Launch SOK: Shetland's Organisation for Knitters

Aim

Help preserve, promote, and protect Shetland's heritage knitting skills and culture with SOK: Shetland's Organisation for Knitters.

Shetland’s heritage knitting is built on centuries of shared skills and community, but its traditional skills are under real threat. Together, we can keep the knowledge alive.

Right now, Shetland’s knitting heritage faces several serious challenges. As experienced knitters pass away, their skills and stories are being lost with them. Younger people have no clear, supported way to build a career in the modern knitting economy. Meanwhile, learners from outwith Shetland are often given inaccurate information about Shetland's knitting techniques by teachers, publications, and other forms of media who do not fully understand our ways, which harms both their own learning and Shetland’s reputation.

SOK: Shetland’s Organisation for Knitters was created to address these problems.

We want to record the stories and skills of older knitters while they are still here to share them. We plan to offer high-quality training for local knitters so they can work as tutors, designers, and speakers. We will create spaces where traditional methods of teaching and learning can happen for younger knitters to retain the Shetland way of thinking about knitting. We hope to become a trusted voice for Shetland knitting, guiding learners towards accurate sources and pushing back when our heritage skills are misrepresented.

Shetland’s knitting heritage is more than just the techniques. It influences our shared language, identity, and memory. Shaetlan language is passed along during knitting sessions. Traditional teaching methods shape how Shetland’s knitters think and create. Patterns hold family histories. Knitting connects generations and honours those who came before. Protecting this heritage means protecting a living culture.

This is a big task, and we need your help to begin.

We’re working towards long-term sustainability through online events, visitor experiences, and a small shop. Our goal is to become self-sustaining within three years. But first, we need to raise the funds that will allow us to get started. Grant funders want to see that the community backs this work. Your donations help us meet those requirements and show that Shetland’s community stands together.
Every contribution matters. £25 helps us record one elder knitter’s story. £100 supports a local training session. Your donation lays the foundation for everything that follows.

You can support this work in four ways:

• Donate if you can. 
• Share this campaign with others who care about Shetland's knitting heritage.
• If you live in Shetland, watch for local fundraising events over the coming months.
• When we launch operations in the new year, join us! We exist for Shetland and for knitters worldwide!

In 2026, SOK will begin its work in earnest. We invite you to be part of it from the start.

Update one: Please take note: all the rewards will be distributed in early January 2026!

Update two: We had to launch the crowdfunder without the image for the highest tier reward. We chose a place-holder image, not knowing we would be unable to change the image ourselves. Now that we have the image, we are sharing it here so supporters can see the physical reward for £1000 donations. 

This project successfully funded on 31st December 2025