14 Yokes

kate davies knits
YOKES
Eleven signature designs, with stories of the sweater
that changed the shape of modern knitting
This book is dedicated to the memory of two great knitters and
designers: my maternal grandmother, Mary Traynor, who taught and
inspired me, and Elizabeth Zimmermann, whose work opened the door
onto a wonderful world of yoke knitting.
kate davies knits

YOKES
first published in 2014 by

kate davies designs
© copyright kate davies designs 2014
all rights reserved
YOKES
Contents
Words
4 Why yokes?
A versatile garment with a fascinating history and an
enduring appeal.
Designs
8 Greenlanders and Norwegians
The intriguing story of how the Greenlandic Nuilarmiut
influenced knitted yoke design.
16 Kerstin Olsson and the Bohus yoke

We meet the designer whose beautiful yokes
transformed sweaters into wearable works of art.

22 The Shetland tree and star
A motif that shaped a Shetland generation.
28 Perspectives on the Lopapeysa

Hélène Magnússon speaks about the evolution of the
lopapeysa yoked sweater in Iceland.
34 AMegconversation with Meg Swansen

shares her thoughts on yokes and the legacy of
Elizabeth Zimmermann.
44 Jökull
38 Yoke connections
As symbols of identity and difference, yokes carry a
wide range of meanings for their wearers.
42 Further reading
A short bibliography.
43 Before you begin

Notes on fit and modification.
109 Special techniques

Useful technical information.
112 Acknowledgments and biography

Words of thanks and some words about Kate.
113 Abbreviations
A list of abbreviations appears on the inside back cover. 48 Epistrophy
54 Keith Moon 72 Ásta Sóllilja 90 Bluebells
60 Fintry 78 Foxglove 96 Frost at Midnight
66 Buchanan 85 Cockatoo Brae 102 Westering Home

Why YOKES?
A versatile garment with a fascinating history and an enduring appeal.
T
he simple reason why this book exists is that I love yokes. Yokes have a logical geometry. Our bodies are composed
When I started knitting again, around a decade ago, yoke of tubes and curves, and the circular shape of a well-knitted
sweaters were top of the list of things I longed to make, yoke can match and enhance our visual lines in a fashion both
and I soon found that I couldn’t stop making them. Yokes were uniquely pleasing and immensely flattering.
also the first garments I created as a designer and, several years Yokes are fun to knit. I am happy spending days working away
later, I still can’t stop designing them. on acres of plain stockinette, if, at the end of it, there is the
yoke’s delicious promise. For me, a yoke is pure treat knitting – a
why do i love yokes so? creative pleasure to be hotly anticipated and thoroughly enjoyed.
Yokes are a kind of knitted jewellery. They adorn the
shoulders and frame the face in ways that can range from what is a yoke?
delicate to dramatic. A carefully blended colourwork yoke At its most basic, a yoke is a circular piece of fabric, shaped
might seem virtually kaleidoscopic, a textured yoke worked in such a manner that a garment is narrowed to fit to the
in neutral cables or lace can be a beautifully subtle way of shoulders and neck. The story of this shape in the general
decorating the upper torso. history of textiles is very long and very varied. As underwear,
Yokes are versatile. A thrown-on yoke of Icelandic wool is a yoke’s circular geometry might act as the foundation of a
among the best outdoor wear there is, while a beaded yoke Victorian shift; as outerwear, a yoke of high-quality fulled wool
worked in a luxurious laceweight yarn can attain a stunning might form a seventeenth-century cape. But in its hand-knitted
formal elegance. form, the yoke’s history is relatively short. »
4
JÖKULL COCKATOO BRAE
WESTERING HOME
EPISTROPHY BLUEBELLS
ÁSTA SÓLLILJA
KEITH MOON FROST AT MIDNIGHT
FOXGLOVE
FINTRY BUCHANAN
WHY YOKES?
countless pattern books and magazines, the yoke has always

been an emphatically commercial garment too, designed for
easy reproduction and sale. A plain-bodied sweater featuring
a colourwork yoke is much swifter for a knitter to create than
a garment with all-over patterning, and is created even more
speedily if the body and sleeves are turned out by machine.
While Bohus yokes were almost always hand-knitted in their
entirety, Shetland yokes were consistently worked in hybrid
fashion, with a machine-knit body and hand-knit yoke. With
thicker, Icelandic, unspun wool it became easy to hand-knit an
entire yoked garment quickly and completely in the round. The
speed and ease of the Icelandic yoke’s construction, as much as
its undoubted aesthetic appeal, is key to its longevity and success.
From the beginning then, the creation of hand-knitted
yokes has been very much determined by fashion, by the
basic technology of knitting, and most definitely by the
demands of the market. In different weights of yarn, in many
different styles, hand-knit yokes could be designed and sold as
outerwear, as sportswear or indeed, in some cases, as evening
wear as well. Yokes proved consistently popular and were also
supremely adaptable to each twentieth-century moment in
which they found themselves. In the form-fitting 1950s and
early sixties, Bohus and Shetland yoke sweaters were the height
of feminine style. A neat yoke was de rigeur for sixties mods and
college girls and, as silhouettes expanded once more towards
the seventies, the Icelandic yoke created a stylish winter cocoon
for countless women. As both ready-made, hand-knitted
garments and as patterns which enabled knitters to whip
up such garments themselves, demand for hand-knit yokes
remained extremely strong until the 1980s.
As we will see, the circular knitted yoke emerges among the
knitting communities of the North Atlantic in the late 1920s and
early thirties, swiftly rises to fashionable prominence around
the world, and becomes one of the most popularly created and
worn knitted garments of the fifties, sixties and seventies.
creating yokes
There is no single ‘correct’ technique, no one purely
‘traditional’ method of hand-knitting a yoke. The first
Norwegian yokes were constructed from the top-down on
circular needles, while Shetland yokes were always created
from the bottom-up, using long wires or pins and a knitting
belt. In both Shetland and Norway, bodies and sleeves might
be created in the round as well, but circular yokes could also be
picked up from, or grafted to, a flat body and sleeves that had
been fashioned either by hand or by machine.
Throughout the whole North Atlantic region, this
combination of a flat, seamed body and sleeves with a
circularly created yoke, knit from either top or bottom, is in
fact the most commonly-seen construction prior to the 1960s.
This might seem surprising, but it should be remembered
that, as well as being an appealing hand-knit, featuring in
6
WHY YOKES?
an economy of yokes photos and credits

This demand drew the knitting communities of the North 4 Epistrophy.
Atlantic together. From New Brunswick to Oslo; from Lerwick Photo: Kate Davies
to Boston; from the 1920s to the present day – hundreds of 5 Yoke illustrations by
thousands of women have knitted or worn a yoked sweater. Felicity Ford.
These connections both intrigue and inspire me and are what 6 Yoke design from Lee
made me want to research and write about yokes, as well as Target in Vogue Knitting
design a collection. 53 (1958).
Shetland and Icelandic yokes travelled far from the locales 6 Knitwear labels of the
of their production and the beautiful yokes created by Bohus Shetland Hand Knitters
Stickning designer, Kerstin Olsson, were loved and worn by Association and Bohus
women all over North America. Yokes inspired women to knit, Stickning.
lent colour to their wardrobes, brought them financial support 7 Olga Coelho in the Blå
or confidence, enabled them to express their creativity, or Skimmer yoke.
meant they could establish and develop their own businesses 7 Girls in Greenlandic dress,
and careers. For Ann Feitelson, a yoke worn in her youth began including nuilarmiut.
a transatlantic aesthetic journey that culminated in Shetland, Photo: Karsten Bidstrup,
and the creation of influential colourwork patterns. Meanwhile, courtesy of Greenland.com
Shetlander Hazel Tindall, who knitted tree and star yokes to
order as a girl (and who may well have created the original
yoke worn by Ann Feitelson), is now herself an important
designer of beautiful yoke patterns that are knitted by women
all over the world. An awareness of the integrity of her own
yoke construction gave Elizabeth Zimmermann the confidence
to strike out on her own, and to transform the world of knitting
with her enabling ‘unventions’.
yoke perspectives
In the essays and conversations which follow, I unravel some
of these connections, and explore some of the personal and
regional stories behind the hand-knitted, circular yoke. There
is much more to say than I’ve had space to examine here,
and rather than offering a comprehensive history, I’ve instead
sought to examine yokes from a series of perspectives around
the North Atlantic. I could never hope to tell the full story, but
I do promise that you will hear many different voices in the
pages that follow – the voices of just some of the inspiring
women who have designed, knitted and worn yokes between
the 1920s and today.
Following the conversations and essays, there are eleven
different yoke designs. It has been a genuine pleasure for me to
create a complete collection of garments in which I hope I’ve
addressed the preferences of many different knitters, as well as
following my own paths of inspiration.
You will find designs in varying weights of yarn, from
laceweight through to heavy aran; involving several types of
knitting, from colourwork to cables; addressing a range of
different skill levels, from beginner to reasonably advanced;
and in a range of sizes and proportions.
I hope that in these pages you will discover a yoke to suit
you and that, with me, you will enjoy exploring the story of the
garment which has, in so many senses, changed the shape of
modern knitting.
7
8
Greenlanders and Norwegians
The intriguing story of how the Greenlandic Nuilarmiut influenced knitted yoke design.
1930
A frozen ocean. A blonde man lies prone, much talk in Norway) strikes an
alone and stranded on an ice-floe. As he important contemporary chord.
drifts ashore, evidently close to death, he But she is certainly intrigued by the
is discovered by a dark-haired woman. actress’s attire. A designer with an
She wears mittens, long skin boots and eye for stitch and shape she muses
trousers. Her hair is tied high in a neat thoughtfully on the Greenland
top-knot. Sitting around her shoulders is a costume worn by the Swedish film
deep collar, its dramatic patterns of stripes star. How would that stunning
and chevrons picked out in thousands beaded collar work in the context
of tiny glass beads. In this outfit, against of a jumper? She drafts up a
the empty white-out of the landscape, knitting pattern.
she cuts an incredibly striking figure. The Swedish actress was Mona
But though her unusual attire seems to Mårtenson and the Norwegian
speak of cultural difference, a close up designer, Annichen Sibbern.
of her face reveals familiarly Western Together with her blonde co-star
features. This woman is an actress. Born Paul Richter, Mårtenson famously
in Stockholm, a rising star of several appeared in Eskimo (1929-30), a
European films, she is dressed up here Danish-Norwegian co-production,
to play a Greenlander. It is a role that is and the first ‘talkie’ to be made in
compelling. She protects the blonde man either country. Also released as a
even when his actions arouse suspicion. silent film in France and Germany,
She brings him food when she and the and celebrating the imperial
rest of the community are starving. She landscape of Denmark ‘from the
remains quietly true and determined Pole to Flensborg Fjord’, Eskimo is
in her affections, even when he seems unworthy; when he is a film that suggests how a particular idea of Greenland had
tempted to betray her. powerfully taken hold of the Scandinavian and European
Emoting to camera, her beautiful face conveys desire and cultural consciousness at the turn of the 1930s.
love and loss. She is a figure for her country, for its landscape
– a glittering fantasy of an untouched place available to be annichen sibbern
connected to and owned. The blonde playboy is tempted by Annichen Sibbern meanwhile, was a cultural and textile
the promise of home and civilisation and riches, but inevitably historian passionate about Norwegian crafts in general and
falls head-over-heels for the polar wilderness. It is a familiar knitting in particular. Travelling around Norway with her work
story, this well-rehearsed romance of colonial possession, for Den Norske Husflidsforening (the Norwegian Arts and Crafts
replayed since Pocahontas in many other contexts. The blonde Association), the talented and determined Sibbern gathered
man clasps the woman to his chest. “I love you” he says, local patterns and stitches and disseminated them to the
“where you are, I will also be. Your country is now my country.” public, with the hope of encouraging and inspiring the skill of
Watching this film is a Norwegian woman, on whom knitting among her countrywomen.
it leaves a deep impression. Perhaps she is gripped by In her Norske Strikkemønstre, first published in 1929, and
the narrative of cross-cultural romance, or perhaps the reissued in multiple editions throughout the thirties and forties,
representation of Greenland (about which there has been Sibbern produced what has probably been the most influential »
9
GREENLANDERS AND NORWEGIANS
beaded collar. The collar is relatively short and at this point

definitely seems more necklace than yoke-like.
The second half of the Nineteenth Century witnessed a
phase of vigorous Moravian missionary activity in Greenland,
and much of the decoration incorporated into women’s dress
during this era echoed the routine use of ribbons and other
coloured objects to distinguish female age and status among
catechising Germans and Danes. 1
By the turn of the Twentieth Century, Greenland had
established its own Christian elite, many of whom had been
educated in mainland Denmark and identified with the revivalist
Peqatigiinniat, a movement with distinct nationalist as well as
religious aims for Greenland. According to Bo Wagner Sørensen
and Søren Thuesen, the first three decades of the Twentieth
Century saw a rapid change in dress, including the adoption
of the white anorak for men and the deep beaded yoke of the
nuilarmiut for women on formal and festive occasions. 2
Thus, it is out of this complex cultural combination of
the processes of European commerce, Danish colonial
administration, Moravian missionary activity, the ideologies
of a new national (and nationalist) elite, and the textile
innovations of a host of talented local craftswomen, that what
is now known as the Greenland women’s ‘national costume’
emerges in the early decades of the Twentieth Century, with
the nuilarmiut as its stunning centrepiece. Made up of around
Norwegian knitting publication of all time. Following 65,000 glass beads, it can take a skilled Greenland maker up to
Mårtenson and Sibbern’s movie-theatre encounter, Sibbern two months to create a single nuilarmiut with its spectacularly
designed a yoke sweater, which she named Eskimo after the colourful zig-zagging yoke. 3
film. This sweater is important. For it not only tells the story of After seeing Eskimo, Annichen Sibbern designed and knitted
an influential knitting pattern but reveals the complex symbolic an innovative sample jumper, which, when it was depicted in
function that yokes might hold in the formation of modern progressive Norwegian women’s magazine, Urd, proved an
regional and national identities. immediate sensation. A popular pattern leaflet followed and
in 1931, the same year that Annichen Sibbern married athlete
the nuilarmiut and the eskimo sweater and lawyer Ole Bøhn, the Eskimo yoke appeared in Norske
So what exactly was the nature of the garment worn by Mona Strikkemønstre. Sibbern Bøhn’s innovative pattern combines
Mårtenson that held such fascination for Annichen Sibbern?
Well, Mårtenson was wearing the nuilarmiut, a decorative collar
which, by 1930 when the film Eskimo was released, had become
one of the most familiar distinguishing features of Greenlandic
women’s formal dress. Together with other textile products
such as wool stockings and caps from Iceland, Shetland and the
Faroe Islands, the beads that formed such collars began to be
traded in Greenland from the Eighteenth Century on.
Women gradually incorporated these brightly coloured
objects into their formal dress and these imported decorations
existed alongside other kinds of ornamentation involving
local materials, such as the beautiful embroideries (sioqqat)
with which Greenlandic women adorned (and still adorn)
their sealskin trousers and boots. The famous 1860 series of
woodcuts by Rasmus Berthelsen depicts a Nuuk woman whose
costume clearly combines several different local and imported
materials. She wears sealskin pants and boots, a silk ribbon-
adorned top-knot, a lace-edged cotton shift and a narrow
10
long-established Norwegian methods of circular knitting and

