Learning Fair Isle Knitting - A Living Family Tradition
- Elizabeth Seward
- 5 days ago
- 3 min read
When I was about 4 or 5, my mother knitted me a Fair Isle beret. As a child of the 20s and 30s, in Scotland, she had always knitted, but very basic things. This time, she wanted to challenge herself with fine wool and intricate-looking traditional patterns native to the islands 100 miles off the north coast of Scotland.
Legends say this knitting tradition stems from the days of the vanquished Armada (1588) taking the ‘long way home’ around the North of Scotland, shipwrecked on the stormy treacherous coast of a tiny remote island (Fair Isle, far off the coast of the distant Shetland Islands).
As my mother told me later, my father’s sisters, accomplished and consistent knitters, refused to believe she could manage the challenge – which of course only strengthened her resolve.
I still have the little beret she knitted, inappropriately mended by candle wax (another story). When I hold it in my hands, I am transported back almost 70 years to foggy London mornings when my father would walk me to school on his way to his morning commuter train. I almost always wore that beret with a light brown coat and knitted gloves.
There was one particular railway bridge we had to walk under. It was cold, and dark, and wet, with moss growing on the walls and on the barrel ceiling of the underpass. Loud drips of cold water fell unexpectedly. When I hold the Fair Isle beret, I remember holding my father’s hand, feeling safe, protected, and warm from head to toe.
Many years later, having learned to knit from my mother, I accidentally found myself helping children learn to knit in my eldest daughter’s 1st grade classroom in the local Waldorf – Steiner school. It was a delightful and satisfying challenge! At the same time, I wanted to knit something myself beyond knit and purl, so I knitted a vest for my young son using traditional Fair Isle peerie (=small) patterns. I still use this as a sample today when teaching beginning Fair Isle classes.
One thing led to another, as it often does. I became the full-time handwork teacher, grades 1-8, supported other handwork teachers, then founded and now co-direct Waldorf Handwork Educators to prepare other teachers to teach all kinds of traditional fiber arts. We encourage teachers to be aware of their own relevant and local traditions. My personal relationship prompts me to teach the basics of Fair Isle knitting to children and adults.
I really enjoy knitting the annual patterns published by Shetland Wool Week and a couple of years ago, I was on Shetland and wearing the hat designed to support local cancer prevention when by chance I met its designer, Harriet Middleton. I felt I had travelled to the other side of the world from Los Angeles to Shetland to come full circle back to the ‘source’. Find the pattern HERE.
I now like to teach beginning Fair Isle in 2nd grade (basic, simple, peerie patterns); basic Fair Isle in the round in 5th grade (still mostly peerie patterns); and more advanced techniques to adults, involving more complex patterns, more subtle color choices and much finer yarn. Recently in my teaching career I also felt I was coming full circle when I received a thank you card from a teenage student. She expressed the beautiful sentiment that tracing the same stitch patterns as her recently deceased aunt brought them closer together.
When we make garments for those we care about, or when we follow the well-trodden path of traditional stitches as we think about our loved ones, they are ‘doubly-clothed’ – both with the warmth of the garment, and with the love we put into every stitch. Invisible but enduring messages of care and love are passed through the ages through the work of our hands. This is what makes it so worthwhile to teach and pass on these traditional and practical skills.
Join us for our Online International Conference February 14-16, 2026 where you can explore Fair Isle and other traditional knitting techniques from several countries around the world (including Portuguese "around the neck" knitting and Latvian wristers!) These will underscore there can be no “one right way” to knit, and may remind you how it feels to be all thumbs as you learn a new skill!
Join us for this inclusive, diverse, challenging, and exciting event. Follow Handwork 2026 for fascinating insights into many, many aspects of Craft in America!
Handwork: Celebrating American Craft 2026, a nationwide Semiquincentennial initiative to showcase the importance of the handmade both throughout our history and in contemporary life.
