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The History of Shetland Lace, Part 1 - S1Ep1
395 Plays5 years ago
Welcome to the first episode of this new podcast from the Archaeology Podcast Network! This is the first of six episodes in the first season. Today, Rachel and Heather talk about the history of Shetland Lace. In the second half they talk about starting the shawl pattern that's the focus of this season. What kind of yarn should you use? What about needles? You'll find out everything you need to know to start this project.
LinksTo get your copy of the pattern, and knit-a-long head over to Rachel’s pattern store on Ravelry (https://www.ravelry.com/designers/rachel-roden)To get the yarn Rachel recommends, head over to Jimmy Beans Wool (https://www.jimmybeanswool.com/knitting/yarn/BichesetBuches/LePetitLambswool.asp?showLarge=true&specPCVID=91487)ContactRachelRavelryInstagramTwitterFacebookWebsiteHeatherInstagramRavelry
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Structure
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. Welcome to the Historical Yarns podcast, the show where we talk about knitting from the past and bring it into the present.
00:00:21
Speaker
Welcome to Episode 1 of Season 1 of the Historical Yarns podcast. I'm Rachel Rodin. And I'm Heather Boyd. And this is the history of Shetland Lace, Part 1.
00:00:36
Speaker
If you're new to the podcast, here's a bit of background on how we organized it. Every episode will be made up of two segments. One where we discuss the knitting traditions, history, and techniques. And then a second where we talk about the Zetlin knit-along, which
Geography and Cultural Isolation of Shetland
00:00:50
Speaker
is a Zetlin-style shawl that I designed to go with the podcast. And if you need to get your hands on that pattern, just head over to Ravelry and you can download it there.
00:00:58
Speaker
We wanted to start out with some information about the geography and sort of the area of the world that we're working with here. Yeah, because these areas that we're going to be talking about, they're near each other, but far enough away that they have developed some really interesting techniques and things.
00:01:16
Speaker
So we thought it'd be important to give you the location so that you could have some context for where these places are. So the Shetland Islands, they are part of Scotland, of course. They are about 50 miles northeast of Scotland, and they are made up of about 100 islands, I think a few more than 100, up in the North Sea, I believe it is. It's practically Arctic up there, I think.
00:01:38
Speaker
Yeah, and do you fly out to the islands or take a boat? How do you get out there? I think you can do it both ways. It sounds like horrible either way, right? It must be so hard. How do you actually get there? I think they have ferries, because when my husband and I were in Scotland a couple years ago, I was really wanting to get out to one of the cool islands out there, you know? I mean, any of them really, because they're all so beautiful.
00:02:04
Speaker
just amazing, but the fairies, they're very specific schedule and even times of year because the water is so rough. So I think that's the only way to get out there. I'm sure you could do like a private plane or something like that too, but fairies is the main way. That's probably something that helped them develop their tradition, right? They're pretty isolated.
History and Development of Shetland Lace
00:02:23
Speaker
Yes, they are. There's not much to do except for hands.
00:02:28
Speaker
But yeah, when you have an isolated geographical area like that, you can talk more about this as the archaeologist, but you tend to have a more specific culture going on, less blending in from surrounding areas.
00:02:46
Speaker
Yeah, they get really good at certain things, right? And Shetland, their thing just became this lace knitting. So like we said, there's about 100 islands out there, but really only 16 of them are populated. And that total population is like 23,000. So it's pretty small, really, for such a large grouping of islands.
00:03:08
Speaker
And then just a little bit of geography information that's a pretty rugged coastline. They've got lots of low rolling hills, but it is really, really cold, like sub-arctic kind of climate. So obviously it makes sense that they would have developed ways to keep themselves warm. And I bet the sheep like it, right? Yeah. You grow really nice wolves. They do. Yeah. Yeah. In that climate. Yep. OK, so jumping into like the early development of the craft, I guess you could say.
00:03:37
Speaker
The earliest samples that we found date to around 1830-ish, but those samples are pretty fine samples. They're definitely not basic, so you can assume that they were developed even earlier than that, and then we just don't have any evidence of it earlier.
00:03:53
Speaker
It's pretty cool that that's when they started really honing their craft. So probably they were doing it from time immemorial, but really around that time they started to refine it because they were getting word of popularity of different imported shawls and pashminas from India and Kashmir.
