Fair Isle

On today's episode...

The events that tack Pair as Pair to Wool Week are marvellous in how varied they are because there's all the sort of actual technical knitting classes that come from all over the world to learn authentic Fair Isle knitting and openwork Shetland lace marking.

But there's also all the sort of things like the Westside Worsity Wonders exhibition and also the Ollaberry Happening, which I think is another amazing name for it.

your granny did it, your mommy did it, just everybody did it.

Yeah.

Which is fabulous.

The events that tacked as Pair to Wool Week are marvellous in how varied they are because there's all the sort of actual technical knitting classes that have come all over the world to learn authentic Fair Isle knitting and open work Shetland Lace marking, but there's also all the sort of things like the Westside Worsity Wonders exhibition and also the Ollaberry Happening, which I think is another amazing name for it.

How many visitors does it bring in?

Well, stories that I think are funny anyway.

One thing that happened to me, I went to Fair Isle, being one of the shipping forecast sea areas.

And Fair Isle, if people don't know, it's a tiny island.

It's Britain's remotest inhabited community.

It's halfway between mainland Scotland and the Shetland Islands.

Anyway, I went there.

And I was staying in Lerwick in Shetland.

And I was getting a plane over to visit Fair Isle for the day and come back.

So, yeah, I guess that bird you mentioned is probably in that bunch.

A lot of which actually turned up in promising locations like Fula and Fair Isle and Whitburn.

But then there's also one in Hertfordshire in a garden, I think, in August, so...

It just shows a lot of these things were jumping their cage.

Don't, no.

Uh, fabric pleating, fan making, Fair Isle chair, diamond cutting

Diamond cutting

Hat making

Then you've got the Aran jumper from the Irish island with its densely worked panels, which was originally fisherman's clothing, and you had these specific patterns that identified families.

And then you've got the Shetland and the Guernsey and the Fair Isle vest, which all share the same origin story, islands, cold water, hard work.

The reason knitwear is so important in this aesthetic is the thermal honesty.

It's what you could actually put on in a cold room to read for four hours.

...

Fair Isle originally?

Uh, yes, yes.

I, uh, I come from, um, well, the, um, the, the, uh, Suffolk Coast actu...

Yeah.

Trapped and ringed, and on the same day, another one turned up on Fair Isle.

Uh, I think we're, we're still waiting for another, uh, for a really accessible staying mainland bird that gives itself up to the cause, aren't we? Um, I'm sure-

Yeah

Um, and since the famously trapped female, um, in Tynemouth back in the '80s and '90s, this bird has just cropped up again and again in situations that kind of hint that maybe there's a colony or two, maybe s- maybe some odd pairs among colonies of, of other storm-petrels out in the North Atlantic.

Um, and yeah, there's certainly hints that that might be the case, that there's a singing bird in amongst Leach's.

They, um, they, th- they, they trapped one on Fair Isle for, was it two years on the trot?

Uh, at least.