Maurice Henderson

I work with Shetland oat straw to make traditional straw Skekler costumes for guising! The costumes I’ve made have been worn for skekling at Halloween, Hogmanay and the skeklers have been known to make surprise appearances at events around Shetland, such as festivals and concerts. The skekler tradition also encompasses Shetland traditional fiddle music and dance, something that I have been involved with for many years. You can look at my YouTube Channel ‘Maurice Henderson Shetland’ for more on that and some skekler footage.

I recently led a workshop making full skekler costumes for a midsummer parade event. There are plans for more workshops later in 2026.

I’m a member of Shetland Straw Society, a group set up to preserve, practice and promote traditional Shetland straw crafts and the growing of Shetland oat crops.

As a participant in the Shetland winter straw club I learned techniques for kishie making, making straw simmens (rope), Fair Isle knot technique for baskets. Meeting in with other makers I developed an interest in all aspects of Shetland straw crafts and led me to volunteer with tekkin (thatching) at the Shetland Crofthouse Museum, and working with other materials such as floss (soft rush) and making a dockin bödie  (a kishie style basket made from dock and soft rush simmens, used for carrying fish, and in my case seaweed). The winter straw club is also a great social activity, along with the making and working on straw projects, there’s many a good yarn.

I grow my own Shetland corn or aets (oats) this helps preserve and multiply the native Shetland oat seed. Last years harvested crop I used to make several full skekler costumes for winter skekling (guising) along with a kishie (Shetland oat straw basket) and many fathoms of oat straw simmens (rope) required to fasten together the kishies, skekler suits, and various projects. I would say in 2026 it is quite an exciting time in Shetland for traditional straw crafts.

• Basketry
• Straw
• Traditional