00:04:15
Speaker
And in the late 1800s, Empress Josephine and Queen Victoria helped popularize them, the different shawls and the technique of Shetland knitting because they really took a liking to them and they wore them and they even gave them as gifts to visiting dignitaries of state. I think I even read somewhere that
00:04:37
Speaker
Harriet Tubman received one when she met Queen Victoria. Oh, how cool is that? I didn't know that. That's awesome. Yeah. So, I mean, that was one way, I guess, that the tradition ended up spreading all around the world. Yeah. You know, famous person. I know. It's really cool. They like figured out almost a way to get some marketing by getting the shawls out into the upper classes of society, the queen even. And all of a sudden everybody wanted a shawl like that. So it's really neat how they managed to get their craft out there like that.
00:05:06
Speaker
And from what I was reading to the imported shawls and stuff from India, Kashmir, Persia, places like that, a lot of them had designs on them, like the ferns and stuff like that. And that's where some of the Shetland stitches came into play, which we'll talk about more in the next episode. But you can really see how they were inspired almost to the point of copying some of the designs that they were seeing in these imported shawls.
00:05:31
Speaker
What I also thought was really interesting was that shawls weren't really a thing until the 1800s. Like before the 1800s women didn't really wear anything that could be
00:05:41
Speaker
really called a shawl. I mean, they kind of did, especially in places where it was really cold, like, you know, Scotland, of course. But the upper class, you know, places in England and stuff like that, they just weren't really wearing shawls
Shetland Lace in War Times and Practical Uses
00:05:53
Speaker
like that. They were. But then that style of dress that was really light and flimsy and flowy in the early 1800s, they just needed something over their shoulders to keep themselves warm, which is where the shawl really started coming into play. So I thought that bit of like fashion history was really, really interesting.
00:06:08
Speaker
Yeah, that is actually when you consider like, I guess necklides were kind of going down around the same time. Yeah, they'll come back up with Victoria, but... Yeah, Victoria Regency area. They went down for a little while. Yeah, for sure. Oh, man. Well, anyway, so it was very much a family-oriented craft.
00:06:27
Speaker
the women in the family would hone their skills. And then by the mid to late 1800s, many were making a living selling these fine shawls to the upper class ladies. So they were really, it was really booming at that point by the late 1800s. Sort of like cottage industry? Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely cottage industry.
00:06:48
Speaker
In the early 20th century, when the First and Second World Wars were going on, a lot of factories were used for making things for the war. So the fine knitted lace stuff that people could have bought from a factory before wasn't really available. And that's where the ladies on Shetland really stepped it up, because women still wanted their fine, pretty lacy things. And they couldn't get them as easily, so they had to buy them from an actual hand knitter, which I thought was really cool. Well, a certain class of lady that could actually afford it, right? True.
00:07:18
Speaker
Very true, yeah. We're still talking about upper class ladies, for sure. Yeah, but they're so light and frothy, it doesn't seem like they would be warm enough for. Yeah, from what I was reading, oh, right, HAP. So H-A-P, HAP, is what the ladies on Shetland would call the shawls that they would wear. And they were heavier, and more rustic, and unbleached, or undied, or whatever. It was just like the natural fibers. And those were much heavier and hard-wearing.
00:07:48
Speaker
So that's what they were wearing. With less lace, right? Oh, yeah. I think it was a lot less holes. Maybe something lacy around the edges, but that was pretty much it. So yeah, they weren't wearing those gossamer shawls themselves. What for? I can understand that. Well, living in Nevada, I mean, I've definitely knitted. I remember knitting the Eleanor Cowl from Knitty, and it's full of lace. And the first time I put it on and went out in the cold, I was like,
00:08:17
Speaker
This is useless. It's doing nothing. The wind blew. The Nevada wind, which like, yeah, it gets very strong here. It blew right through all the holes of that lace. And I was like, I'm going to send this to a friend in North Carolina. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I imagine it was the same thing for them, too. I mean, you got to go, I don't know, get some chicken eggs in the morning or whatever. You're not going to. You need a nice, heavy shawl before you walk out that door.
00:08:46
Speaker
Oh my goodness. Oh my gosh. All right. So let's talk about
Materials and Techniques in Shetland Knitting
00:08:51
Speaker
the sheep breeds a little bit. Shetland sheep are of course adapted to live in the cold windy islands. The coat itself is very thick with a long staple. So that makes it really strong and they could spin it really thin because you need a nice long staple length. And by staple, I mean the length of the fiber.
