Next in the retreat plans...Faroese sweaters
Topic: faroese knitting
I have been fascinated for a long, long time by the ethereal beauty of Faroese color patterns in sweaters. Simple, simple, natural sheep colors used in small repeated patterns make for easy knitting and warm clothing. In the Norwegian tradition, such two layer fabric can weather hard wear, and is very beautiful.

"The Faroe Islands are 18 tiny islands situated in the North Atlantic, between Iceland and Norway. Only 45.000 people live on the islands. Still it’s a nation of it’s own with own culture and own language."
So begins an intro on the Faroese design website of Gudrun & Gudrun, two designing women from the Faroe Islands. Sheep and wool are enjoying a resurgence and are once again a good business there, but it was not always so. The Islands and the sheep have struggled over the centuries. If you find their history as interesting as I do, you will enjoy this article.

Knitting came to the Islands in the late 1500's, and within a very short time, the quota of knitted socks that were exported reached in the hundreds of thousands. Sweaters were hand knitted at large gauges and sold in the mid 1900's. Here is an original design by Meg Swansen with Faroe color stitch patterns. Many times the marketed sweaters were turtlenecks. Most were steeked to add in the sleeves. Many sported natural sheep colors and all had lovely, simple to knit repeated small color stitch patterns that employed almost no float wrapping, which would slow down a knitter.

Over the years I have dabbled with Faroe stitches in some hat patterns I've written. On the left is FAROE BANDED HAT and on the right is FAROE VINE HAT. They are quite fun to knit and go remarkably fast even with two colors as there is no fiddling with the carried color. For the three sweater patterns, three hat patterns, and one sock pattern I have in my head, I hope to fully explore the use of 9 different natural sheep colors in the next year. I will break with tradition to create sweater patterns that do not have steeks, but rather raglan shoulder shapings, so that the entire garment can be worked continuously on circular needles, with only a few underarm stitches left to graft at the end.