Fair Isle Knotted Basket.

 

Back in March, when the program for this year's Shetland Wool Week was released, I ordered a kit for a Fair Isle Knotted Basket, which arrived, along with a copy of Shetland Fine Lace Knitting: Recreating Patterns from the Past by Carol Christiensen. The kit was waiting for a rainy day. After finishing the 2024 Shetland Wool Week hat last night, I decided it was time for a complete break from knitting, but while on a Shetland theme, out came the kit.

Fair Isle currently has a population of about 60. It is the home of a particular Strawback Chair, made from wood that washed up from shipwrecks (there are no trees on Fair Isle) and straw grown on the island, and knotted in a unique way. Through the work of Eve Eunson, Stewart Thomson and the Fair Isle Chairs Project, the chair is now classed as a Critically Endangered craft.

The Fair Isle Knotted Basket kit is a fund-raiser for the Fair Isle Chairs Project. It uses the knot technique used with straw in the Fair Isle Chair to bind together natural rope with jute string to create a small basket on a wooden base. The instructions are straightforward and relatively simple.                                         I made my basket in two sessions - about 5 hours in total. I did not find it easy. The trick is clearly mastering the captain's knot, while maintaining good tension and consistent coiling to build up the sides of the basket.  The knots, while simple, take practice.  By the end I was beginning to get the hang of it, but that didn't improve my somewhat wonky basket. The string, fortunately, comes precut - but still makes for messy work.

It’s also not something to do when wearing black wool, as I realised when I put it aside to go to bed! When I resumed the next morning I donned a cover-all apron.

The morning task was to bind the top ring (provided as a separate piece, with ends taped together) with the remainder of the strings used to bind the sides. It’s done with a needle, no knots involved! It is, however, hard on the fingers.  

The many (24) strings have to be secured by burying deep under the binding using the supplied darning needle in a contained space. At the moment I have one sore arthritic finger. Any more and I might not have succeeded. Even so, I found this easier than coiling and knotting. It’s not embroidery, but definitely stitching.

At the end I did a bit of remediation on the start/finish point. The rope fitted perfectly, but the rough ends didn’t sit well so I secured them more tightly with a couple of ends of string. 

As I was finishing this today, it occurred to me that it is work my father and other seafaring relatives would have been skilled at. As a child my skipping ropes, much the same as provided in this kit, had beautifully knotted handles, my father’s handiwork. I also remember taking my Uncle Phil to the Maritime Museum at Port Adelaide where he lingered over a display cabinet of knotted ropes, explaining them in detail. Most Fair Isle farmers would also, of course, have been sailors.

My finished basket is nowhere near as neat and even as the one in the kit picture, but it holds a small pot plant. Making it gave me much food for thought as I pondered the lives of the crofters way up in Fair Isle, gathering wool, the flotsam and jetsam from shipwrecks, harvesting hay, making furniture and knitting clothes, and the lives of sailors, my father included, using rope and whatever came to hand, to make things to fill in the long days and nights in the North Sea. My father spent time in Scapa Flow and told me the Hebrides were the most beautiful place on earth. He could also make anything from wood or rope.

I can’t see myself making another, but I’m very pleased indeed to have made this one. It was a break I needed.              Now Air ais gu fighe, which, I think, is Scots Gaelic for back to knitting.

2024 Shetland Wool Week Hat

While I was on a hat roll, I thought I would tackle the Uradale version of this years Shetland Wool Week hat, the Islesburgh Toorie, for which I had foolishly bought the kit. There are 5 colours in the pattern and in the Uradale version these are all natural, undyed wool. All five colours are represented in the band, shown here. 

Making sure I had the right one was a bit of a challenge, so I made myself a colour chart to keep handy and check against.

The pattern is set in three sizes, achieved by varying the needle size. I made the medium size, using 2.75mm needles. My favourite ebony needles don't come below 3mm, so I had to retreat to bamboo. With a 40cm connector, it worked fairly well. The very sharp bamboo does tend to split the wool if you are not careful. 

After the band of rams heads, I optimistically misread the pattern, and began the crown. After 4 rows I realised the error, undid it and worked the missing chart.

I continued using the same circular needle to the end of the crown. It's awkward, but no more, in my view, so than other methods . 

For the last couple of hats I used short needles and a short connector to finish the crown, but I find it more comfortable and flexible to move the shortening rows along a longer connector and on to the 4" needles.

I'm not entirely convinced the subtle changes in the paler colours make a difference. 

While it does draw attention to the eyes of the sheep,  I'd like to see the starker contrast of the whitest wool throughout the whole hat.  I could make it again to try that out. The kit supplied 4x25gm balls and one 50gm. 30gm of the latter remain and 19gm, 23gm & 22gm x2 of the rest. I wish it wasn't so - I do feel the pressure to use it. 

