Tangwick Haa Museum, Northmavine

We were lucky to visit the Tangwick Haa Museum on Northmavine when we visited Shetland in the Autumn. The changing exhibition at the Museum for 2015 was ‘The Way We Did It.’

This exhibition had fascinating insight, information and artefacts on agriculture, fishing, the Shetland way of life, social life and community, and what interested me most of all, knitting.

There were some beautiful examples of Shetland knitting and all the paraphernalia for finishing the fair isle knitting, jumper, glove and sock boards, amongst other exciting things.

Although I’ve never done much spinning, I did industrial spinning at University. I made a spindle many years ago when my mum was teaching a project on the Vikings in Ireland with her class in school. I spent an afternoon with her Primary 5 class while we explored spinning using the spindle. Some of the children were good at it.

Tangwick Haa Museum has several beautiful old examples of spinning wheels. They are beautiful—gorgeous dark wood, smooth and polished through years of use. I’ve always loved handspun yarns and have a few beautiful skeins in my stash that others have spun. I’d love to try turning on a wheel to see if I’d enjoy it.

Above the picture rail, gorgeous sweaters and cardigans were displayed all around the upstairs room. Fair isle with horizontal and vertical stripes, cables, and lace sections. The most exquisite finely worked lace knitting and a fantastic cardigan knit using cobweb yarn. Extraordinary workmanship.

I loved the Fair Isle sweaters that were knit using a high contrast of natural black and white. The strong contrast caused the fair isle motifs to stand out. Although the sweaters and cardigans have a real impact, my heart is stolen by the smaller pieces of knitwear, gloves, socks, mittens, hats and scarves. I love these more minor, exquisitely designed and knitted pieces.

Tangwick Haa Museum was initially built for the Cheyne family in the late 17th Century. After it had fallen into disrepair for some time, the local community, with a lot of hard work, turned it into a beautiful museum telling the history and hardship of life in Northmavine.

This small Museum is so worthwhile visiting, but as it isn’t open all year round, you should check opening times before you visit.