Great reads Explore traditional Fair Isle knitwear and boost your colour combining confidence with this new guide
by Carina Olsson
SWEDISH KNITTING expert Carina Olsson looks across the sea to Shetland for her new book on Fair Isle knitting. She explains how she takes colour inspiration from nature and develops palettes that she can use in her knitting - her designs combine traditional Fair Isle motifs with colours influenced by the Swedish islands of Öland and Gotland.
A part of her process is the making of ‘colour cards’. Carina takes photographs of
colours in nature that she is drawn to -
seaweed on a rocky shore, for example, or lichens on a cliff face - and uses these
to select a group of yarn shades, which she keeps together on separate cards to act
as reference tools. She then explains how to arrange these groups of tones and colours
into knitted Fair Isle swatches.
Illustrating these ideas is a collection of 22 complete knitting projects, which can be used as a basis for your own unique colour combinations. The all-over patterning on the ‘Moorland Pullover’ reflects the brown peat, blue Atlantic, grey stone walls and lichen found on Shetland. The ‘Lichen Yoke Pullover’ has a plain body and an elegantly patterned yoke, while the drop-shoulder ‘East Burra Cardigan’ uses a shaded diamond pattern popular in the 1950s.
Other garments include a raglan sweater with a decorative collar in the famous Tree and Star pattern,
