MUSEUM PIECES
The story of a sweater knitted on Fair Isle in 1913
THE COLOURWORK jumper pictured opposite, now part of the knitwear collection at the Shetland Museum and Archives, was originally purchased on Fair Isle in the summer of 1913. It was bought by a Church of Scotland minister, Reverend Robert Logan, and his wife Annie. The sweater was knitted from handspun yarn and dyed with natural dyes; such jumpers were made for sale to tourists from the late 19th century.
According to the museum’s curator, Carol Christiansen: “The patterns are typical of traditional Fair Isle of this period, although it is atypical for garments from Fair Isle to have the same pattern repeated… The jumper may have been purchased for the Logan’s son and eldest child, John Black Logan, who was a petite boy and eight or nine years old at the time. He later donated the jumper to the museum.”
The Shetland Isles are a group of islands off the north-east tip of Scotland. Hand-knitting has existed there for more than 500 years, reaching the islands from mainland Scotland around 1500. By the 19th century it had evolved into high art, combining sophisticated colours and motifs. This stranded colourwork
knitting is often called ‘Fair Isle’ after the small island to the south of Shetland.
In 1856, Miss Eliza Edmonston, in her book Sketches and Tales of the Shetland
Islands, wrote about the islands’ colourful knitting, and suggested it was influenced by the shipwreck of a Spanish Armada ship, El Gran Grifón, in 1588. The romantic folklore suggested that sailors from the wreck had shown locals how to knit the motifs. Yet these patterns, although ‘exotic’ to the Victorian eye, have little in common with 16th century Spanish textiles.
The more prosaic reality is that trading with Scandinavia was more likely an influence, or the Baltic - multicolour knitting from that area was probably copied by English knitters, as well. And the decade when Miss Edmonston wrote her book was probably roughly the time when this art form was developed. There are records of dyes being imported into Shetland from 1840 onwards.
Shetland knitters worked in the round, typically using a knitting belt. Structurally similar to an English gansey, these jumpers were knitted up from the welt, and the sleeves down from the shoulders. Patterns are geometric and often symmetrical; sometimes they are figurative, such as the fir trees and snowflakes in this jumper.
Later Fair Isle garments often alternated large motifs with ‘peeries’ or small motifs; sometimes, to unify the design, the same peerie motif was repeated but the large motifs varied up the body of a jumper. At earlier dates, every band of pattern was different.
The practical reason for stranded knitting is that it carries more wool into the garment and traps an insulative layer of air between the stranded work; making it warm and potentially harder-wearing than a jumper made from a single strand.
Sources of colour
This jumper is striking - and typical of an earlier one - for its colours; a primary palette of red, blue and yellow with cream and a deep indigo blue/black. Pre-1860, dyes were natural, and although the jumper dates from 1913, it was still naturally dyed, possibly red from madder, blue from indigo or an indigo-woad blend, gold from local plants like ragwort, bistort, or the historic dye, weld. The yellow here may well be faded, but looks to be less saturated than the acid yellow typically obtained from weld - so I’d suspect a local plant or even a lichen, as is used to dye Harris Tweed.
Woad and indigo are chemically identical, but woad can be less fugitive (colourfast) than indigo. Often, by the 19th century, the two blues were mixed. A blue/black would be a challenging and skilled colour to make, naturally. Indigo or woad would have to be fermented, and maybe overdyed with, or dyed over, one of the Scottish traditional black dyes like darach - oak bark fixed with copperas - or seilastair (iris root). Some natural dyes would be local, others imported - just as on the mainland.
After aniline (synthetic) dyes were invented in the late 1850s and the 1860s,
some of the old dyes persisted or were replicated with their new, chemical cousins, but early aniline dyes are often more fugitive than natural dyes applied by a skilled and experienced home dyer.
Later Fair Isle knitting became more sophisticated in its use of colour; background colours might alter, behind a large motif, so that several colours of shades of one background colour might be used. Only two colours were used in a round, though, so this was simple stranded knitting, not complex intarsia.
This particular jumper is transitioning to a more elaborated style, where the background colours to some motifs vary, and several of the peeries have a band of red and a band of blue, as background. The motif order on the sleeves replicates that on the body. A faux seam stitch in yellow or cream is worked up both sides; again, just like on a one-colour gansey.
Motifs here are lozenges with crosses or squares inside; fir trees, hearts, and squares. In some Fair Isles, the familiar ‘OXO’ patterns are these same lozenges alternating with crosses. The square peeries echo some of the lozenges which have squares inside; the fir trees and hearts are more figurative, and the bold diamond peeries echo the squares, as well. Background colours are largely blues and red. Foreground motifs are cream and subtle yellow. At least two shades of blue have been used.
Shaping is minimal and, just like on ganseys, there is a shoulder flap; these were often on the right shoulder, because onboard a vessel, or on the quays, items would often be carried over the left shoulder (by a right-handed person).
There is no ribbed welt or neckband, making the design cleaner and modernistic; the whole piece is an uninterrupted canvas for the knitter’s design. Later, visible repairs were carried out pretty brutally in a non-matching green; just pragmatic battlefield repairs to the most worn areas.
Material matters
The islands’ sheep produce some of the finest wool from any native British breed, and have the widest range of natural colours (at least 11); including moorit (brown), mioget (lightest brown) and emsket (dusty blue/grey). The cream here could be from undyed Shetland wool.
This yarn would have been spun on a small, upright spinning wheel, as was typical on the islands. These wheels had a small footprint in a croft, but spun phenomenal mileage. A woman’s first job on marriage was to spin the linen she and family members would be laid out in. Spinning wool was a much easier task, and many islanders would have spun rather than bought commercial yarn. And whilst handspun was uncommon by 1913 on the mainland, in the Highlands and Islands it was still comparatively commonplace. Spinning would be a task for evenings, traditionally, as it was believed wool spun more easily when the sheep were asleep!
Post 1850, knitting yarn for most of the UK market was made commercially - the famous Patons of Alloa firm was founded in 1813, and its colourful yarns were sought after and emulated by other commercial spinners. Shetland had a tradition of handspinning, and some handspinners’ work would have been home-dyed using gathered materials or commercial home dyes, at later dates.
The fact this jumper was still naturally dyed as late as 1913 suggests that someone in the household was well acquainted with natural dyes or had learned from an older family member. These dyes are not easily made; blues are fermented with bran and urine - and the depth of colour made by repeated dipping and airing. Black or black/blue was notoriously difficult to achieve. And madder requires a very specific temperature and pH - the slightest deviation results in failure, as the madder reds shift to brown. This jumper’s spinner and dyer (possibly the same person) was highly skilled.
- To view more Fair Isle garments in the Shetland Museum collection, visit https://photos.shetlandmuseumand archives.org.uk