00:09:10
Speaker
when they share the shape in case anybody doesn't know what that means. So the staple length is nice and long, which makes it really stable for spinning into super thin yarn. What I found really interesting about that actually is that a lot of the traditional yarn was single ply, which
00:09:26
Speaker
People often shy away from single ply yarn these days because it can fall apart a little bit, especially if you have to rip it out a couple times on your project. Like it's just not always the most hard wearing of yarns, but I don't know, I'm getting the impression that these ladies were pretty expert at it. So I'm guessing they weren't doing too much for being out and they could knit with whatever they wanted. I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. And also, I mean, single ply tends to stick to itself a little bit more and, but maybe that's an add, you know, an advantage rather than a,
00:09:56
Speaker
Disadvantaged when you're coming to knit lace anyway with this type of stuff. Yep and of course they were primarily using hand spun yarn because you know that's what they had up there. They weren't sourcing it from mills or anything like that. They spun it all themselves. That whole sheep to shawl thing that has been kind of popular in recent years that was they were the original sheep to shawl people back then they started that movement.
00:10:19
Speaker
That's amazing. And what about colors? Oh, colors. So from what I was reading, they would knit the shawls in whatever color the fiber was, whatever it was naturally. So they didn't do a whole lot of dyeing. Well, not before.
00:10:34
Speaker
for knitting. So that's what's really interesting about this stuff is that they didn't do any dyeing before they knit with it. So it was usually brown or taupe or cream or whatever. But then after they're done, they would bleach it to get it super white because that's what the upper class ladies wanted. They wanted their super white, creamy, frothy shawls, you know? So they would bleach it to get that color. And then they would also dye them black sometimes for anybody who wanted a morning shawl.
00:10:59
Speaker
And then they would also dye them red, because apparently red was the color that you wore for weddings. Yeah, I didn't know that red was like the color for weddings, especially after that Game of Thrones episode. I can't think of red in weddings without thinking of that episode.
00:11:14
Speaker
I know. Keep right away from weddings now. I think of it as a color that signifies luck in Asian nations. Oh, it does. True. Yeah. But not in Scotland. I didn't know that. I know. We'll definitely put our sources in the show notes so that you guys can see where we got our information from. But yeah, that's what I was reading is that they would dye it red. Now, of course, it would be like a rusty red because they're using all natural dyes, whatever they could find to get the color. Probably a matter or something like that. Yeah, something like that.
00:11:43
Speaker
Anyway, I thought that was really cool. Fantastic. As far as what they would actually be knitting with, it was straight needles, of course. Circular needles are an invention of the 20th century. So they were using straight needles. And they caught them pins. They were like knitting pins. And they even had that technique where they would tie a waistband. They had like a waistband that they tied around their waist. Oh, that's right. Yeah, and the pin. With the rest.
00:12:08
Speaker
Like a rest for the pin. Yeah, exactly. You'd stick the pin into the waistband and then it provided stability that meant you could work just right on the ends of the needles and go really, really fast with it. So the ones who were super good would do it that way, I guess. It's cool.
00:12:26
Speaker
Wow, that's amazing.
Tradition of Wedding Ring Shawls
00:12:28
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah a lot of people who see Shetland shawls now They do associate them with the really really fine Work almost like needlepoint like teeny tiny yarn Very intricate lace like you've seen them used as baby blankets for the royal babies. Yeah
00:12:46
Speaker
Well, that's where like the wedding ring shawl comes from, right? That is so fascinating. And okay, so I definitely knit a wedding shawl for myself. We don't have to talk about the drama that went on behind that, but like suffice to say I had a wedding shawl on my wedding day. It was done like six hours before I got married, but that's fine.
00:13:06
Speaker
I think I've seen pictures of it blocking on the floor. Yeah, but what I didn't know it is it's huge but it definitely couldn't be pulled through my wedding ring because I just it's knit on bigger needles it's slightly bigger yarn I didn't know about the whole idea of the wedding ring shawl which is they could often weigh like
00:13:25
Speaker
Well, up to two ounces, usually less than two ounces, but they would be like six feet square. So super giant and light enough and fine enough that they could pull it through not the man's wedding band, the woman's like tiny little wedding band. So wasn't that sort of the test to see like how good of a knitter? I think
00:13:43
Speaker
So, yeah, or spinner, too, right? Because you had to spin the yarn super fine, and then you had to knit it super fine, too. And anyone who's ever spun yarn out there, especially with, you have to consider, you know, not all of these people had spinning wheels. They probably used drop spindles. Oh my gosh, they probably did, yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's a challenge. So it's a real skill. Yeah, for sure. So anyway, if I could go back and do it over, I would definitely try to make a wedding ring. I should try to do it anyway, because why not, right? It would be super fun.
