Time Travelers: Northern Exposure

• Share

(3 of 3)

Another source of income for Shetlanders is wool. I asked Ina Irvine, 63 (whose husband is Willie's first cousin), a professional knitter who spins her own wool, why the Shetland variety is so soft and durable. "The sheep here are small, and they have a soft fleece," she says. "I've been told that the sheep that are put on the hills have a softer wool because they're eating a more coarse grass." The respected craft is diminishing, and Shetlanders are trying to maintain it among the younger generations by teaching it in the schools. "It's an underpaid sort of a craft," says Ina. "The young ones want to go out to work."

While I was staying with the Simpsons, Anna was busy knitting colorful squares. She handed me some needles and taught me to knit. Because I held my needles too tightly, my would-be square looked more like a parallelogram. At the end of my stay, Anna presented me with a hearty wool blanket knitted from the squares. With characteristic Shetlander modesty, she hesitated to honor my request for her to stitch her initials in the corner. "Oh, why would I do that?" she said, laughing. It was not as if I would forget where it came from. But I wanted the reminder just the same.

Reporter Heather Won Tesoriero, now based in New York, says the Shetlands is the locale she would most like to revisit