I don't think I will make it again. I have found another pattern I think might work and be interesting to knit. I have no recipients in mind for these, but do it for the satisfaction of making them. 

If you know of a sheep farmer who would like this one, please let me know!

Cabled Beanies

 When, in the middle of my push to finish the healing blanket, I came across a free Cleckheaton pattern for a cabled beanie in a 10 ply yarn, I quickly downloaded the pattern, promising myself the treat of a quick and easy knit when the blanket was finished. The recommended yarn, Cleckheaton Verve, is not easy to find in Adelaide,  but I found a supplier, and chose the required 2 balls in a blue/green colourway.

I liked the orange very much, but they only had one ball. Of course, I bought that as well.

Cleckheaton is a very old and revered Australian company, now part of the Australian Yarn Company stable. They were big n the 1950s, even entering in national Dress of the Year Awards. Just over 10 years ago, a friend, now deceased, donated to the National Museum of Victoria, a dress that his mother had designed and made for Cleckheaton as their entry into the competition. 

It took about 7 hours of knitting to complete the blue beanie. After recent longer and more complex projects this gave me an instant lift. After one round of 4 rows the pattern was easy to remember, the yarn is pleasant to hold and its fun to see the colours emerge. 

The first ball of yarn ran out with 6 rows to go.  That left a lot of yarn. Even with a large and generous pompom I have about half a ball left. The hat is also a generous size.

In the light of this, I decided (of course) to have a go at also knitting the orange ball in the pattern.

I reduced the band by one row and calculated if I reduced the body by one cable (four rows) I should have enough (assuming the length of yarn on the ball was standard). 

This worked a treat. The resulting size fits me comfortably, so will fit others.

There was, however, very little yarn left (about 50cm) for a bobble. I found some oddments of wool in similar colours, but rejected the bobble that resulted, settling, in the end, to a tiny pompom from the left over length. 

I find it a joy to look at. 

This, and the last two major projects, have been knitted on the Lantern Moon ebony needles I bought following my birthday purchase from The Crafty Frog. I am now addicted to them and don't want to use anything but. 

When I got down to the last rounds of the crown I used a Chiaogoo Mini, awkward to hold, but no more so than any other method.  

It's been fun working on 

these in a quick burst. I have no recipient in mind, but what's not to like?

Healing Blanket

I bought Martin Storey's Midwinter Kit in the Festive Colourway last December. I loved it, but had no idea how I would use it, or gift it. When a good friend who feels the cold was recently diagnosed with cancer, underwent a major operation to be followed by chemo, I knew what to do. Over the last 4 weeks blanket knitting has moved to the top of my priority list.

I finished it last Wednesday, delivering it on Thursday.

The design consists of six basic motifs, each knitted as a Fair Isle square. Each motif has its own colour and the blanket is constructed in 7 rows and 5 columns. There are only 2 motifs (and 2 colours) per column and 3 motifs (and 3 colours) per row. 

I began by knitting one of each motif, in the colours specified in the pattern. I then blocked them before stitching them together as specified, and completing the columns, again, as specified. 

At this point I decided I would vary the arrangement to create a greater mix per row. I began shuffling the squares as I went, spreading them on my sofa and trying various combinations. I could produce a square each day, block it overnight and by the next afternoon, play with positioning.

Before long, I experimented further, and began changing the colour of the motifs as well as the positioning. I left the two original columns stitched together and varied the rest.

This process was helped by a week without visitors - so half my lounge became a design board and the other half my knitting station!

The design symmetry made knitting easier. Both knit and purl rows could be read right to left to get the required result - except for the deer, which, being the odd one out, required a great deal of attention ( and some undoing!).

I also varied the final shape and number of squares, settling for 5x6 rather than 5x7. It wasn't time pressure that dictated the change (although the time saving came in handy). I wanted a squarer result. Each "square" is slightly longer than it is wide, so 5 rows and 6 columns came fairly close to a square blanket - what I was aiming for.

This is the result before pressing.

I added the border in the colour specified, but added a couple of extra rows, and a black edge.

The extra width was partly to accommodate text along one edge - initials and date. I have obscured some of this in the photo for privacy reasons.

Because this is a healing blanket, as far as I could, I thought about the recipient, our friendships, his healing and well-being as I stitched. I have knitted a number of shawls in this mode for specific friends. This one was more complex than most, demanding more concentration on the knitting. As I thought about this, I realised it fitted. Some illnesses reshuffle our lives, take us out of neat, repeated patterns, demand adaptation and adjustment.  

I hope the blanket provides warmth, cheer, care and a reminder that something new can emerge from disruption.