Rachel Challoner has launched an exciting project to uncover authentic examples of knitwear made on the island of Fair Isle
WORDS BY HELEN SPEDDING
RACHEL CHALLONER is a crofter on Fair Isle, the southernmost isle in the Shetland archipelago. As well as looking after her flock of sheep and producing her own yarns for her Bee Croft Wool brand, Rachel has embarked on an ambitious new project to create a visual archive of knitwear made on the island of Fair Isle – and she is calling on our readers to help! We chatted with Rachel about The Fair Isle Project, and about what life is like living on this remote island, which lies about 24 miles off the Shetland mainland.
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? “I’m originally from Lincolnshire, and I now live in Fair Isle where I run a 25-acre croft, called Barkland. I first came to Fair Isle in 2014 when I worked for a season as assistant cook at the Bird Observatory, and then moved here permanently the following year. My croft is one of the more northerly in the isle, although Fair Isle itself is only three miles long.
“Crofting and keeping sheep was completely new to me so, for the first few years, I did what everyone else on the island does - breed commercial crosses (Shetland x Texel sheep) for sale. However, that never sat well with me, and so I decided to breed only pure Shetland sheep and give all my sheep a home here for life, generating an income by getting their fleeces spun into wool that I could then sell. I mainly now have pure Shetlands but still have a good handful of my crossbreeds, who are just in permanent retirement!
“I think people tend to visit here in the summer months when the sun is shining and assume that living here must be some kind of island paradise… it’s really not! It is certainly a beautiful island, but it is a hard place to live, both physically and mentally.”
Where do you get your fleeces spun and processed into your Bee Croft Wool? “I would have loved to have kept every stage of wool production in Shetland but, unfortunately, we worked out that it would take me about 25 years to save up enough fleeces until I had the minimum weight required for a commission spin at Jamieson’s of Shetland! After doing a lot of research and talking to various mills, I was delighted to find Uist Wool, who agreed to spin my fleeces for me. Based in North Uist in the Western Isles, not only do they take immense pride in producing their yarns and creating the
