The Independent Stitch

Mainland Orkney: Kirkwall as a home base

Kirkwall is the largest community in Orkney, and is located on the largest island, called Mainland. It makes a terrific base of operations. As with everything I'm writing about pertaining to this trip, I can't do it justice but I can offer glimpses.

Here's a view of Kirkwall, with Saint Magnus Cathedral prominent:

I can't get the cathedral's own website to load right now (it may later when I'm not writing at the coffee shop—indeed, it did), and my photos of the interior seem to be AWOL. I'll have to go to Orkney again and take more, won't I? (It's a tough job, but not one I'd want to delegate.)

For the most part, I focused on early history and sheep-related topics during my time in Orkney. There's so much there that the only way not to go nuts trying to see and do everything is to have an organizing principle in mind for the visit. Even with personal guidelines (or, rather, boundaries), I found it was only possible to do reconnaissance and think about what I was seeing that would shape a future visit. (The same was true for Shetland.) The cathedral in Kirkwall was outside my primary scope, or so I thought. But it was so conveniently located (and highly recommended by a friend) that I did get there just before I left, and was very glad to have done so.

But back to getting oriented in part of Kirkwall.

Here's the street that was the focus of my days there. It is, obviously, better constructed for the use of pedestrians than for cars. And in windy, wet weather, it's more sheltered than other parts of the nearby environment. I'd give names of streets, but they seem to change every few blocks. Walking around is easier than giving directions with names on them. I'm pretty sure this section was called Victoria Street. Other parts of the same continuous route were called Albert Street, and one section might have been Castle Street. (In the other direction, the road turns a corner and becomes High Street, and then Old Scapa Road, and then . . . on foot, it's not confusing at all.)

A number of narrow passageways lead off that primary street. One I photographed is called Gunn's Close. As I mentioned in an earlier post, although I'm a mix of heritages, one predominant family line is the Robson one, a branch of the Gunn clan, which was resident in northeastern Scotland and . . . Orkney.

A similar narrow, but dead-end, passageway on the other side of the main street and a little bit farther from the cathedral led to the self-catering apartment where I stayed. "Self-catering," for those not familiar with the concept, involves renting a space that has cooking facilities and where the itinerant residents do some of the housekeeping to prepare for the next inhabitants (i.e., "leave it as you found it, to the best of your ability"). The arrangement has the huge benefit of permitting easy, comfortable, and economical meals. It isn't necessary to eat out unless you want to.

Just down the street was Lucano, however. It is an extraordinary Italian restaurant, and a delightful place for a lunch and a dinner. The sort of place you do go back to.

As you may have noticed, parking along the street is scarce and short-term. Basically, you can drive along the street to deliver things (like your luggage) or pick them up (if they are, for some reason, too bulky to carry). Thus the car got parked a block uphill, on another street that was adjacent to these garden plots.

The view from there of Kirkwall (and beyond) was lovely.

There are larger roads running through the area, and if you walk from where I stayed back up toward where I took the first photo, you will find a couple of supermarkets, including a Tesco. If you're walking from Victoria Street, you can use trips destined for Tesco as an opportunity to see what happens if, for example, you walk down Gunn's Close.

When I was at the Tesco in Kirkwall, I noticed KNITTING in one of the refrigerated cases.

This is apparently not unusual. But it was one of my first tours of a Scottish grocery store on this trip, and while I ultimately got the hang (more or less) of how they were organized and how things were packaged and what brands were associated with what products, it was comforting (if also a bit startling) to catch sight of "the big knit" in a cooler. It turns out that "the big knit" is a very cool thing even when it's not refrigerated.

I found several types of SHEEP (only one is pictured here) in another aisle.

Farther down what I came to think of as "the street," although there are many others, is The Orcadian book shop, a fine place.

Look what I found there—see the asterisks (it was a fine place even before I made these discoveries):

Another place to visit was R. A. Finn, where I missed out on some hand-dyed North Ronaldsay yarn because I thought it would be there the next day (it wasn't) . . . 

But I did get a skein (now two balls) of marled North Ronaldsay yarn to play with.

And then there's The Reel. Also within walking distance. A great coffee shop with free wifi. An easy place to hang out. (There was wifi in the self-catering unit, but The Reel's was more reliable, if only available when the place was open.)