garment construction with a simple shape and graphic design
that, in 1930, would have felt singularly contemporary.
Knitted in natural shades of Norwegian wool and worked
from the top down, the yoke pattern unites the local
colourwork motifs that Annichen would have encountered
on her pattern-gathering journeys around Norway, with the
dramatic chevrons that made Mona Mårtenson’s nuilarmiut so
very striking. Rather than continuing the circular construction
downwards, Sibbern Bøhn suggested that body and
sleeves could be worked flat, either by hand or by machine.
Colourwork borders were finally knitted on in the round. This
garment construction – of a top-down circular yoke combined
with flat, tailored body and sleeves – set the basic parameters
for many iconic Norwegian and Swedish yokes to follow,
perhaps most notably those produced by Bohus Stickning. 4
Sibbern Bøhn’s larger project with her patterns and designs
was to support and promote the skills and crafts of Norway
and, in the timing of its appearance, her Eskimo sweater might
be seen to chime with another nationalist project. Since gaining
full independence in 1905, Norway had been contesting
Danish claims to Greenland, which, prior to 1815, had been a
Norwegian territorial possession. On 27th June, 1931, whaler
Hallvard Devold raised the Norwegian flag in Myggbukta, in
east Greenland and claimed the territory for Norway under the
name Erik Raudes Land (Erik the Red’s Land) in reference to the greenland at mid-century
tenth-century founder of the region’s first Norse settlements. Situated as it is between North America and Russia, Greenland
Devold’s claim was supported by the Norwegian government has often been the centre of strategic controversies and
and for the following two years he occupied the territory until international wrangling. During the Second World War, a
an international court ruled in favour of Denmark. contentious treaty allowed the USA to operate out of Greenland
Sibbern Bøhn’s design, then, appeared in the immediate and these transatlantic connections were strengthened by
context of a nation seeking restitution of one of its former Denmark’s membership of NATO in 1949. By the early 1950s,
overseas dependencies. Directly inspired by the costume of at the height of the Cold War, and with the full agreement
that former dependency, and produced at a moment when of the Danish Government, the USA secretly engaged upon
anything associated with Greenland inspired hot debate in ‘Operation Blue Jay’, constructing a gigantic air base at Thule
Norway, Sibbern Bøhn’s Eskimo yoke might surely be read as a in northern Greenland. In order to construct the base, 130
quietly nationalist knitted statement. local inhabitants were forcibly removed to a newly constructed
village 60 miles away.
imperial performance To smooth troubled waters and to assure their subjects
The nuilarmiut appeared in early twentieth-century Greenland of their importance in the broadest sense to Denmark, King
alongside an emergent local movement that eventually Frederick and Queen Ingrid made their first Danish royal
culminated in agitation for home rule. Against this political state visit to Greenland in August 1952. A few months later,
backdrop, nuilarmiut, kamik and other elements of Greenlandic Operation Blue Jay was made public and constitutional reforms
formal dress rapidly became a way for members of the were enacted under which Greenland was deemed an integral
Danish colonial administration to express their connection amt (county) rather than a colony of Denmark. 5
to Greenland, by displaying a familiarity and fondness for Greenland’s status had shifted from the Danish periphery
its culture, and thereby strengthening bonds between this to its centre, and one way this shift seemed to be expressed
northern periphery and its imperial centre. Full outfits of formal was in the Royal Family’s enthusiastic adoption of Greenlandic
dress might be given as gifts to high-profile Danish dignitaries formal dress. Certainly this was the aspect of the state visit
and worn on state visits, attracting much attention. It is in this that attracted most attention in the national and international
context that, a few decades later, the Greenlandic nuilarmiut press. The figures of Frederick and Ingrid in their spectacular
once again inspired another Norwegian designer to create Greenland costumes made front-page news, and photographs
another, equally iconic, yoked sweater. of Princesses Margarethe, Anne-Marie, and Benedikte in »
11
newly-acquired kamik and nuilarmiut Dale’s Eskimo genser, like several of

were reproduced in countless her other sweaters, as a Norske Ikon
magazines. “Like proud homecoming (Norwegian icon). 7
parents” Life Magazine reported, King
Frederick and Queen Ingrid “rushed” costume and nationality
to dress their daughters in their “fancy The transposition of the Greenlandic
new clothes”. 6 nuilarmiut into two distinct Norwegian
Eskimo yoked sweaters illustrates the
a second eskimo intriguing process by which a garment
Meanwhile in London, Unn Søiland with strong individual national
Dale, Norwegian designer and fashion associations can come to inspire, and
pundit, was working for the BBC World be interwoven into, a very different
Service, producing a series of Radio garment with comparable significance
broadcasts about UK culture and style. for another group of people.
Taking a walk about the city one day, With their innovative design and
she spotted a striking photograph construction, success and longevity,
of the Danish Royal Family in their Sibbern Bøhn’s and Dale’s Eskimo
nuilarmiut in a shop window and was yokes are both certainly, in their own
immediately inspired. ways, Norwegian icons. Created by
In 1952, yoke sweaters had two talented and enterprising women,
become incredibly fashionable and, both of whom had an enormous
with the colours and shaping of the impact on knitting and knitwear in
nuilarmiut in her mind, Dale worked Norway and beyond, these yokes
up an innovative yoke design which are quite rightly a source of national
she named Eskimo in direct reference pride. And the nuilarmiut is a source
to its Greenland origins and, quite of pride for Greenland too – worn by
possibly, to Sibbern Bøhn’s Norwegian women on the national day, June 21st,
precedent. Dale’s stunning garment the garment carries an undeniable
was hand-knitted all in one piece, with symbolic power as an emblem of
the yoke shaping integrated into and community and identification in
among its colourwork patterns. It was Greenland.
greatly admired among her friends in Though it is regarded with a certain
fifties London and when it was seen by ambivalence by some Greenlandic
the editors of Woman’s Own magazine, women, who think the spectacular
Dale was immediately commissioned beaded yoke has shifted attention
to turn the design into a pattern. The away from the beauty and skill of
seamless construction method of Dale’s traditional embroideries worked with
Eskimo, however, proved troubling local materials, it is also the focus of a
to English knitters who, unlike fierce pride and protection by others,
Norwegians, were unused to working who objected to its appropriation for a
in the round with circular needles. 2009 Danish catwalk collection. Others
Undeterred, Dale took her Eskimo in Greenland feel that the very variety
home to Norway and worked it up of materials and history represented
again in a more saturated palette in the women’s formal costume, make
of mossy greens, bright reds and yellows. There it had an it an accurate reflection of the diversity and complexity of
immediate impact and the design rapidly became integral to contemporary, forward-looking Greenland. 8
Dale’s larger project of celebrating and promoting Norwegian After important extensions of sovereignty brought by Home
knitwear. Together with Sandnes Garn, Lillun Sport and other Rule in 1979 and 2009, Denmark and Greenland still remain
Norwegian companies, in a wide variety of hand- and machine- deeply culturally and politically imbricated, with the former
knit iterations which are always recognisable as variations of the retaining an important degree of control over the latter’s
original, Dale’s Eskimo yoke has been in continuous production security and foreign affairs. Thus in Denmark, the wearing of
in Norway since the early 1950s. A proudly worn and much- Greenland formal costume by public figures can still strike a
beloved design, a recent booklet by Sandnes Garn identifies note of discomfort as imperial performance. In a 2010 episode
12
of Danish political drama Borgen, for example, the series writers innovative yoked sweaters throughout the 1920s. So which
make the failure of Birgitte Nyborg to don Greenland costume yoke was first? Who can say? And should we really care?
while conducting a state visit the signature of the seriousness In a rapidly changing modern world, one of the most
of her engagement – here is a leader more interested in issues frequently perpetuated marketing myths about knitting is that
than spectacular photo opportunities. it is unchanging, immemorial; somehow fixed in time. But, in
the speed of its development and practice over the past couple
origins and identities of centuries, its changes in response to a demanding market
So is the Greenlandic nuilarmiut the ‘origin’ of all knitted yoke and its rapid technological shifts, knitting is often much more
designs? This question can’t really be answered, but what about trend than tradition. Magpie-like, knitting constantly
is certain is that both the nuilarmiut and the hand-knitted appropriates and adapts – its business is, in fact, to mine
colourwork yoke assume a certain cultural prominence at the tradition and to innovate upon it.
turn of the 1930s. The nuilarmiut, as we’ve seen, emerges in Over time, sometimes a very short stretch of time, a
the early decades of the Twentieth Century out of a set of quite particular pattern or technique or a certain type of garment,
complex circumstances and the appearance of the circular comes to be strongly identified with a region or a nation and
knitted yoke around the same time is perhaps just one instance swiftly becomes its signature. This process of identification has
of the sudden popularity of colourwork knitting in Jazz Age an important symbolic function for the regions or nations in
modern fashion. question, and it is also useful to us as thoughtful knitters and
The earliest published designs for circular yokes that I consumers. Identifying an aesthetic or technique as ‘Shetland’,
have found are Sibbern Bøhn’s Eskimo and a pattern called ‘Norwegian’ or ‘Icelandic’ adds a depth of meaning to our
the Heather Jumper that appeared in Scotland in 1928 activities of making, buying and wearing, and provides useful
(see following chapter). Published patterns are very often answers to our questions as we develop our own style, our
symptomatic of long-standing unofficial knitterly practice and own ‘unventions’ and innovations. And yet, precisely because
it takes no stretch of the imagination to assume that creative knitting is bound up so powerfully with ideas of region or
craftswomen around the North Atlantic region were making nation, troubling questions of ‘origin’ and ‘tradition’ can »
13
persist. But does the use of a ‘Norwegian’ construction method Above all, it tells a story about the fascinating and surprising
detract from the dazzling originality of the Bohus yoke? No. connections that textiles can create between women –
Does the often-assumed influence of other regional styles upon between a Swedish actress in a Greenland costume observed
the yoked lopapeysa in any way reduce the latter’s claims to be by a Norwegian designer; between a knitter in Canada or
creatively and definitively Icelandic? No, it does not. Shetland and a consumer in Iceland or California.
As we will see, because of their shared origin in the The story of the knitted yoke reveals the importance of those
twentieth-century North Atlantic, most knitted yokes are in connections, how we should celebrate them, how much they
some way embedded within one another, but most also retain should be respected.
distinct and recognisable styles individual to the place of their
provenance and development. The use of local materials, author’s note
particular construction methods, certain design techniques Thanks to my friends and colleagues, Hélène Magnússon and
or individual motifs, can all immediately identify a knitted Dianna Walla, for research leads and translations which helped
yoke as Bohus or Shetland, Norwegian or Icelandic. Speaking enormously in the production of this chapter. Grateful thanks also
personally, these points of distinction in a more general to Malik Milfeldt for permission to reproduce the stunning images
narrative of regional fluidity really fascinate me about knitting, of the women’s national costume which you see here.
and they are a particular feature of the relatively short history Visit www.greenland.com for further information and
of the knitted yoke. It is a history that often carries, as we inspiration.
have seen in the case of our Greenlanders and Norwegians,
intriguing social, cultural and political resonances. nomenclature
Sometimes a yoked sweater tells a story of economic The term ‘Eskimo’ is not used in this essay in reference to any
hardship. Sometimes it tells a story about the fickle demands of Greenland individual or group. In using this term I am simply
fashion and the market. Sometimes it tells a story about artistic repeating the given names of the 1930 film and of Sibbern Bøhn
creativity and the sheer joy of making. and Dale’s designs.
14
notes photos and credits

1 Robert Petersen, ‘Grønlandske Festdragter’, 8 Greenlandic girls at Llulissat ice fjord.
Atuagagdiliutit / Grønlandsposten, 90: 7 Photo: Karsten Bidstrup.
(1994). 9 Brochure for Eskimo, 1931.
2 On Sibbern Bøhn see Ingun Grimstad Courtesy Danske Filminstitut.
Klepp and Tone Skårdal Tobiasson, Renn Ull 10 Woodcut illustration of woman from
(Ashcehoug, 2013). Nuuk in Greenland costume. Rasmus
Berthelsen, Grønlandske Træsnit (1860).
3 See, Bo Wagner Sørensen, ‘Contested
Cultures: Trifles of Importance’ in C 10 Close up of nuilarmiut.
Buijs and J Oosten eds, Braving the Cold: Photo: Arne Fleischer.
Continuity and Change in Arctic Clothing 11 Greenlandic girls in Paamiut.
(CNWS, 1997). See also Søren Thuesen, Photo: Angu Motzfeldt.
‘Dressing up in Greenland: A Discussion of 12 Queen Ingrid in Greenland, 1952.
Change and World Fashion in Early-Colonial 12 Reworking of Sibbern Bohn’s Eskimo in
West Greenlandic Dress’ in J C H King, Birgit Icelandic Magazine Mellorka under the
Pauksztat and Robert Storrie, eds, Arctic name Graenlenzk Peysa (Greenlandic
Clothing (McGill UP, 2005), p.103. Sweater) (1956).
4 Gertrud Kleinschmidt, ‘Formal Clothing: 13 June 21st, the National Day of Greenland.
The Greenlandic National Costume’ in King, Photo: Mads Phil.
Pauksztat and Storrie, eds, Arctic Clothing, 14 Scooter girls!
p.106. Photo: David Trood.
15 Greenlandic women in Paamiut.
5 Thule AB continues to be the centre of many
Photo: Angu Motzfeldt.
Danish controversies, from the notorious
nuclear accident and its cover-up in 1968,
to the Danish Supreme Court ruling of 2003
under which damages were finally awarded
to the expropriated tribe and individuals.
6 Life Magazine September 15, 1952, p.156.
7 On Dale’s account of the inspiration behind
her Eskimo Genser see Nanna Segelcke,
To Rette Og en Vrang: Unn Søiland Dale –
Designerliv og Strikkeopskrifter (1994). See
also Klepp and Tobiasson eds, Ren Ull.
8 See Kleinschmidt, ‘Formal Clothing’. In
March 2009, women protested in Nuuk
against Peter Jensen’s use of Greenland
formal costume in his 08/09 collection,
which had been presented at London
Fashion week the previous autumn.
Other Greenlanders, such as artist Jørgen
Chemnitz, responded by “deconstructing”
the national costume, to highlight that
it was not inherently “national” and
definitely not “traditional” but was rather
an “imaginatively put together amalgam of
new and old materials from all corners of
the globe”. See www.greenland.com/en/
articles/deconstruction-and-date
See also Sørensen, ‘Contested Cultures’.
15
16
Kerstin Olsson and
the Bohus Yoke
We meet the designer whose beautiful yokes transformed sweaters
into wearable works of art.
1963
A woman sits by a Göteborg window with yarn and needles in
her hands. She casts on a narrow swatch, selecting one hazy,
saturated shade, and then another. What comes next? Two
knits, three purls, two knits again. She watches the yarn strands
feed through her hands, grow into patterns, blending their
subtle hues and textures. Before beginning, the woman had
thoughts of an object of inspiration, a material thing with its
own pattern and colours, its own internal structure. But in her
deft hands the inspiring object is transformed into something
else entirely. It has become an abstraction, a thing of the
imagination – of her imagination. She is an artist, this woman
with needle-brush and yarn-palette; a creator and a maker of
stunningly beautiful textiles.
Now complete, the artist’s swatch is carefully examined,
folded, corrected, annotated. Let us use this part and not
this. Rework this motif to balance with the surrounding rows?
Try a different shade of yellow here? The artist takes up her
needles again, begins swatching again, watches her beautiful
abstraction grow and change and transform itself again. At last,
her work is approved, renamed, stapled to a board, entered
into a ledger, carefully redrawn in tiny squares with coloured
pencils, and given to another woman who sits, fifty miles away,
by the sea’s edge and granite cliffs, with yarn and needles
in her hands. The knitter works around and around, and the
artist’s swatch grows and expands and transforms itself once
more. Finally, the knits and purls have become a wearable work
of art: an incredible yoke adorning a hazy angora jumper.
only the wife of the governor of Göteborg – an elite woman
the birth of bohus stickning of considerable power and influence – but also a prominent
The breathtaking yokes created by artist Kerstin Olsson and figure among the artistic milieus of both her native Austria
her fellow designers at Bohus Stickning are completely unique and her adopted Sweden. During the 1930s, her close circle
in our story. They are unique because these designs did not of friends included the modernist designer Josef Frank, (an
arise out of, nor feed into, a particular regional ‘tradition’, but Austrian-Jewish emigré like herself), Estrid Ericson (who,
were rather the product of a unique economic and cultural together with Frank, founded the renowned design house
combination of relief work with modern art. That these knitted Svenskt Tenn), physicist Lise Meitner and artists Tor and Vera
artworks happened to be created at all was due to the vision, Bjurström (the latter of whom went on to produce surface
focus and determination of one woman, Emma Jacobsson. By embroidery designs for Emma). It was out of this lively
1937, when Augusta Teng and Helga Karlsson contacted her intellectual and aesthetic context that the design style now
requesting assistance in developing remunerative occupations known as ‘Swedish Modern’ emerged. Out of it too emerged
for the impoverished women of Bohuslän, Jacobsson was not an equally distinctive style of modern textiles, Bohus Stickning. »
17
THE BOHUS YOKE
All aspects of the process of creating Bohus hand-knits involve

