Quezi

Geometric patterns echo Fair Isle knitting in a contemporary design. (Photo by WonderMike - CC-BY)

Fair Isle and the neighbouring island group of Shetland, on the northern fringes of the UK, have their own traditional styles of multicolour knitting. Local experts can tell the difference between the two, but the designs are so closely related that most people treat them as one single tradition. The early history wasn’t written down, but we know from a knitted purse preserved in a peat bog that simple two colour knitting had come to Shetland by 1700.

Sweaters, hats and socks from the 1800s and 1900s mostly had patterned bands separated by narrow stripes, like this modern knitwear made on Fair Isle. Several colours go into each garment, but look closely and you’ll see that only two colours are used in any one row.

This kind of stranded colourwork was always done “in the round” on a set of four double-pointed needles, or more recently on a modern circular needle. Stranded knitting creates a double thickness of wool – perfect for North Sea islands where warm winter clothes are essential.

Natural colours from Shetland sheep -  creamy white, dark shaela grey, mioget honey colour, and moorit brown – were used, but wool in bright reds, blues, and yellows was very popular. The hand-spun wool was dyed with lichen, imported madder root, and other plant recipes until islanders started to use chemical dyes in the 1920s. This scarf from 1915 used natural plant dyes.

Colourful patterns seemed striking to visitors in the 1800s. In 1822 an Englishman writing about Shetland mentioned the “variegated and fantastical colours” of the knitting and thought the fishermen’s hats had “bold tints” like the “stripes of a signal flag”. The oldest surviving knitted articles date back to the mid-19th century.

All-over patterns were sometimes used, but were not as common as in Scandinavian knitting. You can see similarities between Nordic and Fair Isle styles, but differences show up in the large snowflake patterns  and two-colour sweaters from Scandinavia. Banded patterns and multi-colours were more typical of Shetland, until Norwegian refugees living there during World War II introduced bigger star patterns.

Traditional patterns were often based on alternating crosses and diamonds. Other designs had names from nature, like ferns or ram’s horns. Grandmothers made warm garments for grandsons starting out on a sea-faring life with symbolic motifs like anchors or a guiding star of Bethlehem.

Fair Isle knitting was given a boost in the UK in the 1920s when the Prince of Wales wore a patterned golfing pullover made by a Shetland knitter.  Just as Queen Victoria’s interest had helped the trade in Shetland shawls, his fashion choice brought more work to home knitters in the Northern Isles.

When machine knitting was introduced, at first it could only create single colour knitted textiles. Shetland knitters started to make sweaters with plain, machine-knit bodies and patterned, hand-knitted yokes. The style was echoed in scarves and gloves, often with bright bands of pattern on a neutral background. These were sold across the UK, and beyond, until the 1980s.