Faroese Shawls…the very name sounds exotic,
bringing to mind images of delicate, spidery lace worn by fancy society
ladies. The truth is that real Faroese Shawls are anything but fancy.
Originally designed by hard-working women of the Faroese Isles about a
hundred years ago, these shawls were devised to be a working woman’s
garment, allowing freedom of movement while providing warmth in a very
chilly seaside environment. The originals are no-nonsense affairs,
knitted out of strong wools in plain dark colors, with built-in
shoulder “darts” that sit on the shoulders and stay there.
My shawl, drying in my kitchen
This is the thing about Faroese shawls that got me hooked on them in
the first place: They stay put. Really. Move, dance, walk, wave your
arms around, and the shawl stays where you put it. No lie. I’m wearing
one right now, and I’m an arm-waver. The shawl hasn’t budged an inch.
Now, that’s my kind of shawl. With regular shawls, usually I end up
arm-wrestling with the darn thing, struggling against the pull of
gravity to keep it gracefully draped around me—the end result, of
course, looking more slapstick than graceful. A shawl that stays in
place, no wrangling required—when I first read about them, I was
instantly intrigued.
I decided I had to have one. The Summer Lace Shawlette, my staff project for Interweave Knits Summer 2006, was the result.
I know, I could have just knitted one of the shawls in our vast
library of projects. There are plenty of pretty ones there. But I
wanted to design my own Faroese Shawl, as a way of figuring out how
they worked.
I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Imagine trying to
design a sock pattern without ever having knit one. Yeah. I know. I
plead Temporary Knitting Insanity.
It’s a testament to the loveliness of the Jade Sapphire Cashmere
yarn I was using that the shawl ever made it off the needles as a
finished object. I had to finish, I had to keep going.
You’re knitters, you’ll understand: The yarn made me do it.