Emma. From the beginning she’s obsessed with the quality of
the yarn, the quality of the designs, the quality of the work, the
quality of the brand’s self-presentation.
These hand-knits are meant to be desirable luxury
commodities – a showcase of modern Swedish design talent
and local knitterly skill. The knitters are carefully trained and
supervised and their output priced accordingly. Bohus garment
pieces, including sleeves, are hand-knit flat and seamed, to lend
the sweaters a refined and tailored look. Circular yokes might be
worked back and forth when the knitter was creating a cardigan
or a keyhole neck opening, but otherwise are made in the
manner in which the knitters are used to working – in the round.
Bohus hand-knits are marketed to the wealthy and, while
Emma and her designer-friends initially give their time for free,
the knitters are paid transparently, albeit modestly, for their hard
piece-work. Emma seeks out useful contacts, ensures Bohus
Stickning gifts are publicly presented to visiting dignitaries, sends
scouts to Paris to report on the latest colour trends. A particular
deep pink in Emma’s rainbow of angora shades is named
‘Schiaperelli’ a nod to the high fashion and decorative art Bohus
Stickning aspires to internationally.
the blå skimmer

The shimmering circular yokes which became Bohus Stickning’s
signature were first designed and knitted in the late 1940s.
Before Emma’s crucial development of her angora yarns, some
of Anna-Lisa Mannheimer Lunn’s horizontal stitch patterns were
adapted for placement on a yoke.
For example, Blå Eskima, a design Lunn created before or
during 1947 and whose name clearly evoked other, earlier,
Eskimo yoke patterns, was knitted as both jumper and cardigan
with a deep yoke worked top-down and circularly in Norwegian
fashion. Though the use of purl stitches
and small motifs made Lunn’s Eskima
design immediately distinctive, it was,
like many contemporary Scandinavian
patterns, worked in a limited palette of
high-contrast shades which gave the
yoke a dramatic striped effect.
A year or so later, with a broader
palette of blues and neutrals to hand,
Lunn created a yoke with very similar
motifs to her Eskima but which lent
the garment a completely different
impression. With Lunn’s Blå Skimmer
(Blue Shimmer) the Bohus yoke came
into its own.
Created in the beautifully soft
angora-blend yarn Emma had worked
so hard to develop, Lunn’s Blå Skimmer
felt as feminine and luxurious as the
finest cashmere. With its tonal blending
18
of blues, greys and fawns worked over tiny motifs, the promising students.
patterning was delicate, pretty and jewel-like. The effect Kerstin was invited to
was very subtle and yet completely dazzling. During the visit Bohus Stickning,
1940s, yoke jumpers were still largely thought of as outdoor selected several
sportswear – garments to be worn comfortably in the woods shades of yarn with
or on the ski slope. But in the Blå Skimmer, fashioned using which to experiment,
light angora yarns, the yoke jumper had become something and from them
very much like evening wear – a statement piece with its own produced a colourful
stunning piece of integral knitted jewellery. The Blå Skimmer stranded swatch that
was a yoke sensation. “looked like Bohus
As time went on, Blå Skimmer and Lunn’s other popular Stickning”.
Bohus yoke designs such as Humlan (bee) and Dean (inspired Emma recognised
by African-American conductor, Dean Dixon, who led the Kerstin’s potential,
Göteborg Symphony Orchestra), both fed and were adapted she joined the
to the requirements of contemporary fashionable taste. In company after
the form-fitting fifties, high-placed inset yokes (in the style that graduating in
had first emerged in Shetland and the UK) were regarded as the autumn and
more feminine and Bohus Stickning modified its construction immediately began creating breathtakingly beautiful swatches
methods accordingly. and patterns with their own distinctive style. One of Kerstin’s
From the mid-fifties onwards, Bohus yokes were knitted in early designs is surely one of the most stunning and singular of
two ways, thus creating two distinct styles of sweater. While all Bohus yokes, the Vild Äpplet (Wild Apple). Inspired by the rich
gamla rundst (old round) yokes were knitted top-down with deep Autumnal hues of the rowan tree outside her studio window,
patterning and short raglan-ish sleeve shaping, nya rundst (new Kerstin began swatching, working freehand and selecting shades
round) yokes were picked up around an inset neckline and knitted as she went. A pattern sequence was knitted, shown to Emma,
bottom-up, framing a garment with neatly tailored shaping and suggestions were made and the swatch was then reworked and
set-in sleeves. It was a nya rundst Bohus yoke that Grace Kelly worked again.
snapped up in Stockholm in 1957 and proudly wore in photos, As Kerstin swatched, the berry and leaf motifs grew and
and a gamla rundst yoke that Brazilian-born singer, Olga Coehlo developed and became progressively more colourful and
sported on the front cover of her first US hit record in 1952. luminous. Her initial palette of eight or nine shades expanded
into a design which, in its final incarnation, features fifteen
kerstin olsson joins bohus stickning distinct greens, reds and oranges, punctuated with surprising
As these famous customers might suggest, by 1958, when and delicious pops of aquamarine. The end result is a glorious
Kerstin Olsson came to Bohus Stickning, Emma Jacobsson’s hymn to the rich hues of autumn. Just like a rowan tree in
brand had achieved a growing international profile as a October sunshine, Kerstin’s design is vivid, incandescent, lit from
creator of exclusive luxury hand-knits. Wishing to maintain within by its own colourful energy.
the contemporary aesthetic edge of the company, and keen Kerstin’s yoke designs reveal her incredible artistic flair, but
to foster young design talent, Emma made enquiries among much of her work for Bohus Stickning was also the product of
her professor friends at Göteborg’s Kontindustriskolan about her very appealing exploratory curiosity. She was encouraged »
19
The USA was Bohus Stickning’s most significant market and
it was this that, to a large extent during the 1950s and 1960s,
determined the company’s direction and fortunes. In the
early sixties, Emma had made an agreement with Californian
distributor, Elizabeth Hanna, for the export of Bohus Stickning
goods to American buyers, and throughout the time of their
collaboration Hanna was very proactive in passing on US
customer feedback and making suggestions for new designs
and garment shapes. Many of Kerstin Olsson’s yoke designs
were created exclusively for Hanna and many were given names
which would obviously speak to consumers on the other side of
the Atlantic.
Kerstin’s San Diego, for example, is a symphony of sunset
reds and pinks, while the oranges and blues of her Dallas seem
by Emma, her collaborator and director, to persist in the creation to call to mind the shades of Texan sky and earth. “Americans
of patterns “each more beautiful than the last” and many of her enjoyed colour,” according to Kerstin, and in creating designs
swatches seem impelled by this desire to find the most beautiful, for Hanna, she often felt she had free rein to use rich shades of
the most pleasing combination of pattern and shade. She would russet, fuchsia and teal that had sometimes proved less popular
rework and re-swatch a design time and time again in multiple among more conservatively inclined European and Scandinavian
colourways, testing the relationship between stitch and hue as if consumers. But, by the mid-1960s, the world, and with it the
trying to understand their essence from the inside out. Her Ägget international market for luxury hand-knits, was changing.
(egg) is a case in point.
a swedish icon
many eggs By the mid-sixties, Bohus Stickning had become a successful
The egg in question was of the large, papier-mâché variety, modern brand, with an immediately recognisable style,
and was the gift of Edna Martin, (textile artist and director of epitomised by the luminous, shimmering, circular yokes that
prominent Swedish crafts organisations Svensk Hemslöjd and Kerstin Olsson and her colleagues had created. But this iconic
Handarbetets Vänner) to Bohus Stickning after a visit in 1963. status itself made Bohus designs more liable to appropriation
Struck by the object’s beautiful surface design, decorated and imitation. In the final years of the company’s operation,
in striking shades of caramel, rose and gold, Kerstin was much of Emma’s energies were spent in battling different forms
immediately inspired to swatch up her own egg. of design appropriation, from the unauthorised commercial
Following her usual process of working and reworking, she reproduction of images of Bohus yokes, to imitation angora
created an Ägget pattern in shades that echoed those of the yarns that used the Bohus name, to the continual recreation of
original object and with which she and Emma were very happy. Bohus patterns in knitting magazines all over the world.
Ägget quickly became a successful yoke design. But one egg
was simply not enough. Intrigued by the pattern’s colourful
potential, Kerstin continued swatching and re-swatching,
knitting up a blue egg, a pink egg, a deep orange egg –
exploring different effects of shade and tone and colour until the
original design was rendered in multiple, dizzying incarnations,
each completely different from its predecessor. “I knit so many
swatches,” Kerstin says, “that Emma eventually exclaimed ‘Please
– no more eggs!’”
Kerstin’s adventurous use of hue, shade and tone upon the
yoke’s circular canvas became her signature and was also the
hallmark of Bohus Stickning’s 1960s style. Her Ägget, Dimman,
(mist) and Palm series were also among the most ‘knitterly’ of
the Bohus yoke designs. The shade changes of these beautifully
tonally graded patterns were limited to two in one row, making
them both enjoyable and rhythmic for the knitters to create.
Other yokes, such as Annika Malmström-Bladini’s graphic Skölden
(shield) and Spjutspetsen (spearhead) designs could use up to
five shades in a row.
20
THE BOHUS YOKE
In these endeavours Emma had some success. For example,

a well-argued action against Lux, which had used Kerstin’s Blå
Blommen design to illustrate the superior qualities of its soap-
flakes, resulted in compensation that funded a well-produced
and expensive booklet for the company in 1964. There were
other issues too, however. While Bohus Stickning found it
increasingly difficult to find reliable sources for the quality fibres
and yarns necessary for its designs, the number of skilled knitters
working for the company steadily declined. There were also
far fewer consumers willing to pay prices for Bohus hand-knits
that accurately reflected the costs of their materials, design and
production, all of which were of the very highest quality.
The eminently fashionable Bohus yokes also faced
competition in the US and elsewhere from those created in
the Shetland style. Such yokes, as we will see, also involved
a skilled hand-knit component, but their bodies and sleeves
were produced by machine, which brought production and
retail costs down dramatically. In an effort to reduce costs and
compete, Bohus Stickning experimented with creating hybrid
garments with machine-knit bodies and hand-knit yokes, but
encountered such significant problems with yarn and gauge that
the experiment was abandoned.
In her final years at Bohus Stickning, Kerstin Olsson created a
flurry of beautiful yokes whose names, referencing geology and
gem-stones, seemed to acknowledge the precious jewel-like status
of the designs that she’d created over her decade at the company. image list and credits
Singular in its fashion-forward art-aspiring status, remarkable for 16 Kerstin Olsson in her Röd Ägget
the hothouse it provided for its designers’ considerable aesthetic (Red Egg) design, outside the
talents, and noteworthy for developing the skills of its workers and premises of Bohus Stickning
ensuring they were fairly compensated, under Emma Jacobsson’s in 1963. The Rowan tree she is
direction Bohus Stickning carved out a unique and inimitable path pictured alongside provided the
in knitwear design for over thirty years. inspiration for her Vild Äpplet
Created by women of incredible artistic acumen, produced (Wild Apple) design. Photo:
by women of superlative knitterly abilities, and worn and much Kerstin’s brother, Nils Olsson.
beloved by thousands of women worldwide, the Bohus yoke 17 Original Vild Äpplet swatch.
surely ranks highly among the most significant icons of modern 18 Grå Ägget (Grey Egg).
Swedish design. Photo: Nils Olsson.
18 Blå Skimmer in the process of
author’s note construction. Photo: Jan Axelsson.
Grateful thanks to the Rhösska Museum, the Bohusläns Museum © Bohusläns Museum.
and most especially to Kerstin Olsson. 19 Detail of the Vild Äpplet yoke.
After Bohus Stickning closed its doors in 1969, Kerstin Olsson went 19 Grace Kelly in the Rimfrost
on to have a successful and inspiring career as an artist working (Hoar Frost) jumper she
with textiles, watercolours and other media. She lives and works in purchased in Stockholm.
Göteborg. 20 Original Ägget swatch.
In 1999, Solveig Gustafsson was invited by the Bohusläns Museum 20 Blå Blommen yoke and Lux
to create knitting kits for Bohus patterns and, over the past 15 years, packet, featuring model and
has painstakingly recreated over 60 Bohus designs, using original actress Maud Adamson.
archive materials and angora yarns that match, in both quality 21 Kerstin Olsson in her studio in
and shade range, those originally produced by Emma Jacobsson. 2014, with swatches.
With the help of Pernille Silverberg, these kits are once more
available from the Bohusläns Museum and Angora Garnet. Contact Unless otherwise noted, all images are
Pernille for further information: info@angoragarnet.com reproduced courtesy of Kerstin Olsson.
21
The Shetland tree and star
A motif that shaped a Shetland generation.
1975
By a Shetland stove, in the half-light For many knitters, ‘Shetland’ itself
of a winter’s afternoon, a woman sits, is a watchword for tradition, calling
unwrapping a parcel. Inside are two up distinct practices of fine lace and
knitted sleeves, ribbed cuffs, and a Fair Isle knitting conducted in island
body: the plain, machined components isolation. While it is of course true that
of a jumper, incomplete without its Shetland knitting has always had a
yoke. The woman takes out her knitting strong and immediately recognisable
belt, the long wires, the cloos of wool, regional identity, it has also always
picks up loops around the neckline and been markedly outward-looking too,
begins to work away.1 This woman is responding to cultural trends, economic
a grafter. Whatever the world throws pressures, technical developments and
at her, she gets on with the matter in market demands. Over the past century
hand, phlegmatic, uncomplaining. In and more, Shetland knitting has left a
this case, she has orders to fulfill, and profound and telling legacy on many
she’s going to work until she fulfills aspects of Western fashion, but it
them. Knitting for her is not a matter has also routinely absorbed external
of amusement or leisure, a source of influences in order to define and re-
consolation or sentiment. It is simply define itself, to re-create itself and send
work. Round and round the yoke she itself out, once more, into the world.
goes. One shade and then the next. The ubiquitous yoke design, now
The stitches are as familiar to her as the familiarly known as the Shetland tree
sounds of a rhyme learned long ago in and star, is perhaps the most singular
childhood. A tree and a star. The pattern example of this process.
is written across her memory to the point where it defines it –
the story of these twenty widowed years might be written out in the heather jumper
trees and stars. In 1928, Scottish magazine, The People’s Friend published a
For decades, Joann Henry knitted yokes to order. After she popular knitting supplement entitled New Fair Isle Designs. As
became a widow, creating yokes afforded her, like many Shetland befitting the era, the pamphlet featured thoroughly modern
women, a small but important degree of financial independence. patterns for sportswear for both sexes, with garments which
From her home in Lerwick, she knitted away on countless trees afforded women a comfortable, body-freeing simplicity and
and stars, her failing memory only coming to light when she lent men the opportunity to be acceptably and spectacularly
could no longer recall the familiar patterns in her head. For Joann colourful. Among these New Fair Isle Designs was the Heather
Henry the Shetland yoke came to carry two senses: always work, Jumper, a simple and youthful tunic featuring a dramatic
never pleasurable diversion. And yet the trees and stars that she colourwork yoke.
created found their way into to the wardrobes of women all over The garment was designed to be knit from the bottom up in
the world, a source of warmth and aesthetic enjoyment wherever Murit (Moorit; brown) Shetland wool, with a border worked in
they went and were worn. Like knitted emigrants, traveling the round incorporating shades of ‘red, blue, and champagne’
thousands of miles with the signatures of their individual makers, silk crepe. The body was then divided for front and back, and
tree and star yokes are the legacy of Joann Henry and hundreds knitted flat, with shaped armscyes and a scooped front. After
of skilled Shetland women like her. re-joining the two garment pieces at the shoulders, the yoke »
22
THE SHETLAND TREE AND STAR
World War.2 Such motifs might be vertically incorporated into

