Wandering round the Orkneys

You know that facebook function that keeps reminding you of your memories? Every year around October, I get a reminder that I went on holiday to the Orkneys (quite some time ago now), and every time it does, I remember how much I loved it!

I went with a good friend who plays underwater hockey (yes, that’s a thing), who was going to some kind of championship meet (fun fact, underwater hockey is a bit think in the Orkneys!).

If you don’t know about the Orkneys, they’re a small group of islands about mid way between Scotland and the Shetlands.

Picture from wikipedia

You can fly there, but we drove— six hours from Edinburgh to the ferry, then about an hour, hour and a half on the ferry to get to the islands. We mostly stayed on the main island. I would have loved to visit some of the other islands, but unfortunately, didn’t quite have enough time.

First of all, the weather was amazing! And the people were so friendly! It’s fairly remote, I think they’re largely dependent on tourism, although there is alot of independent art and craft happening as well.

Above left: Maes Howe, right Skara Brae, both neolithic remains on Orkney. The day we went to visit Maes Howe, it rained for exactly 10 minutes—most of which happened as we were waiting at the entrance to go on our tour—we were soaked, and then we went inside, and the sun came out!

So, as I mentioned earlier, there’s a lot of craft happening on the islands. One of the coolest things we visited was the Sheila Fleet factory. I’m not really huge on production jewellery, but Sheila Fleet is a big name on the island. Known for her Scottish inspired enamel jewellery, I love her work , and it was amazing to visit the factory (and the associated showroom, of course!!).

This is a piece of Sheila’s jewellery that I own. I love the subtle colour gradient in the enamels, and sleek lines.

One of the things that was cool was the views into the workshops. On one side, you can watch workers wet-packing enamels in the jewellery adn then firing them in the table top kilns. On the other, you can see the finishing process of the jewellery. I admit, it was a bit of a revalation for me!

This is just a small snapshot of my trip, but I have to say, every time I think about it, I think about how I’d love to go back! In addition to these memories, I have memories of good food, walks along the shoreline, seeing the Italian Chapel and visiting the Hoxa Tapestry Gallery. One day I’d love to own one of Leila’s pieces!

How I became a kiltmaker

You might not have discovered this about me yet, but I love to sew! When I started doing custom jewellery shows (just pre-covid, sadly), I decided I needed some textile additions to my show display. And so I made these two mini quilts:

When I was thinking about moving back to Toronto, and what I was going to do with my career, I started thinking about my love of sewing, and how I might make some aspect of that into my business. While I love to quilt, I didn’t want it to become work!

Around that time, I reconnected with a friend in Edinburgh that happens to be a kiltmaker. We were chatting, and she happened to mention that they were starting up a kiltmakers academy to train the next generation of kiltmakers. You see, the art of traditional, handmade kilts was being lost, as knowledge was being lost or degraded over time. So, the idea was to develop a program that was a professional, technical designation, and bring some consistency of making to the craft again.

I love to hand sew, and there are a lot of Scots in Canada! So, I thought this might be useful . So, I spent 4 months of intensive Saturdays learning to make kilts on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh.

Here are a few examples of the kilts I made as part of the course. I had to complete a total of six kilts to graduate, including a child’s kilt, a military box pleat, an asymmetric tartan, a heavy weight tartan and a plain cloth kilt. In addition, I had to learn how to do alterations. It was a great course, and gave me a baptism by fire of most aspects of kiltmaking. I know about making pipers’ kilts and dancer kilts as well, although I didn’t have to make one to complete the course.

I feel very prepared to embark on my new journey as a traditional Scottish Kiltmaker!

Looking for an heirloom quality kilt? Or to have that kilt you grandparent handed down to you? Contact me for more information, and let’s talk!