 AND MUSIC.

I bought a CD—Jennifer and Hazel Wrigley's Idiom. Except for the need to conserve money for wool, I would have bought more. I'll have to go back, right?

Although I'm not done talking about Kirkwall yet (the post on the museum is in process) and we haven't gotten to North Ronaldsay, which was also part of the Orkney section of this adventure, I need to mention the last night in Kirkwall, just before the overnight ferry trip to Shetland. The ferry leaves Kirkwall a little before midnight. It's good to get in the car line about 10:30 or 11. What to do to stay awake and happy until it's time to play the ferry game?

Leave the car somewhere and walk in the early evening toward the welcoming lights of the white building housing The Reel.

Tea, a light snack, and an open music session make for a sweet departing point.

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Next posts will backtrack a bit, for the sake of The Orkney Museum in Kirkwall and the fine and amazing and wonderful and windy time on North Ronaldsay.

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The new-to-us pup now has a new name: Tam.

And the approval of our already-resident Border collie, Ceilidh.

More on that soon, too.

Mainland Orkney, and the Boreray boys (plus a new dog note)

The travel notes continue. I'm skimming the surface, and still there is so much to say. . . .

The next series of posts will be about mainland Orkney. (To allay some confusion: I was in mainland Scotland; also in Orkney, where the largest island is called Mainland; and then in Shetland, where the largest island is called Mainland.)

While on mainland Orkney, I got to visit Jane Cooper and her Boreray boys:

Jane recently moved to Orkney and is getting settled into her home there, new to her and now with sheep.

Borerays are one of the rarest breeds, and are one of two rare breeds that originated in St Kilda (in case you're reading this in a library, that site loads with an audio clip of sea sounds), a group of islands in the North Atlantic west of the Hebrides. (The other breed from there is the Soay. The Rare Breeds Survival Trust's PDF about Borerays is here.)

These are just little guys. They're a bit skittish, but they can be enticed to come closer (temporarily) by food. They're growing fast. I'll bet Jane will be nostalgic looking at these photos, which were taken not so long ago!

It was great to see Jane again. We met at UK Knit Camp in 2010. Jane has been the instigator, in close collaboration with Sue Blacker, of the Boreray yarns that have been coming from Blacker Designs. Having collected Boreray fleeces from far and wide for those mill runs, it's only fitting that Jane should now have her own Boreray sheep. And I was delighted to be able to make this visit. Thanks, Jane!

To celebrate these special yarns, Liz Lovick designed a special pattern for a shawl or scarf. There's a lot of history and story and delightful creative energy at that post of Liz's that I linked to about the pattern.

Next I'm working on posts about Kirkwall, which was "home base" during most of the Orkney days (except for the ones I spent on North Ronaldsay—and Liz is responsible for the extraordinary time I had there! more soon).

But for now, we can just enjoy these charming fellows and all those lovely related links.

___

P.S. We thought we had a name for the new dog, but it's not quite sticking. He came to us as Baxter, yet he's really soft for a Baxter; it just doesn't fit him and doesn't roll off our tongues easily when we look at him. We thought River, but that's a little too soft, even though it has the same cadence, which is a plus. Oh, the matter of names! As he goes to the vet, gets a microchip, and so on, changing his name will get more complicated the longer it takes us to find out what he wants to be called in our family. Sholmet, because he's white-faced? (Not quite a good call name.) Rakki, because he's a dog? (Too percussive for him.) Wash? Maybe. Tam? Also maybe. Spark. . . . Speck. . . . Fendy (meaning "seaworthy"). ?!?

Does anyone know a good word for "happy" in some semi-relevant-to-our-lives language? He has a very optimistic outlook on life, strong even yesterday, which involved immunizations (one did sting a lot), microchipping (which took two tries), a complete physical including blood draw for heartworm check, treatment for mild yeast infections in both ears (drops will be ongoing for a while), and THEN getting stung by a nasty flying INSECT! Poor pup! But pat him (or even just look at him) and he smiles.

New to us: one slightly used dog

As of about three hours ago:

Ceilidh thinks he's okay. This is a pretty big deal. She is very "soft," but doesn't like to be pushed around. He can take a hint. (Jak, our foster, couldn't.)

