Our Team

Lynn is Professor of Modern History at the University of Glasgow and lead investigator for the ‘Fleece to Fashion’ project. Her research ranges across modern gender, social and oral histories. Until now her textile-focused research has largely been based in Shetland, published in Myth and Materiality in a Woman’s World: Shetland 1800-2000 (2005) and in articles in Textile History, Gender & History and Signs. With Marina Moskowitz she was responsible for two knit-focused projects including ‘Knitting-in-the-Round’ which employed a knitter-in-residence and a project on authenticity in knitted lace which recruited amateur knitters to undertake practice-based research.

Sally is a lecturer in dress and textile history at the University of Glasgow. Her research ranges across the 18th and 19th century with a particular focus on Scotland. She was the researcher on ‘Artisans and the Craft Economy in Scotland’, at the University of Edinburgh, from 2013-2014, focusing on the Ayrshire whitework industry and Scottish handloom weavers. Prior to this, she was the researcher on ‘Colouring the Nation’, a two-year collaborative project between the University of Edinburgh and National Museums Scotland. She has published on turkey red, whitework, tartan and is currently researching textiles in the Atlantic slave trade.

Marina is the Lynn and Gary Mecklenburg Chair in Textiles, Material Culture, and Design, in the Design Studies Department at the University of Madison-Wisconsin in the US, a position which is attached to the wonderful resource of The Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection with over 13,000 textile artifacts spanning 16 centuries and 108 countries. Her research focuses on the cultural history of the modern United States with a focus on textiles and design but after some years working at the University of Glasgow she developed an interest in Scottish knitted textiles. Marina is the co-editor of Textile History.

Carol is Curator and Community Museums Officer at Shetland Museum and Archives. As curator, her main responsibility is the Museum’s nationally recognised textiles collection, which has a large knitted textile component. She holds a PhD from the University of Manchester in Archaeology with a specialisation in Textiles and has worked and published in the specialism with colleagues in the UK and Nordic countries.

She is the author of Taatit Rugs: the pile bedcovers of Shetland (2015) and numerous articles on Shetland’s textile heritage. Currently she is leading a project to record and assess the Museum’s knitted lace collection and is preparing a publication on Shetland knitted lace design. Her related research focuses on indigenous sheep breeds and fleece development, ethnographic and historic research on wool production, processing, spinning, dyeing and textile making in the North Atlantic and Nordic regions.

Roslyn is a research associate on the Fleece to Fashion Project at the University of Glasgow. Her PhD thesis was on the History of the Shetland lace knitting industry in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century and although she has researched knitted textiles in other regions, her focus has remained on Shetland. She has recently collaborated with Dr Carol Christiansen, textile curator at Shetland Museum and Archives on the RSE funded Nottingham Shetland lace project, and the AHRC funded Digitisation Strategy for Shetland Museum’s Recognised Textile Collection.

Lin is a post-doctoral research assistant for the project. She recently completed an AHRC-CDA funded PhD titled, ‘Mechanising the Needle: The development of the sewing machine as a manufacturing tool, 1851-1980’. Her research used both archival sources and material culture to explore the impact of stitched object construction and human tacit skill on the development of mechanised production. Lin initially trained as a woven textile designer at the Glasgow School of Art. And after a short time working in the Scottish woollen industry, she was a professional costume maker for theatre, film, and television.

Jill is the part time Project Administrative Assistant on the Fleece to Fashion project at the University of Glasgow. Prior to joining the project Jill held several administrative positions at other universities before leaving HE to raise her growing family. She is a knitter, sewer, embroiderer and has a lifelong interest in textiles. When not working on the Fleece to Fashion project, Jill works as a supply teacher in a local primary school and wherever possible tries to weave her passion for textiles into her lessons.