Shetland Autumn 2023 Day 7, Friday Sept 8th: Whalsay

This was our first proper day, ie it was a trip to Whalsay to the Heritage Centre to see the knitwear display in particular, so proper in that it was knitwear focused! Since I have been coming to Whalsay I have enjoyed the display of local knitwear tremendously. 

We had booked the ferry for 11.15 and were so pleased as it was another glorious sunny day and the sea looked calm! We have had some interesting journeys on the ferry to Whalsay! 

Leaving Laxo

As we arrived a hearse arrived and several of the funeral party were crossing as foot passengers. This was a reminder of how different life is when travel between the islands is ‘normal’. We felt very much intruders in their day of grief. 

We had planned to drive away from the ferry and find a spot for lunch before the Heritage Centre opened in the afternoon. We drove towards Ibister and stopped at the Youth  Centre where we had been on our first visit. 

View for lunch

Surrounding area 

When we were here previously there was a tea which just about fitted in before we went back of the ferry.   I had been to a ‘use a knitting belt and knitting fair isle in the round with only 3 needles  class’ with Amanda Pottinger and Janet many years ago now. (I have looked this up, it was 2017). It was a super class and definitely worth travelling to Whalsay for. I still use the fair isle pouch that I made for my Filofax! The class converted me to knitting in the round, including a yoked jumper,  with the stitches just on two needles! 

Filofax pouch with hand spun mixed purple colours yarn

We were at the Heritage Centre  soon after 14.00 and I was really pleased to see that Linda Shearer was ‘on duty’ during the afternoon. She told me that Britta and Wilma were coming over during the afternoon. I had a good chat with Linda and later with Britta and Wilma too. It was great to have a long session both looking at the knitwear and the folders of samples, newspaper cuttings etc that were  also available to study during the afternoon. 

 Several lace cardigans to examine and underneath this one is some lace knitted by Linda’s mother, Ina Irvine, a beautifully fine lace spinner and knitter who is sadly no longer with us. This one was a duplicate of one knit for the Queen of Norway.

An unexpected delight was to see the items that were knitted by the designers who had the patterns in the Shetland Wool Week Annual for 2022. Due to illness I had not been able to see these last year so it was great to be able to get up close to them this year.

This is from one of the folders, a 1930’s waistcoat with 19 different patterns. 

To me this is what  a trip to Shetland is about - about seeing how Shetland lace and fair isle were  knit in the past. Total immersion in knitwear for the afternoon. 

We caught the 16.15 ferry back. The sun was still out and it was a glorious drive back to Scalloway. I tried to take a photo from the motorhome showing the wind farm pylons. The windscreen should have been cleaned first! It is impossible to give a scale for these. I did look up the height and believe this to be 155m and there are 103 of them. They can be seen from most places on mainland as well as from Whalsay. 

It had been beautifully sunny all day. As we were getting out of the motorhome at the campsite, which must of been closer to 17.15 I noticed the outside temperature was 23C. This was unreal for us to experience in Shetland in September! 

What a great day it had been.