Local knitters have been connecting Shetland Lace with fences for over a decade.

In 2011, local jewelry designer and textile artist Helen Robertson created her Hentilagets Project. Helen knit a series of Shetland Lace inserts using wire that were attached to the spaces in a fence surrounding a derelict croft house, as well as a wire lace curtain that filled a window space. I first heard about Helen’s project as a student in one of her classes.

In September 2024 as I interviewed Helen about her knitting history, I learned that the exhibit about the Hentilagets Project that hung at the Bonhoga Gallery was an inspiration for Anne Eunson to knit the fence around her garden using polypropylene netting twine. Images of the fence and Anne knitting it became a viral sensation on the internet, and she has since knit a few panels of the fence for visitors to see at the Shetland Textile Museum and has published the pattern for other ambitious knitters.

The lace panels on Church Road largely draw their inspiration from these two women as well as many other local Shetland lace knitters.

In 2023, I grew concerned about the state of the protective fencing between the upper and lower pavements on Church Road between the Masonic Hall and No. 9. A large hole had formed with jagged points and, inspired by Helen’s Hentilagets Project, I decided to see if I could knit a lace panel that would precisely fill the gap in the fence.

I did not want to attempt to fill the holes with wire knitting, though, as I did not have the skill to work with the thick wire that would have been needed. I knew that Shetland wool would not be a good fit for the project, as it would biodegrade too quickly. I didn’t want to use a plastic option due to growing concerns about micro plastic pollution. I was just beginning to explore natural fiber options when I picked up a copy of issue three of The Journal of Scottish Yarns, which featured a pattern crocheted using Nutscene garden twine which is made from jute.

At the time, the Peerie Shop on Harbor Street stocked colored Nutscene twine. With my material chosen, I just needed to choose a pattern.

I had recently knit the Loren shawl designed by Gudrun Johnston, which features a Shetland lace pattern called the Spider. I liked that its strong lines and defined holes complemented to repetitive structure of the fence itself without duplicating it. I took measurements of the hole in the fence and knit a patch that fit the space exactly.

That was in May of 2023. I was pleased with the visual impact of the patch, and it filled the hole. But it had done nothing to protect people from the sharp edges of the metal fence hole. And when I returned to the fence a few months later, the patch was badly faded by Shetland’s summer sun.

I went back to the drawing board, and inspired by Anne Eunson’s Lace Fence, I decided to knit a panel to cover the entire hole. I honestly don’t know why I didn’t just use Anne’s pattern at the time; I owned it already and it prominently features Print o’the Wave, which is what I ended up knitting. I think that, looking back, it didn’t occur to me to use Anne’s pattern because it “flows” horizontally and I was thinking vertically. Instead, I turned to the charts from Mandy Moore‘s Print of the Wave Beanie, which Jolene Garriock of Island Vista Shetland and I had commissioned from Mandy as a knit-along project for participants in the Makkin Our Way Through Shetland tours. The Print o’the Wave panel was hung in the fall of 2023 over the original Spider pattern. (The original purple panel has since been removed.)

The next fence panel was inspired by the Islesburgh Toorie, designed by Anne Doull as one of the 2024 patrons of Shetland Wool Week. The toorie features patterns that reference Margaret Doull‘s skilled lace knitting and the family’s involvement with the Shetland Flock Book. The panel was knit flat using Nutscene naturally-colored twine and colored twines by another maker and was hung in the spring of 2024 in a spot at the end of the fence where it also hides an electrical access box. The panel’s colors still faded through the summer months, though they were dutifully sprayed every 3 weeks with UV protectant that helped the colors last longer than the original Birds Eye patch.

In the fall of 2024, two more lace panels were added to the fence.

The first was a Cockleshell Lace panel. I had learned to knit Cockleshell the year before in a class with Rachel Hunter. It was a humbling experience to learn to knit 17 stitches together at once, especially when we were informed it’s a pattern children learn fairly early on! Knitting the lace panel in Cockleshell with the garden twine was a chance to approach the pattern with a larger yarn and a smaller ego. (I also incorporated the use of a crochet hook for the k17tog, if anyone else wants to give that a try!)

Carol Christiansen’s Shetland Fine Lace Knitting: Recreating Patterns from the Past had been released earlier in 2024. Dr. Christiansen had partnered with many of the local lace knitters of Shetland, including Anne Eunson and her sister Kathleen Anderson, to document the Shetland lace patterns present in the collection of the Shetland Museum and Archives. The pattern examples are charted in the book as square- or rectangle-shaped samples, so I decided to knit one for the fence. I settled on 3.7 Hexagon, Plain and Lace Hole Diamonds, Trees and Branches, which had been charted from TEX 2012.428a Stole in the museum collections. The only alteration is the repetition of the lace diamonds at the top of the panel to extend the length to fit the fence.

As I started this project, I felt very shy about my work. I am not a Shetlander. I do not pretend to have any sort of direct heritage connection to Shetland, fair isle knitting, or Shetland lace. I often make mistakes when I speak about it, misidentifying patterns and such, and I know I still have much to learn. I did not even intend for them to become a thing, necessarily. Yarn bombing is a worldwide phenomenon and after a while, they sort of melt into the background again. But the panels gained some online attention this year during Shetland Wool Week, and I’ve seen the number of tourists who stop and take photos and poke at them increase greatly over the last year, and so I’ve made this page to share the story behind the panels and point people to the lace knitters of Shetland who are doing far more impressive work than I. Click on any of their linked names, and I’m sure you will agree.

All of that said, I appreciate the patience of the women who have taught me what I have learned so far, many of whom are named above but also includes Elizabeth Williamson, Betsy Williamson, Elizabeth Johnston, Sheila Fowlie, Hazel Laurenson, and many other local women who have shared a tip or two with me at makkin events who don’t necessarily teach or write patterns, but knit for family and friends and the many charity shops in town or to sell at the gift shops at the various museums. If you are reading this because you are in Shetland as a tourist and are looking for a souvenir, keep in mind that purchasing Shetland lace from any of these locations helps keep the heritage craft alive and supports the community more directly than the purchase of magnets made abroad or even tweed items from mainland producers. I encourage you to shop Shetland while you are in Shetland.

At the moment, I don’t have plans for more panels. It’s probably time to replace the Print o’the Wave panel, and I need to fix how the last panel was hung. Chances are slim that I will do more colored panels because even with UV protection, the colors just don’t last long. So far, all of the panels have had a purpose or were a bit of personal growth or celebrated something. So I imagine that the next panel may come when the right inspiration flits by.