About SOK: Shetland’s Organisation for Knitters

SOK: Shetland’s Organisation for Knitters is a community-rooted Scottish charity based in the Shetland Isles. We are dedicated to preserving and protecting Shetland’s living knitting heritage, including Fair Isle knitting, Shetland lace, and domestic machine knitting.

These heritage crafts have shaped Shetland’s cultural identity for generations. They remain living skills, carried by local knitters, tutors, designers, wool producers, families, and communities across the islands.

SOK was founded in 2025 following conversations with local knitters, tutors, wool producers, and community members. These discussions identified shared challenges facing Shetland’s knitting practitioners, as well as practical ways to support their work. They also showed the need to help learners, visitors, and online audiences engage with Shetland’s knitting traditions in a respectful and authentic way.

Our work centres on supporting knitters with a direct connection to Shetland and helping the area’s living heritage knitting crafts remain active, valued, and practised. Heritage skills are more likely to continue when people in the area can learn them, use them, and earn from them. 

With this in mind, SOK’s main activities are to record the histories, knowledge, and skills of local knitters; create spaces where skills can be shared using traditional methods; and provide occupational training that helps knitters find paid opportunities in the modern knitting economy. 

SOK also works to ensure that public understanding of Shetland’s knitting heritage is grounded in the knowledge and experience of the knitters who practise it.

For the wider public, SOK provides accurate information about Shetland’s living knitting heritage through local events, online experiences, talks, workshops, recordings, and other learning opportunities. 

Our board is made up of Shetland-born trustees with a deep commitment to heritage, alongside business and volunteer leaders who recognise the cultural and economic value of Shetland’s knitting traditions.