A Post Card from Knit City Montreal
Last week the My Sister Knits newsletter was about regional fiber festivals. I also mentioned that I was going to attend Knit City Montreal, not a fiber festival but a trade show. Sadly, there were no animals, which is one part of a fiber festival that I love!
However, there were over 60 vendors selling everything from bags to looms to yarn! There was a wonderful energy in the Marketplace which took up an entire floor of the hotel! Everyone was happy and friendly and ready to have a good time!
Vincent is on the left, Max on the right
Thursday night after I arrived I went to Les Garcons Boutique where I met Max and Vincent, the creative minds behind their yarn. It was fun to get to talk to these two about their beautiful breed specific yarn that we carry and develop a personal connection.
My weekend at the show started off with a class Friday afternoon before the Marketplace opened Saturday. My goal this summer is to make three colorwork hats with increasingly complex patterns. When I saw that Gudrun Johnston offered a Fair Isle Taster class, I knew that I wanted to take it!
Gudrun Johnston © The Wooly Thistle
There’s a lot to know about Gudrun but, to put it briefly, she’s a Shetland-born knitwear designer currently based in Massachusetts. She designs traditional Fair Isle patterns inspired by her heritage. Her brother and father live on Shetland and Gudrun visits as often as she can. Her mother had a knitwear business called The Shetland Trader, named after a boat they saw in the harbor with the same name! Gudrun’s business name is also The Shetland Trader and she has a YouTube channel with that name if you want to learn more.
This was the color palette in my class bag. Most Fair Isle patterns are about 5 colors.
Her class exceeded my high expectations and I loved it! I learned so much about Fair Isle knitting and I thought I knew a good amount to begin with! We knit a swatch and were going to steek it but ran out of time. Most of the time, Shetlanders do not bother to reinforce their steeks. I’ve always heard that you need to use a sewing machine or crochet the edge but not if you use wool from the Shetland Islands! All you do is cut, then pick up for whatever band you’re going to make, perhaps a button band or even a neck band. The raw edges will felt to the wrong side of the work.
My swatch. I chose high contrast colors for each row and added a pop at the center line.
Another thing that happens with Fair Isle knitting with wool from Shetland is that you don’t need to catch any floats! This just gets better and better! Most Fair Isle floats are 9 stitches or less and because the gauge is so small, anchoring them isn’t necessary.
What makes a traditional Fair Isle design? Three types of designs: a border pattern, usually consisting of 8 - 15 rows; a peerie pattern that is a tiny, delicate, usually intricate design over 1 - 7 rows; and a larger motif pattern, usually 15 or more rows. What you need to look for is if the larger motif pattern is worked symmetrically from narrow to wide and back down to narrow, in a mirror image of itself. There will be a 1 - 3 row center line where a pop of color is often added. There are never more than two colors in a row.
notice the border, peerie, and motif patterns
Patterns are either light on a dark background or dark on a light background. When you’re knitting, Gudrun’s advice is to place your background color to your right and the pattern color to your left. Your pattern color should come from underneath the background color. This worked well for me and not once did my yarns become tangled!
Then there was the Marketplace on Saturday and Sunday where I did indeed find some treasures to bring home with me! Yarn with alpaca and silk and one with a bit of cashmere, a couple of bags, and an embroidery kit to decorate my latest sweater! Plus lots of good memories!
Happy knitting,
