I'm doing a bit of sewing and my latest binge-watch is the BBC production of Shetland. It is a detective/murder mystery (my favourite), set in Scotland. It takes a bit of listening to, for that Scottish dialect, but I'm enjoying it. The most recent episode that I've watched takes place on Fair Isle which is a tiny island off Northern Scotland, between Shetland and the Orkney Islands. And I keep saying to myself (there's nobody else here to tell) 'I've been there!'. The scenery is spectacular - it is known as a bird sanctuary and as the home of fairisle knitting.
Way back, in 1991, I went on a tour called 'The Wool and
Wonders of Scotland', sponsored by the Rowan Yarn company. It was a fabulous 2-week
trip-of-a-lifetime where we toured by bus, boat and helicopter from Aberdeen to
Stornaway and Lerwick, ending in Edinburgh. There was a ton of history, everything
was defined by how long ago Bonnie Prince Charlie did whatever. We had a day
with local spinners and weavers; a fashion show by a designer who produced
cable knits for the Japanese market; a trip to the tartan-maker to the Queen;
visited crofts/homes where Harris Tweed was made; had several trips to wool
brokers where we saw wool being processed from the sheep's back to the finished
skein and every step along the way; the Callanish Stones (so much better than
Stonehenge!), a half day at the Glenfiddich Distillery and a lot more. There
was something for everyone and the highlight for me was a helicopter ride to
Fair Isle for a couple of hours. 
In the community centre I found a group of
machine knitters using Studio/Sliver Reed punch card machines to knit fairisle sweaters for sale. I was the
only machine knitter on the tour ( all the rest were hand knitters with a
couple of husbands thrown in for good measure) so I hung out there for most of
the afternoon, talking with them and figuring out what they were doing. They
had a machine with a ribber attached that one lady was making the 'welts' (what
they called the ribs for waistbands and cuffs) and removing them on waste yarn and then they had about 4 other punch
card machines set up to do the fairisle blanks of body and sleeves. I was
amazed at the huge, long punchcard they had - I didn't know then that it was
available on a roll so you could have a 200 row fairisle design without having
to reset the punchcard every so often. Someone had to hand graft the welt to the
blanks and do the seaming. I showed them how to rehang the welts directly to
the punchcard machine to knit the fairisle right off that and eliminate the
grafting step - they were absolutely amazed! I was a hero for a few minutes and
the hand knitters looked at me with new respect after hearing that I was able
to help out the Fair Isle knitters!