the diced design of an allover garment, or placed around a
circular yoke, with decreases following the sloping branches of
the tree motif to create the neckline’s characteristic shape.
In the early 1950s, new shades and styles of yarn became
commercially available, together with new processes and
techniques for creating modern knitted textiles. A hand-knit
Fair Isle allover was both time-consuming and expensive to
produce, but an inset-yoke might be swiftly turned out in hybrid
fashion: the body and sleeves worked flat on a machine with
the yoke picked up and circularly knitted on by hand. A steek
bridge worked at the centre front or back enabled the hand-
knitter to create the yoke swiftly and seamlessly in the round,
later cutting the bridge to create a cardigan’s front opening or a
neatly buttoned jumper placket. With their many-hued necklaces
setting off their tailored shape, these yoked sweaters offered the
wearer a delicious taste of Shetland stranded colourwork in a
garment that was both feminine and fashionable.
By the turn of the 1960s, the tree and star yoke was an
immediately recognisable icon of Shetland design. Worn all over
the UK and North America, Scottish women of all ages sported
tree and star yokes with obligatory matching kilts or tweeds,
while in the US they became the desirable centrepiece of smart,
preppy student style. Worn by Twiggy and other pop icons of
the era, Shetland yokes created a perfect match between skilled
and efficient producers and keen fashion-conscious consumers.
The machine-knit bodies were neat and simple to produce,
and were generally worked in neutrals, blues or greens, all of
which were shades that proved easy to match to the rest of an
outfit. The individual tree and star motifs, meanwhile, had an
essential balance and a beauty that was adapted supremely
well to the circular context of a yoke. With their wide variety of
stars and trees and border patterns, such garments were turned
out in their thousands. In Shetland and elsewhere, these yokes
are sometimes regarded negatively as being too familiar and
predictable, but the very ubiquity of the basic design is itself a
symptom of its aesthetic success. However generic they now
seem, tree and star yokes of this era are genuine showcases
of knitterly skill and creativity. The finishing is frequently
was to be picked up around the neckline and worked upwards impeccable, and in the hands of a talented Shetland blender the
in the round, the familiar OXO motifs framing the face of its motifs shimmer luminously against their background to truly
wearer with a delicate Fair Isle necklace worked in shimmering spectacular effect.
shades of silk. This inset style of yoke – in which the body
was tailored and shaped, and the yoke picked up and worked knitting to order
circularly from the bottom up – set the construction method Throughout the fifties and sixties, Shetland hand-knitters found
for thousands of Shetland garments that were to follow. themselves extremely busy with orders for yokes from local and
During the 1920s and 30s, familiar OXO patterns dominated mainland knitwear companies. The work was in high demand,
the colourwork designs coming out of Shetland. By the 1940s, but it was piece work and, as has so often historically been
however, larger motifs such as stars and trees began to find their the case in Shetland, was poorly recompensed. Machine-knit
way onto the ganseys and lumbers, then in high demand among bodies would be delivered or collected from the company or
servicemen stationed on the islands. These large motifs, worked shopkeeper, and the hand-knitter was paid for the knitting and
over 25 rows or more, were an obvious and distinctive legacy of finishing of the yokes. Andrea Harrison reports the impact that
Shetland’s important Norwegian connections during the Second knitting yokes had on the women of her family:
24
“My Gran hand-knitted yokes onto machine-knit bodies to

supplement her meagre crofting income while her husband
was at sea. Every week or two the bodies would be dropped
off and the finished jumpers collected and Gran got paid a
set amount per completed jumper. That meant that there
was a great deal of pressure to get them finished, especially
the night before the collection was due. To maximise
efficiency it was my mum’s job, as a young child, to darn in
all the ends. The lasting legacy of this is that my mum does
not knit. She can knit but gets no pleasure from it, having
grown up in an environment where knitting was pressured,
hurried and was work, rather than a hobby.”
By the mid-1960s, when the local press reported that knitting

was beginning to become more profitable than crofting, many
Shetland families were encouraged to purchase Passap or
Knitmaster machines specifically to turn out sweater bodies, as
well as yokes, in their own homes.3 Economic power remained
in the hands of merchants and buyers, but these machines
enabled Shetlanders to take much greater control over the
production process, to create whole garments independently
and of course, to work at speed.
“We knitted to sell and knitted what was selling, and at that
time it was yokes, and my mother had orders,” recalls talented
hand-spinner and Shetland lace expert, Elizabeth Johnston, who
knitted tree and star yokes as a teenager: “Though it was a chore,
it was how we lived. Being able to have a second income from
knitting was good. For some people the knitting was a necessity,
but the fact that it was there at all was a huge plus.”
kempin yokes
Distinguished Shetland designer, Hazel Tindall, similarly knitted
hundreds of tree and star yokes in this era, assisting her mother,
Chrissie Sandison, with her orders. Hazel’s incisive discussions
of Chrissie’s diary reveal just how far women’s everyday life in
this decade might be defined by relentless ‘kempin’ (knitting) to
make ends meet: “I knitted two [bodies] on machine and I made
a yoke and a second one,” Chrissie reported to her diary on 8th
September, 1965, “We plan to get 10 ready for 25th.” As any
knitter might imagine, ten complete yoked garments, produced Yet while the tree and star garments produced for market
from scratch in just over a fortnight is an awful lot of work.4 became progressively standardised, Shetland knitters still
Though the knitting was pressurised and urgent, Hazel’s found the yoke an interesting canvas on which to exercise their
considerable design skills were honed through her early individual creativity. An examination of the yokes held in the
experiences of creating yokes. At the beginning of the sixties, collections of the Shetland Museum and Archives reveals some
she recalls: intriguing examples, all markedly different from the commercial
“...you could be creative with the stitch patterns, the colours and tree and star template. For example, in 1963, a Mrs Abernethy
the blending. The choice was left to you, as long as you included created a beautiful and innovative beaded yoke, which was
the shade in which the body was knitted somewhere in the yoke.” highly commended at the Zetland Education Committee’s
But by the end of the decade Hazel found that she and annual show. This stunning sweater features small OXO motifs
Chrissie had increasingly less freedom in the creation of their delicately picked out in bronze beads which encircle its finely-
own yoke designs, as buyers’ demands became more fixed and knit inset yoke. Another Shetland knitter has redefined the yoke
pre-determined: “We were told which patterns and shades to use as evening wear in a rather different way. Knitted up in bright
and the work was much less creative.” purple yarn, this party yoke features large tree and star motifs »
25
worked up in sparkly silver acrylic. A third and sociability.5 Beyond Shetland, things
innovative garment created by legendary were also very different. In a world of fluffy
Shetland knitter, Ethel Brown, redefines the mohair, neon acrylic and giant needles,
basic geometry of the tree and star. The the tree and star yoke seemed decidedly
yoke has been inset onto a machine-knit old-fashioned and prim. As the fashion
body, and worked circularly, with some knitwear market shifted, mainland and
integrated raglan shaping. Steeks have overseas demand for hybrid Shetland yokes
been added at the front and shoulders, and in turn declined. Domestic machines were
the yoke has then been cut, modified and sold and women all over Shetland stopped
seamed to lend it a completely different hand-knitting the familiar tree and star to
shape. While the front neck becomes a supplement their income. By the nineties,
wide and flattering ‘V’, the sleeves and few Shetland folk wore yokes.
shoulders have been re-set in a way to “When I was a teenager ten years ago,
make them appear puffed and tailored. no one wore a knitted anything,” Hannah
Shetland knitters could emphatically Ross reports. Laurie Goodlad agrees that
transform a circular yoke into whatever “wearing a yoke back then was social
they wanted it to be. suicide.” But the nineties by no means marked the end for the
Shetland yoke. In fact, over the past few years, the general global
wool and oil revival of hand-knitting has in turn sparked a renewed interest
In the late 1970s, Edinburgh photographer, Tom Kidd, visited in Shetland’s regional textile practices and trends. “I’ve seen
Shetland on a Kodak bursary to capture with his camera so many women in yokes recently,” says Hannah Ross, “whole
the human landscape of Britain’s most northerly isles. The bridal parties are wearing them just now.” Worn at hen nights
collection he published as Life in Shetland in 1980 is an and hamefarins, and immediately spotted on the shoulders of
important cultural document, not least for the evidence it women of all shapes, ages and sizes around the lanes of Lerwick,
provides for the position of knitwear and knitting in Shetland in Shetland, the tree and star yoke is most definitely back in
at this crucial moment of transition. Beautiful allovers are business. Elizabeth Johnston – who shares Laurie and Hannah’s
glimpsed beneath boiler suits, aprons and overalls; women teenage ambivalence about yokes and their wearing – is happy
tirelessly knit around their hearths and television sets, and that the garment’s re-emergence has enabled the young people
gigantic knitting machines dominate the small interiors of the of contemporary Shetland to discover and explore their local
Shetland but and ben. textile heritage.
Yokes are everywhere in Kidd’s images: in the hands of the “Shetland youngsters today can have no concept of life and
finisher working in a Yell knitwear factory; on display in a retail the standard of living fifty years ago… but they have grown
showroom; at the Scalloway Regatta; around the shoulders of up seeing the knitwear, and have recently really embraced
Tommy the fiddle player in his Cunningsburgh living room; their knitting heritage, by wearing it and making it part of
worn by Rosie, who warms herself on a stove at North Nesting Shetland fashion, first with the hoody and now with the yoke.
in one of Kidd’s most evocative portraits; and peeping out It is not that they just buy a yoke ‘off the shelf’, but they
beneath the leather jacket of the boy who sits among the go looking for a specific design and many commission the
supermarket cans of Tennents in the final photo of Kidd’s pattern they want, whether from a knitwear company or a
collection. Yokes appear in domestic, industrial and commercial relation. It is endearing to plan a garment with a youngster.
settings, worn by Shetlanders of both sexes, young and old. They have definite views on the patterns and colours they like
Kidd’s images reveal how, by the late 1970s, yokes were an and don’t like, as well as the final ‘look’ of the design. They
essential part of the fabric of everyday Shetland life. are soaking up much more of the knitting knowledge than
But everything was to change. The discovery of North Sea many people think.”
Oil brought a surge to Shetland’s population, a boost to its Hazel Tindall, who knitted up so many yokes in her youth,
economy and, with it, a transformation of its knitting fortunes is now herself the creator of a beautiful range of contemporary
too. While the establishment of the Shetland Islands Council Shetland designs. Her Eid and Jolbeth yokes are innovative and
brought public money which enabled some local knitwear wearable interpretations of the familiar tree and star. Meanwhile,
companies to flourish, well-paid opportunities in the oil industry the work of young designer-makers such as Lerwick’s Ella
meant that the number of home knitters and their associated Gordon, highlights the yoke’s currency as a Shetland fashion
small businesses gradually fell away. The Voe Concert Party sang staple. From inside the glass cases of the Oil / Knitting exhibition
of “da demise o’ da makkin machine” and while the decline of Ella recently curated at the Shetland Textile Museum, the trees
knitting was regretted by some, many Shetland women also on the yokes reach out their branches, the stars shine out like
welcomed new opportunities for well-paid regular employment beacons, telling just one of many tales of Shetland knitting.
1 wires = needles; cloos = small balls of wool; loops = stitches

26
author’s note image list and credits

Thanks to Shetland friends old and new for conversations which 22 Ella Gordon wearing the Hairst yoke
helped me to write this chapter: Laurie Goodlad, Ella Gordon, designed by Sandra Manson. Photo:
Andrea Harrison, Elaine Henry, Elizabeth Johnston, Sandra Jamieson & Smith.
Manson, Jenny Murray, Hannah Ross, Louise Scollay, Donna 23 Elizabeth Scollay, nee Donald, in a tree and
Smith and Hazel Tindall. star yoke. Photo: courtesy of Louise Scollay.
Hazel Tindall has recently produced The Fine Art of Fair 24 Tree and star yoke swatch, with instructions
Isle Knitting on DVD and download, which comes highly to the knitter on the size of repeat and
recommended. www.hazeltindall.com where to begin the shaping. Produced
Find Elizabeth Johnston at www.shetlandhandspun.com for Andersons knitwear in Brugarth,
and Ella Gordon at ellagordon.wordpress.com Whiteness. From the collection of Ella
Gordon.
notes 24 Beaded inset yoke, knitted by Mrs J
2 More than 5000 Norwegians escaped Nazi occupation on Abernethy, 1963. Photo: courtesy Shetland
the ‘Shetland Bus’. See David Howarth, The Shetland Bus Museum and Archives (Tex 2003-179).
(Shetland Times, 1998). Reprint of the original 1951 edn. 25 Ella Gordon examining examining Tex
76166 in the Shetland Museum and
3 See Linda Fryer, Knitting by the Fireside and on the Hillside: A
Archives.
History of the Shetland Hand Knitting Industry c.1600-1950,
(Shetland Times, 1995), p.175.
25 Modification of tree and star yoke by
knitter, Ethel Brown. Photo: courtesy
4 See Hazel Tindall, ‘Kempin Like Mad’: Diary of a Shetland Shetland Museum and Archives (Tex 76166).
Knitter, Knitting Traditions Spring 2014, pp.19-22. 26 Sparkly party yoke, date and knitter
5 A council report in 1979 discovered that the Shetland unknown. Photo: courtesy Shetland Museum
knitwear industry had declined by 30%. See Ella Gordon, and Archives (Tex 2004-207).
‘Lubricated Woollens’ 60 North Magazine, Number 9, 27 The Heather jumper pattern leaflet, 1928.
Summer 2014, pp.30-33. 27 Cockatoo Brae pattern appears on page 85.
27
Perspectives on the
Lopapeysa
A conversation with Hélène Magnússon.
H
élène Magnússon is a writer, a mountain guide, some sort of ‘marketing’, some ideology or impetus, for
and one of the most exciting Icelandic knitwear them to emerge and acquire a ‘traditional’ status? Aren’t
designers around today. Born in France, she has lived so-called traditions the fruit of fashion and don’t they
and worked in Iceland since 1995. I caught up with keep evolving as times change? For example, people often
Hélène to talk about the story of the hand-knit yoke from an think that what’s now known as the ‘Icelandic costume’
Icelandic perspective. is the essence of ‘tradition’ but it was, in fact, completely
redesigned by an Icelandic painter who simply felt it was
KD I’d like to know a little about the first Icelandic yoked outdated at the end of the Nineteenth Century.
sweaters. Do they emerge as a result of particular market
demands like other yokes in the North Atlantic region? KD I completely agree, Hélène, and yet I’m sure the question of
HM Intuitively, I think the lopapeysa, just like the Norwegian, what is and is not a lopapeysa can inspire a certain amount
Swedish and Shetland yokes, was first developed as a of discussion. Do you have thoughts on this?
commercial product. Towards the end of the Nineteenth HM Literally lopapeysa simply means sweater (peysa) made with
Century, a need was expressed by some women for an lopi (roving). So any sweater knitted with lopi might actually
Icelandic sweater, representative of the nation, designed be referred to as a lopapeysa in Icelandic. But while any
to be sold to visitors and foreign markets. The lopapeysa sweater can be a lopapeysa it’s not necessarily the lopapeysa
seems to have filled that gap. – the Icelandic yoked sweater – as we now know it.
Originally, Icelandic people knit with much finer yarns More specifically then, the lopapeysa is a circular yoked
but when there was a shortage of yarn, especially during sweater with colourwork in the yoke and sometimes at the
the Second World cuffs and hem. It’s knitted
War, they began entirely in the round (both
knitting with unspun body and arms), with
lopi. The lopapeysa the front steeked and cut
as we now know it, open if it is designed to
seems to emerge be a cardigan. From the
from this war-time beginning, the lopapeysa
and post-war knitting was entirely handmade
practice, but it was and remains so.
always developed This is perhaps what
with an eye to trade makes it truly unique,
for tourists and and distinguishes it from
overseas markets. other yoke sweaters.
This may surprise Some argue that true
some, but I don’t lopi sweaters should
personally find it only be made in natural
so surprising. It’s sheep-shades, though in
very rare that things fact when the first lopi
just ‘pop up’ and sweaters appeared they
become a ‘tradition’. were made in bright
Isn’t there a need for colours, as the natural »
29
PERSPECTIVES ON THE LOPAPEYSA
colours seemed reminiscent to many Icelanders of the past

