Ye Olde Queer Tartan Museum
Coming soon to Forres High Street!
A strange folk museum created around the story “The Ballad of Queer Tartan.” It is a tale of Madeleine, a runaway mouse, and how she escapes an octopus, a psychotic clown, a giant spider and finds love and friendship with chosen family. Everything in the museum helps to bring the story to life with hand-made sculpture, small dioramas and characters. The museum is based in a building that dates from 1668. There are three rooms with two more in the pipeline - for the sequels to the tale.
Online booking will be available soon.
Hear the story here. It’s about 1 hour 20 mins long.
This is all, as Madeleine would say, “total flocking bubbles.” Narratives are being bent and twisted all over the place right now so I thought it would be fun to invent a fake origin story too, just like He Who Should Not Be Named has about Lewis in the Outer Hebrides and She Who Should Not Be Named, who lives in Edinburgh, my home town, has about trans-inclusive policies making women and girls less safe.
In actuality Queer Tartan was started by me, Fritha Lewin, in 2024. I took it a little personally that Scotland should be being used to promote a narrative I entirely disagree with. Not on my watch. I don’t want to live in a Scotland that feels like growing up gay did in the 80s and 90s with open hostility, gay bashing and almost total lesbian invisibility. Flock that.
The Thursday night get togethers - the research, experiments, discussions, were actually carried out by me over the last 20 or so years. Queer Tartan is a genuine invention. Please use it before it is dragged into heteronormative culture.
These stories are inspired by the Liberty store legend that when the last light has been extinguished in the store at night, the wooden carved animals around the shop awaken to make merriment and cause mischief.
Many more stories are in the pipeline.
Please sign up for my mailing list to hear more.
Disclaimer
This is a work of fiction. Characters, events, institutions and organisations depicted in the story are fictional or have been fictionalised for artistic purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or to actual events is coincidental unless explicitly stated otherwise. References to public figures, places, brands and cultural events are used as part of the fictional and satirical context of the work and do not imply endorsement, association or approval.
Copyright © 2026 Fritha Lewin. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, adapted or published in any form without the prior written permission of the copyright holder, except where permitted by law.
Queer Tartan and associated original characters, stories, artworks and designs are the intellectual property of Fritha Lewin, except where otherwise credited.
A note on the animals:
Despite appearances, the abundance of people dressed as mice, rabbits, bears and assorted wildlife is purely a plot device. This work has no intended affiliation with or commentary on furry, puppy-play or kink communities. No shade on anyone’s thing whatsoever. Please just don’t invite me to a kink puppy party. The animals are metaphorical.
The Ballad of Queer Tartan - synopsis
My name is Madeleine. I’m an artist, a very old mouse, and this is the rather extraordinary story of how I came to own a queer little tartan mill.
I grew up in Circus Bluebell, run by my father Donald, a rather horrible clown. I was the star of the show, performing ballet on horseback with my beloved mare, Daphne. But I dreamed of becoming an artist like my mother.
When I turned eighteen, my father arranged for me to marry Albert, the circus strongmouse. But I was in love with Betty, my best friend and the violinist in our circus band, Circus Pony.
Our wedding was to take place aboard HMS Trojan Unicorn on the Moray Firth. But a terrible storm struck, and an enormous wave — or possibly a giant octopus — sank the ship. Betty and I escaped by clinging to a floating wooden cabinet.
A friendly rabbit, Rowan rescued us and revealed a network of ancient tunnels beneath Moray. Armed with torches, sandwiches, a map and a ball of bright pink wool, Betty and I set off underground towards Forres.
We emerged through a tiny doorway into Flocked Flowers, a fantastically eccentric flower shop run by Seraphina the swan. She was also a celebrant, and married us upstairs amongst the flowers. At last, Betty and I were wives!
We skateboarded through underground tunnels to Budgie Castle, where Seraphina had prepared a hot-air balloon. But my father appeared in a red Jaguar, grabbed me and drove me away to a castle near Cawdor.
Locked in a tower, I discovered a secret staircase leading
to a terrifying holly maze. I escaped using Rowan's pink wool to find my way. Just as a monstrous creature pursued me, a gigantic goose swooped down and carried me back to Betty and our balloon.
We flew south towards London, escorted by a flock of geese.
Rowan had given us beautiful embroidered 'Just Married' jackets
and a letter introducing us to her friend Aloysius, a drag queen bear living on Hackney Road.
Aloysius and his queer friends helped us find a shabby former sweet shop at 23 Hackney Road. We filled it with records, artwork, found objects and friends. Betty restarted Circus Pony, and I began creating art and set designs.
Then we heard that Albert had died. To our astonishment, he had left me his tartan mill in Leith, Edinburgh. He really had been a kind mouse. Suddenly, we owned a mill — but had absolutely no idea what to do with it.
I enrolled at Pine Marten’s School of Art and Design
and began experimenting with patterns from the ship and the mysterious Moray tunnels. At the mill, a glamorous lesbian owl called Odette taught me about tartan and weaving.
Our Thursday-night gatherings became wonderfully chaotic creative sessions. We talked about queer history, rainbow flags, folk art, secret languages and how queer animals might recognise one another without having to wear a rainbow.
We tried all sorts of things, including a tartan inspired by our dreadful suspended ceiling. But we wanted something more: a beautiful, dignified way of flagging queer identity that could work on everything from silk scarves to skateboards.
One miserable evening, I blew soap bubbles across the room. Everyone smiled. Susie, our clever tech-loving lizard, suddenly wondered what would happen if we made tartan three-dimensional. Soon we were experimenting with geometric shapes from Rowan's embroidered jackets.
We rushed to Edinburgh and spent the night experimenting with the old Jacquard loom. At dawn, our new design emerged. We called it Queer Tartan and decided to establish the Queer Tartan Register. We'd invented our own queer folk art!
Queer Tartan became a sensation. We made scarves, ties, interiors, artwork and designs for famousbrands. I opened
a gallery and nightclub called Disco Distilled. But when queer marriage was banned again, Betty and I returned to Moray to celebrate our marriage in defiance.
We discovered that Seraphina's flower shop in Forres was falling apart. So we helped restore it and established a fund to support other queer creatures. All these objects tell the story of our adventures, our friendships and our queer folk art.
Wishing you lots of bubbles.
Love, Madeleine.