also met with Liz Lovick at her home, which is just across from the Workshop. Liz has produced two CD-Rom discs, "Knitting Ganseys" and "Knitting Shetland Lace." I've just had a quick look at them and intend to view them in detail--they have a lot of history, instruction and patterns. Liz's website is: www.northernlace.co.uk/

I was reading the latest KBTH today and in addition to the many positive comments about an Estonian book of lace, there was a link to a submission Liz prepared for the KBTH Lace Virtual Conference, dated March 2006. Have a look at:
www.knittingbeyondthehebrides.org/lace/SameButDifferent.pdf. It is subtitled 'Shetland Lace in a European Context'. A lot of work and research went into this paper.