A kishie is a traditional Shetland basket made from plant materials.  Up in Shetland there aren’t many willow trees that are so useful in basket-making. That meant, in the past, Shetlanders had to craft baskets and creels from other materials like oat straw, soft rushes, docken, marram grass and even heather. This summer I was in Shetland and learnt about how floss (soft rushes) were used to make simmens (rope) and how, with straw or dockens, kishies were made to carry things like peat and fish.

My father’s side of the family are from Unst, the most northerly isle in Shetland. My grandparents, auntie, uncles and my dad grew up on a small croft called Feall, on the side of a hill overlooking Haroldswick. Their life as crofters meant rearing sheep, digging peats, growing tatties and neaps, milking their one cow and walking everywhere: a hard life, but one that’s connected strongly…