Community / Robertson ‘honoured’ to become wool week patron
The announcement of the patron marks the start of the build-up to Shetland Wool Week 2026
LOCAL textile artist and knitting tutor Helen Robertson has been named as the patron for Shetland Wool Week 2026 with her ‘birsie beanny’ hat design.
Shetland Wool Week organisers held an event at Shetland Museum & Archives on Wednesday evening to make the announcement.
Robertson said: “The day I was asked to do it I went out and met a friend who said I should be the patron, and it’s been hard trying not to smile when folk said that. I’ve not being going out.”
When talking about what it meant for her to be patron, Robertson got a bit emotional, saying: “It’s a huge honour. For everybody that’s passed, our grannies and great-grannies, it’s such a privilege that we’re getting to do this, that they didn’t have.
“So it’s an honour to represent the folk that are living, and the folk that are no longer living too, to showcase them and their work.”
Robertson’s design contains elements of her work over the years, with traditional Shetland lace motifs. The slouched shape was inspired by the style in Stanley Cursitor’s portrait ‘The Fair Isle Jumper’ from 1923.
The hat also features toosks, which are optional, inspired by the tassels on the Gunnister Man’s purse, and traditional taatit rugs. The toosks also inspire its name, as birsie means ‘hairy’ in Shetland dialect.
Four colourways of the hat are available. Jamieson of Shetland are a vibrant orange and blue, while Foula Wool’s colours emulate the natural wool, using shades of grey, black and white.
Uradale Yarn’s colours are green and purple, reminiscent of the varying shades of the Shetland landscape, and Jamieson & Smith’s features different shades of blue.
Robertson’s connection to knitting began in childhood, with her earliest memories are of learning to knit coming in her late grandparents’ croft house in Norwick, Unst, surrounded by family members always busy with needles and yarn.
While she continued knitting through her teenage years, it was only when she began designing her own pieces that she found her creative voice.
Cultural and heritage manager at organiser Shetland Amenity Trust, Jacqui Birnie, announced some changes to the way Shetland Wool Week is set up, with a new advisory panel set up to assist in organising the event.
She explained: “For the last three years we’ve been fortunate to have Donna Smith working with us as curator, but it was time for her to move on from that.
“There are thousands of people all over the world who have this interest in the knitting, learning those skills and the uniqueness of that. The advisory panel’s there to help us come up with the future programme and make sure Shetland Wool Week has a vibrant future by having the right people at the table.”
The advisory panel features representatives from Wool Week’s main sponsors, the last three patrons of the event, and the current patron.
Robertson does not plan to run classes in Wool Week 2026, and intends to celebrate Wool Week by going to as many events as possible and wearing different designers every day.
Birnie and Robertson are also planning a tour to see different events happening across the isles to prevent the event feeling too ‘Lerwick-centric’. They will travel around on a tour bus across three days, with tickets available for visitors to join them.
Birnie explained: “Last year we had over 70 people as the patron who could be everywhere, but Helen is just one person, and she is conscious of that. Her thought process has been that she can’t be everywhere at once, but how can we see as much as possible.”
Representatives from the Shetland Guild of Spinners, Knitters, Weavers and Dyers were in attendance to hand over the baton to Robertson. As the Guild features over 70 members, they were able to be all over Shetland throughout Wool Week 2025.
Its newly appointed chair said there had been an increase of memberships both last year and this year, thanks to the awareness spread during Wool Week 2025.
Shetland Wool Week 2026 runs from 27 September to 3 October, with the full programme set to be announced later this year.
The Birsie Beanny pattern is available to download from the Shetland Wool Week website for £2.50 and is also available as a printed version online from the Shetland Museum and local wool shops for £5.
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