I learn about Fair Isle knitting long before I took an earnest interest in knitting. From I started to take an interest in clothes I have had a fascination for 30s and 40s fashion. And having that interest you can’t avoid Wallis Simpson and Edward VIII, some of the biggest fashion icons of the 30s. Haven seen a lot of photos of him in golf attire, reading descriptions of general colour use in the 30s and looking at fashion drawings from that time, I had an image in my head of how this kind of knit work would look like. So when I took up knitting and started buying foreign magazines (Norwegian books and patterns are either for fashion knitting, or they are, well, for Norwegian knitting) I was disappointed. What the magazines called Fair Isle knitting was just easy two colour work, or what look exactly like very simple Norwegian knitting, or just a garment with lots of colour. Nowhere was to be seen the vests I had imagined with geometrical patterns on a changing background colour. But after reading blogs and browsing the net for knitting related stuff I realised the magazines had it wrong and my imagination had it right! After seeing photos like those one this page, I even realised it look very much like the patterns used in traditional Norwegian tapestries. Not so surprising maybe when remembering that Norway and Shetland was part of the same cultural spear around the North Sea in the Viking and medieval times. I also found out that there are many books about the history of Fair Isle knitting. The knitting magazines certainly have better access to the sources like these than me. So why to the magazines I have read still describe patterns not remotely looking like the pictures as Fair Isle? Why did the fashion historians get it right, they cover a vastly bigger field than just knitting, and not the magazines, which only covers the field of knitting? I’m almost wondering if the staffs at the magazines do any research. To stomach a job as editor for a knitting magazine, you would have to be more than average interest in the subject would you not? This makes me wonder even more why they describe patterns that are not at all Fair Isle as just Fair Isle.
January 25, 2008...4:53 am
Why do knitting magazines describe almost everything with colour work as Fair Isle?
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April 29, 2008 at 8:30 am
Knitting magazines have to sell many copies. Many people would like to think they’re doing Fair Isle knitting. So the magazines call very simple stranded designs Fair Isle and the unskilled knitters feel good and buy the magazines. Real Fair Isle designs have changed over the years too, becoming simpler in the 1950s to allow faster production.