In memory of Leslie Smith
Preparing the display of Leslie’s baskets at the Cunningsburgh Show 2026
This year at the Cunningsburgh Show the Shetland Straw Society paid tribute to Leslie Smith, basketmaker extraordinaire.
Leslie passed away at the end of 2025 and is a huge miss to the basket making community. The Shetland Straw Society and Leslie’s family have created an exhibition to celebrate his work, his contribution to Shetland’s basketry legacy, and to, hopefully, inspire future basket and straw enthusiasts.
Leslie was a builder to trade and came to basket making after retirement. He was mostly self-taught, experimenting with many of Shetland’s natural materials such as dockens, floss and bent to make kishies, simmens and stitched coiled baskets. Leslie made special trips into the hill and coastline to gather materials, before taking them back to his garage, where he spent many hours weaving them into twine and baskets.
Learning Kishies
Leslie attended the first Winter Straw Group kishie-making workshop as a participant, to learn how to make a kishie from Dr Ian Tait. Leslie had not worked much with Shetland Aets at that point and had not been taught kishie making. Leslie’s experience and skills as a basketmaker shone through in this first workshop, so, when Ian could not lead the class in the following intake, he put Leslie forward in his place. Leslie was a wonderful tutor for the following two years – giving clear, calm directions and expert assistance.
Leslie helping make a kishie at a Winter Workshop
Experimenting
Leslie loved exploring new materials and learning new techniques - mostly from YouTube! He made a hat entirely from nettles - first drying and stripping the stalks down into strong fibres, then twisting them together into fine simmens. He then taught himself nalbinding – an ancient single-needle technique that predates knitting and crochet - to make the cord into a bunnet. He was always inquisitive about new materials and techniques, and eager to try new methods.
Leslie’s cap made from nettles!
Making Simmens
Leslie made beautiful simmens in all sorts of materials and thicknesses. He prepared fathoms and fathoms of it in advance, ready for any future kishie making projects.
Growing Aets
Leslie was also a keen grower and grew his own Shetland Aets straw – multiplying samples of precious oat seed from the seedbank at SASA (Science & Advice for Sottish Agriculture) into healthy amounts for the Aets Growing Project.
Always curious, he once sowed a single aet seed in the polytunnel, to see exactly how many seeds one oat would produce under perfect conditions… the answer was over 400!
Sharing Skills
The Winter Straw Group has always been about skills-sharing and working together and Leslie embraced this ethos by encouraging Catherine Blance to work with him to deliver classes. He recognised Catherine’s natural talent for both kishie making and tutoring, and saw it as a natural progression to spread the tutoring to others. Even during his battle with cancer, Leslie continued to attend the Straw Group to assist with tutoring.
Exceptional Contribution
Leslie was a modest guy - he would share his current projects and experiments with great enthusiasm, but never seemed to fully recognise the exceptional skills and knowledge that he held in basket making. He was hugely influential in raising the profile and skills of traditional basket making.
The Shetland Straw Society Committee wanted to create this exhibition to pay tribute to Leslie and his amazing contribution to Shetland basketry, and are grateful to his family for being so supportive in allowing us to show his work.
Just a small selection of Leslie’s stunning baskets
Glossary of terms
bent – marram grass
floss – rushes
aets – oats
simmens – cordage or rope. Simmens is hand-twisted cordage and is a key part of kishie making. Simmens was needed in every aspect of crofting, fishing and domestic life - wherever rope or string was needed, simmens could be made to suit the job. It was often a winter activity, something easily done inside when the weather was poor.
bunnet – flat cap usually made of cloth