00:14:13
Speaker
Oh, my husband might kill me if I did another wedding shawl. Only if it's the day before your wedding. Oh, my God. Your vow renewal. Oh, yeah, there we go. Vow renewal, perfect. All right, well, that's about everything we wanted to talk about as far as geography, development of the designs and things and the materials. And now we're going to take a quick break and we'll start talking about the first week's clue of the shawl.
00:14:41
Speaker
Welcome back to episode one. So in this section, we're going to discuss the pattern and the things that you might want to know. This first episode will be about the yarn and the gauge and things like that. If you're knitting along with us, you can grab a copy of the Zetlyn pattern on Ravelry and then get your yarn, get your needles, get your materials, and you will be all set and ready to start. So.
00:15:05
Speaker
Speaking of the materials, the yarn that I recommend
Choosing Yarn for Lace Knitting
00:15:09
Speaker
is a, it's a Shetland wool. Well, actually, it's a Scottish wool. I can't actually be 100% sure that it's Shetland wool, but it is a Scottish wool. It's by a company called, oh, you might have to help me with the French here. It's called a Bichées and Bouches, if I'm saying that right. Yeah, that sounds good to me. Okay.
00:15:27
Speaker
They have an interesting story of this little company. They're a French company, but they have sourced Scottish wool for this base, and I think several of their others as well. It's this gloriously squishy and soft Scottish wool. Got a lot of structure to it. I'm not going to say it's crunchy necessarily, but it's like rustic feeling. Medium rustic. Yeah.
00:15:51
Speaker
you're going to want to follow your nails with it or anything. No, no, it's not like that. It's definitely not what you're used to. If you're used to superwash yarns, you might think it feels a little rough. But we just want to remind you that not to be scared by that because a lot of that will block out into softness after you block it. And it's really necessary for the structure of a Shetland Lay shawl.
00:16:14
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, they created the stitches to go with the yarns that they had access to, and this is the kind of yarn that they had. And I can tell you from experience that knowing that a lot of people don't like working with the rougher yarns, I did start designing this shawl with a superwash, something typical.
00:16:33
Speaker
that you could find from any hand-dyer, you know? And I did not like how any of the stitches looked in it. I just, maybe it was the wrong needle or something, I don't know, but it was just so, like, floopy, I think, from the, from the superwash, floopy, technical term right there.
00:16:49
Speaker
I think we also know from dyeing yarns ourselves that a lot of the commercially available bases for small hand dyers, they tend to all be of a certain ilk and they have a lot of springiness to them because that's what people like to feel when they're holding a skein, right? Like when you go shopping for yarn, you want to feel that squish. You think that will equate to softness in your final project, but sometimes you have to make the
00:17:14
Speaker
the yarn fit the project a little bit better than that if you want certain qualities in the final project to come out. And I think you've chosen the perfect yarn, Rachel. Oh, thanks. Yeah, I definitely agree. Honestly, I had serious designer's block with this when I was first doing it, which is probably why it took us so long to get there. Sorry, Mr. Producer.
00:17:34
Speaker
But I did. And it was because I was trying to use a yarn that just was not a good fit for these stitch patterns. And that's not to say you can't ever use that kind of yarn for these stitch patterns. Sometimes you can really make it work. But with the kind of structure that I was trying to do, it just really wasn't working. So anyway, I think the main thing I can say about this is get whatever yarn you love. Because in the end, you have to love the way the yarn feels in your hands. And you have to love working with it.
00:17:59
Speaker
My recommendation to people when they're trying to find a yarn is just get something that you love working with and that you love the fabric that it's creating. And then just make the needle size work. Make the gauge work. And if you love working with it, even if it is, say, drapier than the pattern is intended to be, that's fine. That's totally fine. As long as you are happy with the final project, that's all that really matters. As our friend Sandy would say, you're in charge of your own knitting.
00:18:26
Speaker
So for lazy knitters like me also, since this starts from the center out, can you use that centerpiece as your gauge swatch or do you recommend swatching separately?