and rural poverty. It was, in fact, the tourist market that
demanded natural colours because they found them more
‘authentic’. By the 1970s, the lopapeysa had reached an
enormous global market, and was one of the most popular
and frequently sold sweaters in the world.
Another important distinguishing feature separating
Icelandic from other yokes, is the yarn weight. Lopi
sweaters are made from thicker wool, worked with far
fewer stitches to the inch. The thicker wool allows for
the sweater to be knitted completely by hand, but to still
remain a viable product that might turn a profit. The wool,
too, is also key – thick, yes, but light thanks to the unique
qualities of the Icelandic sheep and the unspun lopi they
produce. That said, a garment made in other yarns can
certainly also be regarded as a lopapeysa – look at recent
designs from Brooklyn Tweed, or the Hraun design from
Farmer’s Market (an Icelandic garment manufacturer)
which is made in a mix of cotton and merino. I’m not a
puritan and I don’t see ‘tradition’ as something fixed.
If design doesn’t evolve, it will die out. I think it’s just a
question of balance.
KD I’m interested in your first ‘encounter’ with the lopi yoked

sweater – could you describe the first sweater you can
remember seeing? And perhaps the first lopi sweater you
remember wearing?
HM It was in 1995 when I first came to Iceland that I saw
and wore my first Icelandic lopi sweater. I didn’t stay in
Reykjavik at all and went directly to the highlands where I
spent three weeks. I was perhaps not completely well-
prepared for the climate, so an Icelandic friend let me have
some stuff, among them an old lopi sweater which I fell
in love with right away. I still have it – it’s a very classical
design, in natural sheep colours, well worn and slightly
felted. When I put it on, I was made fun of by my Icelandic
friend, who was very amused by the contrast between the
little Parisian lawyer I looked and the oversized sweater I
was wearing. Álafoss (the Icelandic wool processor and
producer) had gone bankrupt four years before, and it was
not so very ‘cool’ back then among Icelanders to wear a
lopapeysa.
From what I witnessed, though it was occasionally
used in the countryside as a working garment, Lopi
sweaters were mostly for the tourists. Indeed, I was quite
surprised in the mountains to be the only one wearing a
lopapeysa. My friends, the guides, wore synthetic fleeces,
which were all the rage back then. But I wore my wool
sweater the whole summer and I loved it. Honestly, I can’t
think of wearing anything else or anything better in the
mountains, and I’ve constantly refused to be offered a
fleece for Christmas. Wool, and Icelandic wool especially,
has so much more to it than even the most technical of
30
contemporary fabrics. It is warm, breathable, light, water-

repellent, odour-repellent and keeps its insulative qualities
even when wet and frozen. Icelanders love the lopapeysa
now, but really, it wasn’t until relatively recently that it saw
a renewed surge in popularity locally.
KD Can you tell me about this shift in popularity in Iceland? Was

there something that marked this local change in perception?
HM Yes indeed. In 1991, four former employees bought the
bankrupt wool producer, Álafoss, and, with the help of
the sheep farmers who produce the wool, formed a new
company, which gave the Icelandic wool industry a new
future. One of Ístex’s priorities was marketing the lopi, into
which they put a lot of effort.
Designer Védis Jonsdóttir was hired to create new
patterns, and she soon began to redefine the lopapeysa with
newer, more contemporary motifs. If you look at the Ístex
pattern books, I think you can clearly see this development,
and I personally think a big breakthrough came with Pattern
Book 25. Some designs in this book became instant classics,
such as Aftur, which remains extremely popular. Another
sweater from Védis, Héla, was a free pattern in deep black
(not sheep black or heather black), very short and neatly
fitting with slight waist shaping and a zipper. Suddenly you
could wear the lopapeysa in the city, with high heel boots
and jeans. Icelandic women love the contrast of deep black
and white, and this sweater was a huge hit.
After Védis moved to New York and stopped designing
on a regular basis for Ístex, there were other women
innovators too. Bergrós Kjartansdóttir has an interesting
approach to the colour yoke, often trying to break up the
regularity of one motif with her distinctive graphic style, and
Margrét Linda Gunnlaugsdóttir and Ásdís Birgisdóttir also
created some beautiful designs when reviving the Lopi og
Band knitting magazine.
KD Iceland has witnessed many changes, both economic and

cultural, since the turn of the Twenty First Century. Has the
lopapeysa responded to these shifts?
HM Absolutely. Interestingly, external market demands have
often prompted a shift in local perceptions and knitting
practice. In 2005, for example, designer Bergþóra
Guðnadóttir founded the company Farmer’s Market, with
the intention of creating distinctive Icelandic lopi sweaters
in the softer, finer fibre blends that suited overseas buyers.
Bergþóra used motifs from old Icelandic pattern books,
and quite unexpectedly, her sweaters proved a huge local
hit as well. As is often the case with female entrepreneurs,
Bergþóra’s success inspired some sadly predictable
opposition. At the same time that she was criticised for
profiting from Iceland’s heritage, people were also seen
counting stitches and copying motifs from her popular
designs, later selling exact reproductions of her sweaters. »
31
After the financial crisis, knitting generally became

incredibly popular in Iceland. The recent surge in hand
knitting is, of course, a global phenomenon, but in
Iceland its explosion clearly seems to have been about
the need to feel you were doing something palpable and
useful, in opposition to the imaginary financial bubble
that had burst. There was a definite will to use Icelandic
resources and materials, to look inside and re-examine
Icelandic identity, a project also encouraged by national
organisations such as the Iceland Academy of the Arts.
That said, other factors come to play as well. Fashion is
fickle, and I find that this fickleness is often exaggerated
in Iceland – trends emerge and disappear so quickly,
probably due to the size of the population.
KD …so what role does the lopapeysa play in Icelandic

identity today?
HM Today lopapeysur are a part of Icelanders’ everyday life and
ordinary folklore. They are worn on many occasions – as
costumes, warm pullovers, or just as outdoor garments
for horse riding and hiking. Icelandic houses are well-
heated, and the lopapeysa is so warm that it is essentially
an outdoor garment. I think its outdoor nature remains
important in Iceland. Because there are few occasions
to wear this garment inside, it hasn’t seemed to want to
evolve in a particularly elegant or refined manner, like
other yokes. I did design my first very fitted and feminine
lopapeysa, called Brynja when I was living abroad in
Europe for a few years and absolutely needed a flattering
everyday indoor cardigan!
I think one of the reasons for the success of the lopi
sweater is that in so many respects it is a natural fit with
the landscape, with the cultural imagination, with Iceland
itself. It’s really no coincidence it became so popular. As
designs evolve and change, more and more Icelandic
references are added, making the sweater more and more
Icelandic. I have seen patterns in which sheep and other
animals have been represented, or sweaters which have
been inspired by famous Icelandic paintings or other
cultural references.
Óverður, the latest pattern book from Ístex, is a case in
point: it emerged from a competition organised around
the concept of extreme weather (a theme that might seem
to many to be essentially Icelandic). Beautiful sweaters
were designed, knitted and submitted to the competition
by knitters all over the country. Patterns were then graded
and written by Ístex and the end result is really lovely.
KD In your book, Icelandic Handknits you describe the

lopi sweater as being “in a constant state of evolution”
and it seems to me that your own approach to circular
yoke design is a great illustration of this premise. While
patterns such as Fimmvörðuháls, Graine D’Hélène and Lopi
32
Affection are certainly recognisable as ‘Icelandic’ yokes, they author’s note

also use features like short rows, texture and shaping to lend Hélène Magnússon is a mountain guide, yarn
the designs a very contemporary, feminine feel. I wonder producer and the author of two ground-breaking
whether you felt that the form of the lopapeysa itself, a books exploring Icelandic textile history: Icelandic
garment with a relatively short history, means that it has the Colour Knitting (2006) and Icelandic Handknits
freedom to evolve and transform itself? (2013). Hélène has written other books and articles
HM I think perhaps the evolving freedom of the lopi sweater on a wide range of topics from food and cooking
has more to do with its being alive at all, than with to children’s literature and her new book, The
necessarily being young. It’s a garment with an intriguing Icelandic Lace Dresses of Aðalbjörg Jónsdóttir
history that’s definitely old enough to trace, something I is forthcoming.
intend myself to do. I find it absolutely fascinating to see Find out more at www.icelandicknitter.com
a tradition being born and to participate in shaping it!
I don’t know about other designers but I know where I images and credits
want to go, trying not just to refine the shape and fit, but 28 Balahvit, a yoke design by Brynja Thora
coming up with new shapes, new proportions while Valtysdóttir. Included in Ístex’s Óverður
keeping the essence of the sweater, so that you can still say collection. © Ístex, 2014.
just by looking at it, “That’s a lopapeysa”. 29 Hélène and her family at the sheep round-
up, wearing lopapeysur designed by Hélène.
KD Finally, do you have a favourite lopapeysa? Can you tell us © Hélène Magnússon.
about it? 30 Fimmvörðuháls, a yoke design by Hélène
HM I fell in love with a sweater in a black and white Magnússon. © Hélène Magnússon.
photograph taken in Iceland in 1942-1943, although I 31 Hekla, a yoke design by Olina Jonsdóttir.
can’t tell if it’s made with lopi, nor see properly if there Included in Ístex’s Óverður collection.
are raglan or integrated decreases in the yoke around the © Ístex, 2014.
shoulders. The motif is so extremely simple but seems so 32 Aftur, a yoke design by Védis Jonsdóttir.
essentially Icelandic to me and is remarked upon in these © Ístex, 2014.
terms by all the people I have shown it to. 32 Lopi Affection, a yoke design and modelled
by Hélène Magnússon. © Hélène Magnússon.
Thanks so much for this illuminating discussion, Hélène! 33 þingviller, south-west Iceland. © Kate Davies.
33
A conversation with
Meg Swansen
Meg shares her thoughts on yokes and the legacy of Elizabeth Zimmermann.
I
t was through the work of Elizabeth Zimmermann that KD In Knitting Without Tears, Elizabeth Zimmermann describes
I formed my own personal ‘yoke connection’. Having how her famous seamless yoke construction was born out of
returned to knitting a decade ago, I bought a copy of “the children... agitating for yoke sweaters, which were then
Knitting Without Tears and read it from cover to cover. coming into style”. Can you remember you and your siblings
Here was a knitting book quite unlike others I’d previously wanting yoked sweaters, and do you recall badgering your
come across! The writing was incisive and witty. The tone was mum for one? Do you have any recollection of her first
enabling and encouraging. seamless yoke sweater, with its design of hearts, which she
Reading an early section on seamless knitting, I spotted describes being “copied and re-copied”?
a photograph of a beautiful yoked sweater, followed by an
illustration of the manner in which sleeves and body were MS I well remember the wave of popularity of Fair Isle yoke
joined to be worked in the round. A lightbulb went off in my sweaters in the late 1950s – both pullovers and cardigans
head – it was a real eureka moment. with grosgrain ribbon on the insides of the front edges. My
After that there was no stopping me and, with Elizabeth mum’s very first Newsletter (1958) was a design she knitted
Zimmerman to hand, I began to design and knit my own for my sister and me. Plus the photograph on page 6 and
seamless yokes. In 2009, one of those yoke sweaters featured on the back cover of The Opinionated Knitter is a version of
the owl cables familiarly popularised by Penny Straker in the that design I knitted for myself in the very early 1960s.
1960s. This rookie yoke-fluke unexpectedly precipitated me into Oh yes, the heart-sweater, I remember wearing it
the world of knitwear design and meant that I could consider during high school. It was considerably thicker than the
building a new career when a devastating stroke forced upon me Shetland jumper-weight yokes but we lived in Wisconsin
a change of direction. Today yokes remain my favourite garment and often skiied.
both to knit and to design, and the style of seamless pattern
construction in this book reveals the direct influence of EZ. KD I’d like to hear more about your recollections of wearing
I recently had the opportunity to discuss the legacy of and / or knitting yoked sweaters in the 1950s. Can you
Elizabeth Zimmermann’s seamless yokes with her daughter, recall knitting body and sleeves to have the yoke completed
Meg Swansen, herself a master knitter and creator of innovative by your mum? Do you remember the first yoked garment
and beautiful yoke designs. that you knit yourself? Did you have a personal favourite
yoke that you particularly enjoyed wearing? And were your
hand-knit yokes admired or sought after by your friends and
schoolfellows?
MS When we were teenagers, my sister Lloie found a
lovely pattern on a tammie that she wished to have as a
yoke sweater. My mum said, “Sure. You knit sleeves and
body and I’ll put on the yoke.” And Lloie did – at a gauge
of 8 sts to 1 inch. It was gorgeous.
Actually, my mother loved to knit colour patterns
and her dear friend Ruth loved plain knitting. They
collaborated and produced dozens of Shetland wool Fair
Isle yoke sweaters which they sold at a shop in downtown
Milwaukee, The Woman’s Exchange.
34
A CONVERSATION WITH MEG SWANSEN
One of the very first yoke sweaters I knitted during

high school was a cardigan for my grandmother, who was
visiting us from England. I designed the colour patterns on
graph paper.
When I began attending private school, my
contemporaries greatly admired the array of sweaters I
wore. Also during that period, there were several artists I
knew who were pleased to swap a painting for a custom-
made sweater. I did the knitting but leaned heavily on my
mother for advice. Years later when my husband, children
and I lived in upstate New York, I traded sweaters for car
repair with a mechanic and for pottery, which I still have to
this day. Potters spent so much time in their cold potting
sheds, they were a pushover for a sweater-barter.
KD The ‘translation’ of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s 1956 iconic

seamless Fair Isle yoke into back-and-forth instructions in a
1958 publication is well-documented. It seems to me that
this incident marked a crucial turning point in her design
career, and one might say that Wool Gathering, Schoolhouse
Press and all that followed, was in some sense, born out of
the seamless yoke sweater, and your mum’s desire to ‘do it
herself’, thereby helping other knitters to ‘do it themselves’.
I wondered if you agreed and if you might say more about
this particular yoke sweater, and its significance to you, your
mum and all at Schoolhouse Press?
MS I agree with your assessment. Although she had had many
of her designs published in magazines for a number of
years, being ‘forced’ to correct the construction of a design
of which she was very proud, backed her into publishing
her own patterns. And a good thing, too!
Her Newsletter (1958, a do-over of the botched Fair
Isle yoke sweater, to 1968) and Wool Gathering
(1969-present day), provided a forum through which
her attitude and approach toward hand knitting became
apparent. “Really, all you need to become a good knitter are
wool, needles, hands and slightly below-average intelligence.
Of course, superior intelligence, such as yours and mine, is
an advantage.”
KD By the late 1950s, Elizabeth Zimmermann was developing