In fact, even when it's hard not to step on her or body-check her, he doesn't.

We don't know what his name will be. He came with a name (Baxter), but we're not sure that's what he'll be called in our household. We're pretty sure it isn't.

Retreat (with wool) on Maryland's Eastern Shore

The Scotland, Orkney, and Shetland travel notes will continue, interleaved with real-time updates. There's so much to share. . . . 

I'm home again, and while I wasn't ready to leave the places where I traveled, I was ready to be in a familiar environment. Greetings from the family, both two-legged and four-legged, were enthusiastic and welcoming. I need a haircut. I need to deal with the mail. And so on. But right now I'm taking a breather from the mail to remember the wonderful time in St. Michaels, Maryland. (I keep wanting to put appropriate apostrophes into the names of places, even though the Powers That Be have determined that they don't belong any more.)

And a reader with ties to the Eastern Shore has asked for pictures and notes about that event, which just pushes it to the top of the queue (before life stampedes along again). We had a great time, in a beautiful location, with a range of interesting fibers.

The breeds we covered—all locally sourced—were: Corriedale, Hog Island, Jacob, and Shetland.

Here's a view of a St. Michaels harbor, as seen from the Town Dock restaurant. They have excellent seafood, of course, and they also had superb grilled veggie ravioli for me. (Just listen: "jumbo raviolis filled with grilled red peppers, onions, asparagus, mushrooms and Ricotta cheese served over our own pesto cream sauce and garnished with roasted walnuts and Parmesan cheese"—the sauce wasn't too rich, and the presentation was exquisite.)

The harbor saw traffic from different sorts of boats than I'm accustomed to looking at (which are fishing boats, mostly). However, there were a couple of groups of kayakers as well.

This is the inn where we stayed for the workshop. Several local folks joined us. The inn has other buildings. This is the main (old) house, where my room was on the second floor and our workshop space was on the first floor.

Lucy is dog-in-residence.

The views from all directions are stunning.

This is the breakfast room, in which we held the workshop. We did need to condense our workspace every night in preparation for the morning meal, but it was a lovely room in which to spend our days. There's a lot to be said for views and natural light.

In the Explore 4 workshops, I pick out a set of breeds to cover that will offer opportunities for comparing and contrasting wool types; that will shed light on some of the history of sheep; and that will give us lots of opportunities to play with different preparation and spinning techniques.

The Corriedale fleeces that we had showed variety within the breed, which we talked about. Much of the "retreat" involves just spinning and trying things, with me there as a resource once I've presented some basic material. It's both relaxing and instructive. There's nothing like experimenting to promote a sense of learning and accomplishment (I do love seeing what different things I can do with a particular fiber). Obviously, the crimp patterns, lock structures, and other qualities of the two Corriedale fleeces that we had were quite different. Yet in our hands, they were both quite distinctively Corriedale.

The second day was Hog Island, which I'll come back to at the end. I pace the sequence of wools in the workshop in particular ways, so the experiences build on each other.

The third day focused on Jacobs. We talked about the differences between commercially prepared fiber and starting from fleece; between U.K. and U.S. Jacobs; and between one flock and the next. We had two contrasting fleeces to work with.

Some people decided to sort the colors: the question, of course, is where one leaves off and the next begins! But the resulting range of harmonious shades can be utterly charming. (This was Haven's fleece.)

Then there's the temptation to "spin it as it comes," a valid choice that actually turns out to have its own challenges. (This was Bess's fleece.)

After providing background information in the morning, I spent the afternoons spinning along with everyone, fielding questions, offering perspective, and sometimes sharing discoveries I was making as I worked with the same fiber that everyone else had in hand. In the evenings, which were technically "off," I knitted or wove small swatches of some of my samples. The sizes of the samples varied, depending on how much I'd gotten done, and I still have my Shetland swatches to knit because on the final night I was packing up the workshop materials, instead of playing with fiber.

Here are a few of my swatches:

This was half of my room. I had a private bath, just to the right off the hall at the top of the stairs. It was great to have enough room to organize each day's materials in advance.

The windows by the bed did look out across the bay, and one morning I caught a well-lighted freighter going past just after dawn. The picture is textured because I shot it through the window screen. Sunsets were gorgeous, too.