Knitting Techniques for Desired Results
00:18:36
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm also a lazy knitter. I don't like to swatch, especially for things like shawls. If it doesn't have to fit my body, I'm like,
00:18:44
Speaker
Why should I bother? So what I've done is I have included the gauge for the unblocked stitch that you will be casting on for the center of the shawl. So you can, you know, knit a couple inches of it and then get an idea of whether or not you're going to be on gauge. So that gauge is included in the pattern. And then also like your typical swatch gauges in there as well. So if you want to swatch first, you can do that as well. For me, I'm always take the lazy route and
00:19:10
Speaker
Just start. Just cast on. I'll rip it out and start over if it's not going to work. That's how I feel because when you're just dealing with the cast on that's just a few stitches it doesn't always matter. But the one thing I would like to point out is that if your circular gauge varies greatly from your flat gauge
00:19:26
Speaker
and you know that about yourself, then you may want to do a swatch. You want to do the swatch for the stitch pattern for the middle part of the shawl first with circular needles and get your gauge that way and then maybe do a little square swatch to see what your gauge is with this yarn and the square. Yeah, that's actually a super good point. So because the two gauges are in there, I definitely recommend checking it both
00:19:50
Speaker
If you go ahead and cast on and check your gauge there for that's you're gonna be in your in the round gauge and then knit that I know it sucks but knit that little a little separate piece flat so that you'll know and then because you can always just adjust your needle size when you switch from going round to flat if if you do have a pretty big difference Yeah, I think it's not a problem. But sometimes people have a very different circular versus flat gauge
00:20:13
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. So the other thing I wanted to talk about really quick as far as yarn substitution goes is fiber composition. So these stitch patterns, like I said, are definitely made to work with like that nice, light, wooly, sticky Scottish yarn. But, you know, go ahead and make your substitution if you want to, but keep in mind the fiber composition. If you're going to substitute in something that's like
00:20:38
Speaker
silk or cotton or another plant fiber that could react really differently with these stitches so swatch it and see if you like how the fabric looks and if you do go for it but block it too like I know that's another thing people don't like doing is blocking their swatches but the the blocking can have a great effect on those kind of fibers so anyway if you're going off script I mean I highly encourage it always go off script if that's your thing but just just check your gauge and block
00:21:04
Speaker
That's all. And also, I don't know if we've mentioned this yet, but this is a non-superwash yarn. And for those of you who don't know, superwash yarns tend to have a coating on them to make the fibers not felt. And that can greatly affect how the final product blocks out and even springs back on itself. So that's why Rachel was saying she didn't like the look of the fabric when she tried to knit it in a superwash yarn.
00:21:27
Speaker
And if you don't like it while you're knitting, you might like it even less after it's blocked. So they just behave very differently. They don't hold the stitches as well as the non-superwash yarn does. Yeah, it just stretches way out. And sometimes it bounces back. It almost shrinks back rather than bouncing back.
Episode Wrap-up and Resources
00:21:47
Speaker
It's like a slow ooze. It's like a slow sneak.
00:21:49
Speaker
It's what it does. And then you go back to look at a shawl that you'd knit three months ago and it only fits your two year old. And you're like, wait a minute, this was 80 inches. Why is it only 55 now? So anyway, don't want that to happen.
00:22:05
Speaker
So just a couple other things. I did build in about 10% extra into the required yardage. I think I recommended 954 yards. If you get the recommended yarn, that would be like three and a half skeins, basically. I had about a half skein left over on mine. So yeah, you should have plenty of play if you do have a little bit of variation in your gauge. But again, if you're going with a different yarn,
00:22:28
Speaker
Just get a little extra yarn. And on your Ravelry page where you're selling the pattern, do you have separate yarn suggestions? Will you, when you put the pattern on there? Yeah. We'll put a couple other suggestions on there. Yeah, because if this yarn is too hard to get your hands on, there's other things that would work just as well, some available in the States and some in the UK. Well, the different options are on the Ravelry page.
00:22:50
Speaker
All right, so that pretty much wraps it up for the yarn that you will need for the pattern and also gauge and the kind of things to look out for when you're shopping for your materials. On the next episode, we will talk about casting on for the shawl and the first section. So stay tuned for that. And if you haven't gotten your copy of the Zetland shawl yet, you can find that on revelry. Just search Zetland, Z-E-T.
00:23:14
Speaker
L-A-N-D and it'll come right up for you. You can get the pattern there and get all your materials and you will be all set to cast on with us next week. Thanks for listening and happy knitting!
00:23:32
Speaker
Thanks so much for listening. You can find me on Ravelry and on all the socials as Rachel Unraveled. And you can find Heather on Ravelry as HeatherBoyd84. Be sure to like and subscribe to the podcast wherever you found it, and we'll see you next time. Happy knitting!
00:23:49
Speaker
This show is produced and recorded by the Archaeology Podcast Network, Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle, in Reno, Nevada at the Reno Collective. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.