EPS, the percentage system which would enable thousands
of knitters to develop and knit their own garments from any
weight of yarn, at any gauge. In Knitting Without Tears,
this system is introduced in the instructions for a seamless the whole. She thought I might be correct, as she could
yoke sweater, and it is in the context of this construction that think of no other source for her percentage idea. When
EPS is still perhaps most commonly understood and applied. my mother, my husband and I began to tape and write
Could you say more about the relationship between EPS and Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitting Workshop book and video,
the seamless yoke sweater? it was my husband Chris who came up with the name
MS I surmised that it was during my mother’s training at EPS – Elizabeth’s Percentage System (the method was
the Akademie in Munich – which was chiefly drawing un-named in Knitting Without Tears and Knitter’s Almanac).
nude models – that she developed an innate sense of the EZ admired the name as she thought it likely that ESP was
proportions of the body and the relationship of parts to responsible for EPS. »
35
snug fit when I was a slim young woman and was relieved
by the looser fit as I became older. At present, I continue to
knit loose garments for myself but include waist-shaping
as an option in some of my designs.
KD I know that the Bohus designs were especially admired by

Elizabeth Zimmermann, and that you are also a great fan
and collector of Bohus knitting. I wondered if you had a
favourite Bohus yoke in your collection, or whether there was
a Bohus yoke design you particularly admired?
MS I find them all inspiring in one way or another, but my all-
time favorite is Karin Ivarsson’s Swan design. In the 1980s,
when we began to import from Sweden Ulla Haglund’s
then-new Bohus Stickning book, we were astonished by the
beauty of the designs. No snowflakes or representational
motifs prancing across the yokes, but graceful and ethereal
landscapes enhanced by a haze of angora and the texture
of occasional purled stitches. In my opinion, even after
seventy-plus years, these timeless patterns remain at the
pinnacle of yoke colour-pattern design.
KD The thing I probably enjoy most about a bottom-up seamless

yoke construction is the combined sense of anticipation as
one works one’s way up to the underarms, followed by the
thrill of working the actual yoke design. Could you describe
what you love most about yoke knitting?
MS Yes, anticipation. Knitting a seamless yoke sweater down
from the top is probably the most sensible direction; one
can try on the garment at any stage in its construction,
and easily rip back a too-long sleeve. However, all the
excitement is over once the yoke is complete, and you are
left with the (interminable) plain sleeves and body.
For me, there is an important psychological aspect
when knitting up from the lower edge. I am full of
enthusiasm for a new design and, while knitting the plain
KD Through the designs that you and your mum first published body and shaping the sleeves, my mind’s eye can imagine
in Wool Gathering, one might trace the evolution and hundreds of ways to decorate the yoke. For me, the yoke is
development of several different styles of yoke, from Elizabeth the reward and best saved ‘til last.
Zimmermann’s original Fair Isle design in the late-fifties, to
her 1965 design produced at “the height of Icelandic yoke KD Elizabeth Zimmermann’s account of seamless yoke
popularity”, and onward to your own influential designs construction and EPS profoundly inspired me. I know it also
such as the Aspen and Spiral Yokes. I wonder if you could had an important influence on other contemporary hand-
talk a little about some of the changes in style, shaping and knit designers but perhaps more importantly it has changed
fit you have witnessed as a wearer, knitter and designer of the lives of knitters around the world, enabling them to
yoked sweaters over the past half century? develop, adapt and create their own beautiful garments
MS In the 1950s, yoked pullovers were knitted in Shetland for themselves. I wonder if you could say a little about your
or other small-gauge wools, and were quite form- perception of the influence of the seamless yoke on knitters
fitting. Over the following decades, with the influence of and knitting over the past half century?
heavier-gauge Icelandic yoke sweaters, the fit was much MS As an admirer of your designs Kate, it pleases me
more relaxed, comfortable and even oversized, but the exceedingly to add you to the list of designers who were
underarm stitches were cast-off, then cobbled together – influenced by my mother. Of course, I have seen EZ’s
how uncomfortable and restrictive. In recent decades, we influence in the work of designers who do not attribute
have returned to form-fitted garments, with waist-shaping credit to her, and, indeed, may never even have heard of
being included in most designs. As a wearer, I loved the Elizabeth Zimmermann. Ripples in the pond.
36
As for my mum’s impact on ‘knitters around the world’

– shortly after her death in 1999, if I may make so bold
as to quote myself from The Opinionated Knitter, I wrote,
“We had thought that we were fully aware of Elizabeth’s
popularity among knitters. Her book and video sales
plus the frequent and generous acknowledgements of
her influence by many other designers and magazines,
bespoke a wide array of followers. But we greatly
underestimated the depth and breadth of her impact
upon the knitting world. We remain a bit stunned by
the realisation that our wife, mother, grandmother and
great-grandmother was also a Knitting Mother to such a
prodigious number of people.”
The condolence notes we received were so heartfelt
and touching, the phrase “You changed my life” being
the most frequently expressed. Elizabeth Zimmermann’s
attitude of creativity, confidence, emancipation and,
above all, pleasure in hand-knitting, spilled over into other
aspects of her follower’s lives.  There is no ‘wrong’ in
knitting. You are in charge and can do whatever you like.
Amen to that!
author’s note
Meg Swansen is a distinguished designer and author
of numerous books and articles about knitting. As
publisher and distributor, she’s also an important
disseminator of information about knitting techniques
and history worldwide.
Find Meg at www.schoolhousepress.com
photos and credits

34 Elizabeth Zimmerman and daughter
Meg knitting together. Photo: courtesy
Meg Swansen.
35 Fair Isle Yoke sweater, knitted by Meg
Swansen in the early 1960s from
Elizabeth Zimmermann’s chart and
instructions in Newsletter #1 (1958).
The yarn is Briggs and Little and the
gauge is 6.5 sts to the inch. The model
is Katherine Olson and the photograph
was taken by, and is reproduced
courtesy of, Meg Swansen.
36 Meg Swansen. Photo: courtesy Meg
Swansen.
37 Shetland tree and star yokes, whose
1950s popularity Meg recalls. Photo
courtesy Jenny Murray.
37 Illustration of Kate’s Owls sweater, by
Felicity Ford.
37
Yoke connections
As symbols of identity and difference, yokes carry a wide range of
meanings for their wearers.
1979
A girl sits with her classmates for a photograph. She wears a there are different kinds of knitting here, with different kinds
beautiful pale fawn jumper, its yoke decorated with rounded of meaning. While anyone might buy or wear a yoke, only
eight-point motifs picked out in darker natural shades. This Shetlanders could wear a Fair Isle allover. You did not find an
is her favourite jumper and she’ll wear it until it no longer allover with the yokes in the village store, since they were rarely
fits her. The other kids wear other jumpers, brightly-coloured knitted for sale. These garments were personal gifts, or sibling
hand- and machine-knits, slipovers, yokes and allovers. This hand-me-downs – the signature of someone in the family
is a Shetland classroom, but the girl is not a Shetlander. She’s with superlative knitterly skills. For the girl, the yoke jumper is
from Wales and her family have moved north in the middle of a mark of her new Shetland belonging, but also a sign of her
her childhood because her dad works at the new oil terminal at separation. Will she ever earn the right to wear an allover?
Sullom Voe. Judy Selfe moved to Shetland in the first oil boom and left
At the barely-built housing estate in Firth where she now a decade later. “It’s an odd experience,” she says “to migrate
lives, new roads and homes are rising up around her. Folk part-way through childhood, especially to a place with as strong
arrive to fill the homes from all over the UK – Grangemouth, a sense of its own identity as Shetland.” Though Judy grew up
Preston, East Kilbride, Middlesborough, Kent and Swansea. with a profound awareness of her difference and her status as
There are many things to adapt to here, including the wild an incomer.
weather. A belted coat from BHS is replaced with a snorkel “... Shetland shaped and formed me from eight-year old to
parka. The girl now wears multiple layers, wellingtons and adult, and that kind of influence doesn’t disappear. Re-learning
thick boot socks. Locally-made yoke jumpers are sold in the to knit via the internet, I found myself drawn to designs that
village general store, an ordinary reminded me of long-gone favourite
necessity just like the Calor gas and garments from my childhood. Fair Isle
milk. Her parents buy her a Shetland and Icelandic yokes and colourwork from
yoke and her local outfit is complete. all over the North Sea.”
Now an enthusiastic knitter, Judy
belonging and separation feels she might earn an allover someday
In school, she is being taught to knit. A “by my own skill, rather than heritage.
nimble-fingered Lancashire classmate But it’s the endlessly adaptable yoke that
proves to be a natural, and impresses feels like it’s mine to do whatever I want
the teacher with her easily-acquired with.”
Fair Isle skills and blending. The girl Judy’s experience of the yoke sweater
feels less adept. But she is keen to try as a garment that might mark or define
and the teacher allows her to work identity mirrors that of other folk who
up a yoke jumper in thick Icelandic wore them all over the late twentieth-
wool. She knows that this is not Fair century North Atlantic. For so many girls
Isle, but she loves the bold patterns and women, yokes have acted as signs of
and the magical speed with which longing or belonging, of connection and
the pattern appears. She wears the of difference. Like Judy, Jennifer Burek
finished jumper into her teenage years spent part of her childhood in a locale
in Shetland, a kind of everyday knitted where yoke sweaters powerfully shaped
armour. She begins to understand that her sense of her place in the world.
38
nostalgia and displacement ever sweaters was a red, yoked jumper I had when I was eleven
Relocating from the USA to Iceland because of her father’s or twelve. It came from a Scottish shop – perhaps the Edinburgh
position in the Air Force, Jennifer immediately took to the Woollen Mills – in Cheltenham, where I grew up, and whenever
ubiquitous lopapeysa but was only ever allowed to wear a I wore it I felt deliciously comforted and beautifully adorned. I
yoked jumper knitted in dark, muddy colours that would not never really thought much about why I felt like this when I wore
easily show dirt and wear. While she romped about in shades that jumper, but at the age of 42, I found myself in an eclectic
of brown, her grandmother wore an Icelandic cardigan with clothing store in my new hometown of Melbourne, staring at a
an ivory body and a high-contrast black yoke that Jennifer felt, very similar red, yoked jumper. This one wasn’t made in Scotland,
“was the height of adult sophistication. When might I aspire but I bought it nevertheless, because it was so evocative.”
to something so pretty as my grandmother’s white sweater?”. Yokes are similarly evocative for Kim Burkhardt, since a
Like Judy, Jennifer has returned to knitting as an adult and random encounter in a Scottish town completely changed her
finds herself drawn to the sophisticated ivory shades and the perspectives on the garment. “I had no feeling for yokes,” says
Icelandic yoked knits that remind her of her childhood: “There Kim, “I thought they were quaint. I am from Southern California
is something deeply nostalgic about the yoke sweater for me.” – swimsuits and sandals reign supreme. But I am also one quarter
For Liz Evans, the yoke sweater also carries powerful Scots and twenty years ago I had the good fortune to travel to
resonances of nostalgia, longing and displacement. Liz grew Scotland. One day, after a long day of driving, I came upon a
up in the south of England, from which she relocated to shop. It was full of yoked sweaters. I could not get enough of the
Australia and later Tasmania, where she now lives and works. amazing patterns and colour combinations. I had to choose only
“I love this place, but I am always just a little bit homesick and one sweater. It was a most difficult decision. That yoked sweater
knitwear has definitely taken on a new level or symbolism for was a constant reminder of the happy days I spent in Scotland. I
me. I adore yoked knits,” says Liz, “One of my very favourite have been a devoted yoke lover ever since.” »
39
YOKE CONNECTIONS
canadian yokes
By this point in the early eighties, when the Shetland yoke
sweater was in decline, several North American companies
such as Mary Maxim, Cottage Craft and Briggs and Little had
developed their own distinctively local yoke sweater styles and,
in Canada particularly, these designs were often powerfully
bound up with ideas of landscape and place. Cheryl Smith
grew up in the Maritimes and, when she was thirteen, visited St
Andrews, New Brunswick, on a family camping trip.
There she discovered Cottage Craft, a company with many
innovative design ideas, one of which was to purchase yarn
to knit a sweater expressing your connection to the local
landscape. “Your memories of the Passamaquoddy Bay,” says
Cheryl, “could be built into the colour of the cardigan you knit
in ‘Quoddy Blue’. One of the patterns that was available was a
yoked sweater. My clever mother caught the glint in my eye. ‘If
you’d like a sweater like that Cheryl, why don’t you pick out the
colours?’ No need to say that I leapt at the chance! When we
arrived home, she told me that if I wanted the sweater, I could
knit it. Well, I knit that sweater, I liked the sweater and I never
looked back.”
Cheryl was not alone. Julia Farwell-Clay’s photographs
of the visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales to Saint John,
New Brunswick in 1983, reveals a crowd full of kids in brightly
coloured red and blue yoke sweaters.
“We were not a fancy bunch, so things made by hand were
what people considered fine enough to be seen in by the stylish
princess” says Julia. “At the time I thought nothing of it but now
I understand that these seemingly everyday sweaters carried a
potent pride for people: ‘I want the princess to see my handiwork!’”
In her childhood home in the Maritimes, Julia also wore a
much-loved Icelandic yoke throughout the winter months.
This sweater was knitted for Julia by Annie, a Danish girl who
stayed with her family for a year, and who also taught her to
knit. “Getting a sweater – of my choice! – and watching it being
made, and so gracefully, was quite an informative experience,”
she recalls. Julia was a Canadian, wearing an Icelandic sweater
knitted for her by a Dane. In its very stitches, then, her lovely
lopapeysa combined several different locales and nationalities,
the product of a cultural ecclecticism which perhaps
seems more generally expressive of the yoke’s mobility and
transformation around the North Atlantic region.
Like Julia and Cheryl, Maximiliana Henze wore yoke sweaters
as winter outdoor wear, and later came to love creating them
as a knitter. For Max, a Chinese Canadian born in Taiwan,
knitting generally and yoke sweaters in particular, became a
way of interrogating, perhaps, rather than defining, her sense
of identity and place. For her, yoke sweaters acted as a means
of cultural exploration: “There is a travelling-the-world impetus
behind my yoke sweater love. While growing up in Canada I knew
these sweaters came from Northern European lands, but through
them I felt a connection to the culture. By wearing these sweaters,
I was exploring the world.”
40
For Max, like many other knitters, the yoke is not only a As Judy Selfe remarked, “the endlessly adaptable yoke is
garment with a range of important regional associations, but a mine to do whatever I want with”, and many designers and knitters
means of exploring her own sense of place in the world. today are doing precisely that. Julia Farwell-Clay’s beautiful and
innovative yoke designs take their inspiration from a wide variety
the language of knitting of global cultural sources from Shakespeare to steam punk. Her
In its powerful associations of pattern and of place, knitting Plum Rondo a la Turk is an Icelandic-style yoke sweater, referencing
has its own semiotics, its own particular language of technique Dave Brubeck’s American jazz, with a pattern that Julia describes
and design. This is a visual language that, in the Nineteenth as “a riff on a German embroidery motif, elongated in a way that
Century, was easily spotted on a foreign visitor’s sweater or hat, begins to feel Turkish to me”. As Julia puts it of Plum Rondo: “A
and was just as easily picked up and copied by an innovative Turkish German Lopapeysa. Why not?”
knitter. In time, the language was adopted and appropriated
by other local knitters, it mutated and changed, it developed author’s note
its own distinctive dialect. And, by the middle decades of the Thanks to Kim Burkhardt, Liz Evans, Julia Farwell-Clay, Maximiliana
Twentieth Century, several different North Atlantic knitterly Henze, Judy Selfe, Cheryl Smith, and the many other knitters who
dialects had begun to express themselves in the form of the have shared their experiences of yokes with me.
yoke sweater: a Tree and Star yoke was an iteration of the
Shetland dialect; the lopapeysa the Icelandic. photos and credits
Today, these knitterly dialects are available for us all to 38 Julia Farwell-Clay in her lopapeysa. Photo: courtesy of
speak and use, for us all to modify and enhance with our Julia Farwell-Clay.
own creativity. We bring our own memories and associations 39 Brae Primary School, 1979. Photo: courtesy of Judy Selfe.
to bear on our knitting, our own complicated identities, our 40 The crowd waiting for the Prince and Princess of Wales
own powerful senses of place or of displacement. Each time in Saint John, New Brunswick. Photo: courtesy of Julia
any of us makes, or chooses, or buys, or designs, or wears a Farwell-Clay.
yoke sweater, we are all, in some sense, contributing to the 40 Julia Farwell-Clay’s Plum Rondo a la Turk. © Julia Farwell-Clay.
continuing transformation of this evolving language. 41 Shetland Sky. Photo: Promote Shetland.
41
FURTHER READING AND WATCHING
Abrams, Lynn Myth and Materiality in a Woman’s World: – Traditional Scandinavian Knitting (Dover,
Shetland 1800-2000 (Manchester UP, 2005) 1984)
Anderson, Kjell Bohus Knitting: From Relief Work to World Magnússon, Hélène Icelandic Knitting Using Rose Patterns (Search
Success (DVD, 2007) Press, 2008)
see www.kmafilm.se/?page_id=40&lang=en – Icelandic Handknits: 25 Heirloom Techniques
Black, Sandy Knitwear in Fashion (Thames and Husdon, and Projects (Voyageur Press, 2013)
2005) Mucklestone, Mary Jane 200 Fair Isle Designs: Knitting Charts,
– Knitting: Fashion, History, Craft (V&A, 2012) Combination Designs and Colour Variations
Buijs, C and J Oosten eds Braving the Cold: Continuity and Change in (Search Press, 2011).
Arctic Clothing (CNWS, 1997) –150 Scandinavian Knitting Designs (Search
Chatterton, Pauline Scandinavian Knitting Designs (Macmillan, Press, 2013).
1982) Nylen, Anna Maja Swedish Handcraft (Reinhold, 1977)
Crawford, Susan A Stitch in Time: Vintage Knitting Patterns, 1930- Oakes, Jill and Rick Riewe, Our Boots: Inuit Women’s Art
1959, v.2 (Arbour House Publishing, 2011). (Thames and Hudson, 1996).
Don, Sarah Fair Isle Knitting (Dover, 1979) Petersen, Robert ‘Grønlandske Festdragter’, Atuagagdiliutit /
Druchunas, Donna Arctic Lace: Knitting Projects and Stories Inspired Grønlandsposten, 90: 7(1994)
by Alaska’s Native Knitters (Nomad Press, 2006) Rees, Diana and Ronald Rees, Grace Helen Mowat and the
Feitelson, Ann The Art of Fair Isle Knitting: History, Technique, Making of Cottage Craft (Goose Lane Editions,
Colour, Pattern (Interweave, 1996) 2010)
Fryer, Linda Knitting by the Fireside and on the Hillside: A Rutt, Richard A History of Hand Knitting (Batsford, 1987)
History of the Shetland Hand Knitting Industry Segelcke, Nana To Rette Og en Vrang: Unn Søiland Dale –
c.1600-1950 (Shetland Times, 1995) Designerliv og Strikkeopskrifter (1994)
Gibson, Rosie The Work they Say is Mine: Women in Shetland Sibbern Bøhn, Annichen Norske Strikkemønstre (1931 and 1948 edns)
(Avonbridge Film, 1986) Smith, Brian ‘The Truck System’ in Laurenson, ed, Shetland
visit Scottish Screen Archive for details: www. Textiles
ssa.nls.uk Smith, Mary and Chris Bunyan A Shetland Knitter’s
Gordon, Ella ‘Lubricated Woollens’ 60 North, 9 (Summer Notebook (Shetland Times, 1991)
2014), pp.30-33. Sørensen, Bo Wagner ‘Contested Cultures: Trifles of Importance’ in
Gudjonsson, Elsa ‘The Origins of Icelandic Knitting’ in Knitting Buijs and Oosten, eds, Braving the Cold
with Icelandic Wool Starmore, Alice Scandinavian Knitwear (Bell & Hyman, 1982)
Häglund, Ulla Bohus Stickning, 1939-1969 (Palmeblads – (with Anne Matheson) Knitting From the
Tryckeri, 1980) British Islands (Bell & Hyman, 1982)
(a reworked paperback edition of this book – Alice Starmore’s Book of Fairisle Knitting
was produced by Bohusläns Museum in 1999) (Taunton, 1988)
Helgadóttir, Gudrun ‘Nation in a Sheep’s Coat: The Icelandic Thuesen, Søren ‘Dressing up in Greenland: A Discussion of
Sweater’ FORMakademisk 4:2 (2011), pp.59- Change and World Fashion in Early-Colonial
68. West Greenlandic Dress’ in King, Pauksztat
Howarth, David The Shetland Bus (Shetland Times, 1998) and Storrie, eds, Arctic Clothing
Hughson, Hazel ‘Ethel Brown: A Shetland Hairdresser and Tindall, Hazel ‘Knitting Fair Isle’, in Laurenson, ed, Shetland
Designer-Knitter’, New Shetlander 221 (2002), Textiles
pp.37-40 – ‘Kempin Like Mad: Diary of a Shetland
Ístex (with Védis Jonsdóttir) Knitting with Icelandic Wool (St Martins Press, Knitter’ Knitting Traditions (Spring 2014),
2010). pp.19-22
Keele, Wendy Poems of Color: Knitting in the Bohus Tradition – The Fine Art of Fair Isle Knitting (DVD and
(Interweave, 1995) download, 2014)
Kidd, Tom Life in Shetland (Paul Harris Publishing, 1980) – see www.hazeltindall.com/dvd
King, J.C.H Birgit Pauksztat and Robert Storrie, eds, Arctic Waller, Jane Stitch in Time: Knitting and Crochet Patterns of
Clothing (McGill UP, 2005) the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s (Gerald Duckworth &
Kleinschmidt, Gertrud ‘Formal Clothing: The Greenlandic National co, 1972)
Costume’ in King, Pauksztat and Storrie, eds, Zimmermann, Elizabeth Knitting Without Tears (Simon and Schuster, 1971)
Arctic Clothing – Knitter’s Almanac: Projects for Each Month of
Klepp, Ingun Grimstad and Tone Skardal Tobiasson, Renn Ull the Year (Dover, 1974)
(Aschehoug, 2013) – Knitting Workshop (Schoolhouse Press, 1981)
Laurenson, Sarah ed Shetland Textiles: 800 BC to the Present – Knitting Around (Schoolhouse Press, 1989)
(Shetland Amenity Trust, 2013) – The Opinionated Knitter: Newsletters 1958-
– ‘Fair Isle Knitting’ in Laurenson, ed, Shetland 1968 (Schoolhouse Press, 2005)
Textiles
Lind, Vibeke Knitting in the Nordic Tradition (Lark Books, 1984) Photo above: Cover illustration of Annichen Sibbern Bøhn,
McGregor, Sheila Traditional Fair Isle Knitting (Dover, 1981) Norske Strikkemønstre (1948 edn)
42
THE DESIGNS
BEFORE YOU BEGIN

