The Shetland museum

Sadly, the Shetland Textile Museum was closed both Sundays and Mondays, an oversight on our part, but there were still a fair number of textiles, and lots of other cool things to learn, in the Shetland museum!

Remember what I was saying about Shetland Lace?  Check out this piece by the reception desk, just inside the door, which was a fantastic model ship made 100 years ago as part of a fundraiser, rediscovered by the model-makers great-granddaughter, who then worked with a craftsman to restore the body, and she knit the incredible lacework and made the sails to finish out the piece's second life.

Such detail!

We learned a lot of things along the way--the idea of using butter as currency, (and giving the lousy butter to the tax-man), both resonated with me.

Bog Butter and its many uses

This model wooden house was accompanied by an explanation that reminded me of the mail-order box-car kit houses that Sears, Roebuck & Co. used to sell in the USA.



 

The black veil was just gorgeous, I wish I had carried my "serious" camera with me to the museum.  It was so fine it was hard to photograph well with a smartphone.

Fun fact!  The Norse used silver bracelets as a form of transportable currency. 

Shetland is made up of so very many types of rocks.

The replicas of the Pictish treasure!

These are the Pictish treasures I mentioned earlier.  We had seen their burial place on St. Ninian's the day before.

Sadly, they weren't the originals because weirdly the originals are in Edinburgh, at the National Museum.  It felt like a strange case of intra-country colonialism, especially when we finally saw the original pieces a couple of days later, seeming a bit awkward and drab, devoid of their larger Shetlander context.

Full to the brim of interesting history about a tiny place full of lush and vibrant stories, we made our way back to Nell and eventually buried her (to a soundtrack of cacophonous beeps) in the hold of the MV Hrossey, another of the Northlink Ferries, which was to take us back to Aberdeen overnight.

Unbeknownst to us, we were going to have a swell time.

But not a swell time.  

If you get my drift.