The Handcrafts Pavilion at the Royal Highland Show is the showcase for Scotland’s finest crafters. Thousands of hours of work are on display with more than 500 entries – 99 of those being sticks and crooks – which range from intricate bead work to kids paintings.
Over the past few years, it has been the Shetland shawl which has topped the handcrafts section, but this year, it was Katharine Huggett’s skills in freestyle embroidery that impressed the judges. 
Katharine, from Blackford, in Perthshire, bought the chair that she worked her embroidery onto from Remake in Crieff, some 11 months ago, and started her intricate work around two and a half months ago. She is a textile artist, and a member of Blackford SWI, and was delighted to pick up the overall prize. This is the fifth year she has exhibited, but she has never taken the top spot, she has previously picked up the Edinburgh Knitting and Crochet guild perpetual trophy previously for her crochet work. She entered five other items in this year, taking another class first with her rag rug made with recycled Harris tweed. 
In reserve overall position was Fiona Urquhart, from Edinburgh, with her wall hanging inspired by the theme of ‘through the looking glass’ which was made in hand made felt. The wall hanging takes quite a lot of preparation before it appears as the finished product. 
Fiona starts the process with a basic fleece, she then cleans, dyes and makes the final effect using wet and dry felt skills. She also used fabric paint and machine embroidery to finalise her through the looking glass wallhanging. In all, it takes 80-90 hours for Fiona to complete this level of workmanship.  This is the first time that Fiona has won at this level, she has entered the Highland handcrafts twice in the past, but a first in class has been her highest win to date.

Sticks and crooks
It was a familiar name in the crooks and sticks world that took the overall crook and walking stick prize. Dane Love has been exhibiting at the Highland Show since 1980, and has lost count of how many times he has won the overall prize. 
“I’ll need to look at the trophy and count how many times my name is on it,” he said. 
This year he won the Perpetual Challenge Silver Cup for best crook or walking stick with his ram’s horn crook. 
He also picked up the prize for best four sticks in the competition with a combination of one horn crook, one wood crook, one horn stick and one wood stick. 
The overall prize was for a stunning horn crook with a collie dog sculpted into the handle which showed amazing detail.
Taking the best wooden walking stick and shepherd’s crook title was Iain Paterson, from Kelso. 
Iain is quite new to crookmaking, having just started a couple of years ago, so he is delighted to have taken this award. 
He worked on the stick for two or three days. It is an Elm burr and there was a lot of intricate hand filing and shaping in order to create the thistle style on the handle. 
A former joiner, Iain now works on his sticks alongside four of his friends who also make sticks. They all entered sticks in to the show, and all picked up a first in their classes.  
He was reserve overall at Yetholm Sheep Show which gave him confidence in his skills. 
The stick that won for Iain here, was entered into Stirling Show and didn’t win any prize, but he did pick up a couple of firsts, a second and a third. 

  • Dane Love has produced two DVDs highlighting the basics of making crooks and sticks. One is looking at an elm burr, and the other is a ram’s horn stick. The DVDs are available from Dane on 01290 424805. DVDs cost £10, plus £1.50 p&P.

See photographs of all the handcraft entries at http://thescottishfarmer.newsprints.co.uk/search/scu/p/u/241091/1/handicrafts