Traditional Knitting by Sheila McGregor and a teeny tiny Fair Isle baby bonnet

Premie size Fair Isle baby hat in yellow and brown

I had a stroke of  luck this week when I came across a book about traditional knitting by Sheila McGregor. I had been on the look out for anything by her since I acquired "Michael Parson's Traditional Knitting" when I was on holiday in Scotland last  year.

If it had been her "Complete Book of Fair Isle Knitting" I would have been over the moon, still I am pretty chuffed to have laid my hands on this 1983 Batsford Paperback - "Traditional Knitting" for just 25p. While only quite a short book Sheila's take on the history of  knitting is well researched and written with some wry humour.

I'm fascinated by the different theories surrounding the development and spread of  knitting techniques and patterns around the globe. There seems to be very little hard and fast evidence and the folklore surrounding "traditional" patterns varies according to where you are asking. Do we owe Fair Isle knitting to the Spanish or the Vikings?  Sheila suggestion is that the source was more likely to have been Estonia.

One thing that stands out from the book for me is the importance of felting. It had never occurred to me that not only hats but most of  those hand knit stockings were felted. The book reminds us that knitting is basically a circular technique and Sheila's parting paragraph says very much about what I think of as "Joined Up Knitting"

"....knitting is in many ways an ideal craft for today. It is no longer true that it has to be economically worthwhile; it is sufficient in itself. The varying levels of skill can explored (if knitters would only lift their eyes from their paper patterns and read a little about the basic). Not the least thing, the end result is useful as well as beautiful and, we would hope, unique."

The are lots of fascinating colour pictures in the book, but here we will have to make do with an image of  my own first attempt at Fair Isle hand knitting last year. I started off at random really, trying out some circular knitting on four pins and some contrasting oddments and just trying to make changes as I went along. It turned out as a very small hat about right for a premie baby, so I sent it off to South Africa with some knitted blankets. squares.
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