On some lunch breaks, I walked around. I was tempted to keep spinning, but the weather and the location were too pretty not to discipline myself to get outside for a while. This photo is looking toward the inn (the hammock is between the inn and the shore).

I love collecting textures. . . .

And textiles. . . . Even better is textures AND textiles.

There were a lot of good places to wander around, and even take a decent-length walk and still get back in time for the afternoon session.

This is a tree that I mentioned to my sister. It had fallen into the water, and I have more pictures of it. It was a grand and beautiful thing, with growth patterns that indicated a challenging life that had been made whole by the way it accommodated and incorporated what had happened in its time on the shore. At different times of the tide, more or less of it was revealed.

I didn't quite figure out who this bird was. It wouldn't let me get close enough for a decent look, and I didn't have any binoculars with me.

It's obviously in the heron/egret family, and has a yellow-orange bill, but I couldn't quite pinpoint it with the bird guide that was at the inn. I suspect someone else will be able to identify it for me faster than I can currently get the Cornell ornithology site to load! (I'm at a coffee shop on a slow, and much in demand, connection.) I'm kinda guessing it was a Great Egret, not a common sight where I've done most of my birding (Colorado, Washington state, and Alaska).

Because of the season, the trees were turning (as you can see above) while the gardens still offered a bounty of bloom:

This little beauty was tricky to get a photo of! 

Lots of splendid things to see.

The whole experience was restorative and productive for me, and according to what they said it was the same for the participants. That's the goal.

And now to end with a little bit about Hog Island, a rare breed that has a close historical association with the area because the sheep developed on an island off the Virginia coast, just south of Maryland's Eastern Shore.

I'll be the first to say that Hog Island fleeces are not ones that a handspinner would initially find appealing, given a range of choices. And they are a little tricky to handle. That's why we did them on day 2: I wanted to start off with something a bit easier to get everyone warmed up. I don't have my samples of the exact fleeces that we worked with handy, but this is a fairly typical Hog Island lock:

I didn't have my standard background, with its reference line of 4 inches/10 cm, handy, but that lock is about 2.5 inches/6.5 cm long. It's matte, and a little flat, and while there's a lot of crimp in there it's disorganized (not a problem for the yarn or textile, but the visual appeal of the locks isn't high). And yet. . . . This was the workaday wool for a group of people for a number of years, and spending some time with it can reveal a lot about history and human ingenuity.

And once we got into processing and spinning it, we managed to produce some yarns and samples that made us think we'd like to seek out more!

Above are samples of our four Hog Island fleeces, two light and two dark. The bit at upper right is a tiny section of Corriedale, to show the overall warm nature of the Hog Island whites: they differed from each other, too, with white #2 being a lot creamier than white #1. In the blacks, black #1 was a nice solid dark and softer than black #2, which nonetheless had a fantastic sturdy and tweedy texture. As I was working with them, I could see white #1 or black #1 as being especially well suited for making knitted garments with texture stitches—like cables or knit/purl combinations—because the body of the yarn would give them a bas-relief quality. White #2 seemed to want to be a lighter-weight garment (it was the warmer white), while black #2 would make a fantastic jacket. It was a bit coarse for more delicate applications.

Interestingly, many of the participants' best samples of several of the breeds we covered were made by spinning directly from gently opened locks. Zero tools other than hands and a spinning device. (We also talk about various tools and approaches, from the inexpensive and low-tech to the fully equipped textile workshop's array.)

And so we learn. . . . 

Right now, I'm thinking about fibers for next fall's East Coast retreat, and am deep in the throes of deciding on breeds (I think I've got that settled) and gathering fleeces (final breed decisions depend on this step) for the retreat in Washington state in March 2014.

It's good to be home

I've had another blog post almost done for several days. There are more that I need to write.

Meanwhile, even after a wonderful trip it's good to be home.

November 4

November 5

November 6

November 7

It's time to take the dog for a walk. She wakes up really fast when she hears the leash jingle. Despite the somewhat deceptive and yet fully accurate appearance in the photos above, she is a Border collie. And in obedience practice on Wednesday night, she was amazing. I just find it very difficult to get good photos except when she's napping.

More soon.