will it fit me?
Yokes, it seems, arouse strong opinions. Some folk instinctively
dislike the look of a yoke, or think that they just aren’t for them,
which I suppose is fair enough. What is not fair, however, is
the idea that yokes should ‘never’ be worn by women with
large breasts / small breasts / square shoulders / narrow
shoulders / other natural physical attributes. I instinctively
dislike proscriptive notions of what ‘can’ and ‘cannot’ be worn.
Not only do such ideas limit the fun and creative freedom that
everyone should feel in relation to their wardrobe but, frankly,
they are quite frequently rubbish. To my mind, whatever their
shape and proportions, all women look beautiful wearing a
garment in which they feel comfortable and that really is the
only general rule that I will suggest.
You are the best person to decide what kind of garment
that is and if it happens to be a yoke, there are many different
styles to choose from here. You may feel better in a high
‘necklace’ style design, such as Bluebell, or prefer the yoke
pattern to be near-continuous from neck to underarm, like
Buchanan; you may prefer the look of a lower, scooped
neckline, shaped with short rows, (Fintry), or feel that the finished dimensions of each garment and measurements are
shape of your shoulders suits the slashed, boat-necked style given in detail so that you can compare them to your well-
of a sweater like Keith Moon. fitting sweater and check (and modify) them as you wish. And
If you are unsure, pick a sweater from your wardrobe that if you feel that the proportions given in the sizing table do
fits you well and whose fit you’d like to replicate in your new not exactly match yours, be brave and adjust your yoke to suit
yoke. Now take a look at the sizing tables: these show the you: add darts or short rows in the body to accommodate the
specifics of your bust; for very broad shoulders, decrease fewer
stitches in the preparatory shaping section, then add a pattern
repeat to the yoke; go up a size or two at the hip if you are pear
shaped; or if you are straight up and down, remove the waist/
bust shaping entirely. Use adjacent measurements and stitch
counts to help you, and feel free to add or remove rounds
between shaping if you wish to adjust the length of sleeves,
body or yoke.
If all this sounds like too much work, three general types
of ‘fit’ are listed in the introductory information for each
pattern: close, neat and relaxed. Close fit refers to a garment
worn with negative to zero ease; a neat fit will give up to
an inch or so (a few centimetres) of positive ease (allowing
layers to be easily worn underneath the garment) while a
relaxed fit suggests 2in (5cm) positive ease and above. And if
you prefer an oversized-look, simply omit the shaping from
the body and knit a size 6-8in (15-20cm) above your bust
measurement. Each pattern lists the fit with which the yoke is
worn in the photographs, but you should feel free to knit with
the amount of ease with which you feel most comfortable.
43
44
JÖKULL
Jökull is the Icelandic word for glacier and this striking DESIGN NOTES
yoked mantle, worked in Icelandic wool, will keep you This is a simple design, intended as an introduction to circular
toasty-warm whatever the conditions. Quick to knit, yoke knitting. Jökull starts with a provisional cast on and is
worked all in one piece, with some back and forth sections to
with nifty hand-openings and straightforward chevron
create the hand openings, which are later edged with i-cord for
colourwork, this is an ideal yoke for beginners. The a neat finish. It is worked at a relatively tight gauge, and having
photographs were taken at Geysir, in Iceland. worn this garment on some very chilly days in Iceland, I can
vouch for the fabric being completely wind and weatherproof!
In order for the mantle to fit comfortably over the shoulders
and torso, the colourwork section of the yoke is much deeper
than it would be on a sweater, and the integrated decreases
are more gradual. This is an easy-fitting garment: see below for
sizing guidance.
SIZES  SIZING TABLE

1 (2, 3) – see sizing table 1 2 3
Sizing guidance: Ask someone body circumference
to measure your total body
127 152.5 178 cm
circumference around the
50 60 70 in
shoulders and bust with your arms
held to your sides. The garment neck circumference
should be worn with 15-25.5cm 63.5 63.5 63.5 cm
/ 6-10in positive ease from this 25 25 25 in
measurement rather than your
yoke depth
standard bust measurement.
26.5 27.5 28.5 cm
10½ 10¾ 11¼ in
total length
59.5 64 68.5 cm
23½ 25¼ 27 in
45
INSTRUCTIONS
1
cast on, work corrugated rib and
bottom edge
With 80-100cm / 32-40in gauge-size circular

needle and waste yarn, using your preferred
method, provisionally cast on 200 (240, 280) sts,
pm, and join for working in the round. 
Join in MC and knit one round.
Join in CC1 and work corrugated rib as follows:
*P2MC, k2CC1*, rep from * to * around for 3
rounds.
Change to MC and CC2 and work 3 rounds in
corrugated rib followed by 3 rounds using MC
and CC3. 9 corrugated rib rounds worked.
YARN
Continue in MC only, and work stockinette in
Ístex Álafoss Lopi (Bulky weight; 100% Icelandic Wool;
the round until work measures 15 (18, 20.5)cm /
100m / 109yds per 100g ball)
6 (7, 8)in.
SIZE 1 2 3
2
MC: SHADE 0058 4 5 7
divide and make hand openings
CC1: SHADE 9736 1 1 1

Next round: K23 (28, 33) sts, bind off next 2 sts,
CC2: SHADE 9967 1 1 1 k50 (60, 70) sts, bind off next 2 sts, k to end of
CC3: SHADE 1232 1 1 1 round. 196 (236, 276) sts remain. 
NEEDLES & NOTIONS Working back and forth in rows, continue

80-100cm / 32-40in gauge-size circular needle as follows:
Gauge-size needles of your preferred type for working Step A: K23 (28, 33) sts to first hand opening,
small circumferences turn work, p146 (176, 206) sts to second hand
2 x 2.5cm / 1in buttons  opening, removing start of round marker as you
Waste yarn in similar weight for provisional cast on  encounter it.
Stitch marker  Knitting and purling back and forth in rows as
Tapestry needle est, work a further 31 rows, or until fabric from
bind off for hand-opening measures 16.5cm /
GAUGE 6½in, ending with a RS row.
16 sts and 20 rows to 10cm / 4in over stockinette Do not break yarn.
worked in the round on 5.5mm (UK 5 / US 9) needles.
Row gauge is important. Please check gauge carefully Step B: Join in a new ball of MC to centre front of
over washed and blocked swatch and adjust your work between hand openings, k50 (60, 70) sts,
needle size accordingly. turn, p50 (60, 70) sts. Continue working back
and forth in rows as est for a further 30 rows or
SPECIAL TECHNIQUES until front matches back and sides minus 1 row,
See main Special Techniques section for instructions and ending with a WS row.
on working from charts, provisional cast-on methods, Break yarn.
corrugated rib, i-cord bind-off and plain i-cord.
Rejoin front to back and sides as follows:
Corrugated rib Next round: With RS facing, and working yarn
Using your preferred method of stranded colourwork, from step A, use the backwards loop method
*p2MC, k2CC*, rep from * to * around. to cast on 2 sts, k50 (60, 70) centre front sts,
backwards loop cast on 2 sts, k123 (148, 173)
ABBREVIATIONS sts, pm for start of round. 200 (240, 280) sts.
See full list of abbreviations on the inside back cover. Knit 1 (3, 5) rounds in MC.
46
JÖKULL
3 7
work from chart, work final decreases finishing
Join in CC1 and commence chart, reading it from Weave in all ends to the back of the work. Soak
right to left and working 20 (24, 28) reps across garment in cool water and wool wash for 20-30
each round, changing shades and decreasing as minutes. Rinse and remove excess water. Shape
indicated. Work all 50 rounds of chart. 100 (120, and pin flat to dimensions given on sizing table,
140) sts remain. paying close attention to i-cord edgings, then
leave to dry completely. Sew two buttons into
Continue in MC only for your size as follows: place opposite button-loops at left and right
Size 1 hand openings.
Knit 1 round. Purl 1 round. Move to step 4.
Enjoy your Jökull! CHART: YOKE
Size 2
Knit 1 round. 50
Next round: *K4, k2tog*, rep from * to * around. KEY
20 sts dec; 100 sts remain.
Knit 1 round. Purl 1 round. Move to step 4. MC 0058
CC1 9736 45
Size 3
Knit 1 round. CC2 9967
Next round: *K5, k2tog*, rep from * to * around.
20 sts dec; 120 sts remain. Knit 1 round. CC3 1232
40
Next round: *K4, k2tog*, rep from * to * around. k2tog in shade
20 sts dec; 100 sts remain. indicated
Knit 1 round. Purl 1 round. Move to step 4.
35
4
work neckline edging
ALL sizes
With MC, work i-cord bind-off across all 100 sts.
30
5
work hand-opening edgings and button loops
Right hand opening: With gauge-size needle

of your preferred type for working small 25
circumferences and MC, beginning at centre right
of opening, puk 52 sts around hand opening.
Using the cable cast-on method, cast on 3 sts. 55 sts.
Using i-cord bind-off, bind off 52 sts. 20
Work plain i-cord for 5 rows across remaining 3
sts. Bind off by passing 1 st over the next in turn
without knitting them. Break yarn leaving a 15cm
/ 6in tail, draw tail up through final st, and use to 15
secure i-cord button loop to start of round.
Left hand opening: Work as for right hand opening,

but begin round at centre left of the opening. 10
6
work bottom edging 
Unzip provisional cast on, remove waste yarn,

5
and place 200 (240, 280) sts on gauge-size 80-
100cm / 32-40in circular needle. 
With RS facing, using MC, purl 1 row. 
Using i-cord bind off method, bind off all sts. 1
10 5 1
47
48
EPISTROPHY
EPISTROPHY
Epistrophy is the title of a Be Bop ‘standard’ composed DESIGN NOTES

and popularised by Thelonius Monk in 1942. The tune This necklace-style yoke features a graphic monochrome
is characterised by its repetition and modification of a pattern with integrated shaping which sits across the top of
the shoulders. Epistrophy is worked in the round and then
single, imitative phrase (or epistrophe). Similarly, as this
steeked. The design has a shorter body length – if you would
yoke progresses, the diced pattern imitates, repeats and
prefer a longer cardigan, add length between the rounds
modifies a single motif. of waist and bust shaping. It is worn here with zero ease,
but knitting a size or two up from your bust measurement
I listened to Monk as I worked on this design, and hope will give a more relaxed fit if desired. The yoke and neck are
he would have appreciated this knitted homage to his worked straight across without short rows for a very clean and
musical gem. simple line – if you would prefer the front of the cardigan to
scoop slightly, work 2-4 short rows at the beginning of step
6, and compensate by working 2-4 fewer rounds prior to the
preparatory yoke shaping.
49
EPISTROPHY
YARN
TOFT Ulysses DK (DK/Light Worsted weight; 100% British
wool; 225m / 246yds per 100g)
SIZE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
MC: silver/light grey 4 4 5 5 5 6 6 6 7 7
CC: steel/dark grey 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
NEEDLES & NOTIONS

60-80cm / 24-30in gauge-size circular needle for working
body and yoke top
60-80cm / 24-30in below-gauge-size circular needle for
working body rib.
Gauge-size and blow-gauge-size needles of your preferred
type for working small circumferences, for sleeves
100cm / 40in gauge-size circular needle for working yoke
and front openings and holding sts
40cm / 16in below-gauge-size circular needle for working
neck rib
Stitch markers of two types, x and y 
10-12 x 1.25cm / ½in buttons 
Tape or ribbon for finishing steek edges (optional) 
Tapestry needle
SIZES 
GAUGE
1 (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) – see sizing table
22 sts and 32 rows to 10cm / 4in over stockinette worked in
Sizing guidance: For a neat fit (as pictured), choose a size
the round on 3.5mm (UK 10-9/US 4) needles. Row gauge is
with 0-2.5cm / 0-1in positive ease, and for a relaxed fit work
important: please check gauge carefully over washed and
with 5-7.5cm / 2-3in positive ease.
blocked swatch and adjust your needle size accordingly.
SIZING TABLE SPECIAL TECHNIQUES
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 See Special Techniques section for information on working
bust with bands overlapped from charts, steeks, stretchy bind off and buttonholes.
83 88 92.5 97 104.5 109 113.5 118.5 129.5 134 cm
Beaded Rib Pattern
32¾ 34½ 36½ 38¼ 41¼ 43 44¾ 46½ 51 52¾ in
for hem and neck
hip with bands overlapped
Round 1: K1, p1, k1, *p2, k1, p1, k1*, rep from * to *
90.5 95.5 100 104.5 113.5 118.5 123 127.5 137 141.5 cm
around.
35¾ 37½ 39¼ 41¼ 44¾ 46½ 48½ 50¼ 53¾ 55¾ in
Round 2: K3, *p3, k2*, rep from * to * around.
waist with bands overlapped
76 80.5 85 89.5 99 103.5 108 113 122 126.5 cm
for sleeves
29¾ 31¾ 33½ 35¼ 39 40¾ 42½ 44½ 48 49¾ in
Round 1: *K1, p1, k1, p2*, rep from * to * around.
Round 2: *K3, p2*, rep from * to * around.
body length to underarm
33 33 34.5 35.5 35.5 35.5 37 37 38 38 cm for front bands
13 13 13½ 14 14 14 14½ 14½ 15 15 in RS rows: K1, p1, k1, *p2, k1, p1, k1*, rep from * to * across row.
sleeve length to underarm WS rows: P3, *k2, p3*, rep from * to * across row.
42 43 43 45.5 45.5 45.5 47 48.5 48.5 48.5 cm ABBREVIATIONS
16½ 17 17 18 18 18 18½ 19 19 19 in See full list of abbreviations on the inside back cover.
upper arm circumference
30 30 31 32 33.5 34 36 37 38.5 40 cm
11¾ 11¾ 12¼ 12½ 13 13½ 14¼ 14½ 15 15¾ in
neck circumference with bands overlapped
65 65 65 65 65 72 72 72 72 72 cm
25¾ 25¾ 25¾ 25¾ 25¾ 28½ 28½ 28½ 28½ 28½ in
yoke depth
18 18 19.5 19.5 19.5 20 21.5 21.5 22 23.5 cm
7 7¼ 7¾ 7¾ 7¾ 8 8½ 8½ 8¾ 9¼ in
50
EPISTROPHY
INSTRUCTIONS
1
cast on, place markers, establish steek and rib
With 60-80cm / 24-30in below-gauge-size needle

and MC, cast on 195 (205, 215, 225, 245, 255,
265, 275, 295, 305) sts and join for working in
the round.
Round 1: Pmx for start of round, k4 steek sts,
pmx, work in beaded rib pattern to 3 sts before
marker, pmx, k3 steek sts. 188 (198, 208, 218, 238,
248, 258, 268, 288, 298) body sts plus 7 steek sts.
Note: The ‘x’ markers set steek position and start
of round.
Knitting all steek sts, and working body sts in
4
beaded rib pattern as est, work a further 14 (14, set underarm sts aside
14, 14, 16, 16, 16, 16, 18, 18) rounds.
Next round: Slmx, k4 steek sts, slmx, rib 47 (49, Moving sts around needles without knitting, and
52, 54, 59, 62, 64, 67, 72, 74) front sts, pmy, removing y markers as you encounter them, slip
rib 94 (100, 104, 110, 120, 124, 130, 134, 144, 3 (3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6) sts each side of each y
150) back sts, pmy, work 47 (49, 52, 54, 59, marker to waste yarn. 6 (6, 6, 8, 8, 8, 10, 10, 12,
62, 64, 67, 72, 74) front sts, slmx, k3 steek sts. 12) sts set aside at each underarm; 160 (170, 180,
Note: The ‘y’ markers set position of shaping and 186, 202, 212, 218, 228, 248, 258) sts, plus 7 steek
underarms. sts, remain.
Set body sts aside.
2
waist shaping
5
sleeves
Change to gauge-size needle and, working
in stockinette throughout, work waist shaping With below-gauge-size needle of your preferred
as follows: type for working small circumferences in the
Step A: Slmx, k4 steek sts, slmx, *k to 3 sts before round and MC, cast on 45 (45, 45, 45, 50, 50,
y marker, ssk, k1, slmy, k1, k2tog*, rep from * to * 50, 50, 55, 55) sts, pmx, and join for working in
once more, k to end of round. 4 sts dec. the round.
Step B: Knit 5 rounds. Work beaded rib pattern for sleeves for 20
Rep steps A and B a further 7 times. 32 sts dec; rounds. Change to gauge-size needles and,
156 (166, 176, 186, 206, 216, 226, 236, 256, 266) working in stockinette, continue as follows:
body sts remain, plus 7 steek sts. Step A: Slmx, k1, m1, k to 1 st before end of
Knit 4 rounds. round, m1, k1. 2 sts inc.
Step B: Knit 9 (9, 8, 8, 9, 9, 8, 7, 8, 7) rounds.
3
bust shaping Rep steps A and B a further 8 (8, 9, 10, 9, 10,
12, 13, 12, 14) times, then rep step A only once
Work bust shaping as follows:  more. 20 (20, 22, 24, 22, 24, 28, 30, 28, 32) sts
Step C: Slmx, k4 steek sts, *k to 1 st before y inc; 65 (65, 67, 69, 72, 74, 78, 80, 83, 87) sts.
marker, m1, k1, slmy, k1, m1*, rep from * to * Knit every round until sleeve measures 42 (43,
once more, k to end of round. 4 sts inc. 43, 45.5, 45.5, 45.5, 47, 48.5, 48.5, 48.5)cm /
Step D: Knit 7 rounds. 16½ (17, 17, 18, 18, 18, 18½, 19, 19, 19)in, or
Rep steps C and D a further 2 (2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, desired length from cast-on edge.
1, 2, 2) times then rep step C only once more.
16 (16, 16, 16, 12, 12, 12, 12, 16, 16) sts inc; 172 Moving sts around needle without knitting, and
(182, 192, 202, 218, 228, 238, 248, 272, 282) sts removing x marker as you encounter it, slip 3 (3,
remain, plus 7 steek sts. 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6) sts each side of x marker to
Knit every round until fabric measures 33 (33, waste yarn. 6 (6, 6, 8, 8, 8, 10, 10, 12, 12) sts set
34.5, 35.5, 35.5, 35.5, 37, 37, 38, 38)cm / 13 aside at underarm; 59 (59, 61, 61, 64, 66, 68, 70,
(13, 13½, 14, 14, 14, 14½, 14½, 15, 15)in from 71, 75) sts remain.
cast-on edge. Set aside. Make second sleeve in the same way.
51
Sizes 1, 3, 4, 7, 8 and 9
Step C: K to first y marker, slmy, k to next y
marker, slmy, k1, k2tog, k to 3 sts before next y
marker, ssk, k1, slmy, k to end of round. 2 sts dec;
224 (-, 240, 254, -, -, 300, 314, 344, -) sts remain,
plus 7 steek sts.
Sizes 3, 5, 7 and 10
Step D: K to 3 sts before third y marker, ssk, k1,
slmy, k to end of round. 1 st dec; – (-, 239, -, 269,
-, 299, -, -, 359) sts remain, plus 7 steek sts.
ALL sizes: Knit 1 round, removing y markers as

you encounter them.
224 (224, 239, 254, 269, 284, 299, 314, 344, 359)
sts remain, plus 7 steek sts.
8
work from chart
6
join body and sleeves into yoke Join in CC. Reading chart from right to left, rep
marked section 14 (14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22,
With 100cm / 40in gauge-size needle and MC, 23) times in total across each round, working
join body and sleeves into yoke as follows: steek sts in stripe pattern as charted, decreasing
Slmx, k4 steek sts, slmx, k40 (42, 45, 46, 50, 53, where indicated, and shifting to shorter-length
54, 57, 62, 64) front sts, pmy, k59 (59, 61, 61, needle as yoke circumference reduces. Work all
64, 66, 68, 70, 71, 75) sleeve sts, pmy, k80 (86, 34 rounds of chart. 134 (134, 143, 152, 161, 170,
90, 94, 102, 106, 110, 114, 124, 130) back sts, 179, 188, 206, 215) sts remain, plus 7 steek sts.
pmy, k59 (59, 61, 61, 64, 66, 68, 70, 71, 75)
9
sleeve sts, pmy, k40 (42, 45, 46, 50, 53, 54, 57, final decreases
62, 64) front sts, slmx, k3 steek sts. 278 (288,
302, 308, 330, 344, 354, 368, 390, 408) sts plus Continue in MC only for your size as follows,
7 steek sts. slipping markers as you come to them.
Note: The ‘x’ markers show beginning of round Sizes 1 and 2: K4 steek sts, k2tog, k to end of round.
and steek sts. The ‘y’ markers set position for Size 3: K4 steek sts, k6, (k2tog, k12) 3 times,
raglan decreases. (k2tog, k13) 3 times, (k2tog, k12) 3 times, k2tog,
Knit 2 (3, 5, 8, 7, 9, 12, 14, 17, 21) rounds. k6, k3 steek sts.
Size 4: K4 steek sts, k3, (k2tog, k6) 18 times,
7
preparatory yoke shaping k2tog, k3, k3 steek sts.
Size 5: K4 steek sts, k2, (k2tog, k3) 3 times,
Work preparatory yoke shaping as follows: (k2tog, k4) 21 times, (k2tog, k3) 3 times, k2tog,
Step A: Slmx, K4 steek sts, slmx, *k to 3 sts k1, k3 steek sts.
before y marker, ssk, k1, slmy, k1, k2tog*, rep Size 6: K4 steek sts, k3, (k2tog, k6) 8 times,
from * to * a further 3 times, k to end of round. (k2tog, k5) 5 times, (k2tog, k6) 8 times, k2tog,
8 sts dec. k2, k3 steek sts.
Rep step A a further 5 (7, 6, 5, 6, 6, 5, 5, 4, 5) Size 7: K4 steek sts, k2, (k2tog, k4) 12 times,
times. 48 (64, 56, 48, 56, 56, 48, 48, 40, 48) sts (k2tog, k3) 6 times, (k2tog, k4) 12 times, k2tog,
dec; 230 (224, 246, 260, 274, 288, 306, 320, 350, k1, k3 steek sts.
360) sts remain, plus 7 steek sts. Size 8: K4 steek sts, k1, (k2tog, k3) 14 times,
(k2tog, k2) 11 times, (k2tog, k3) 14 times, k2tog,
Sizes 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9  k1, k3 steek sts.
Step B: Slmx, k4 steek sts, slmx, k to first y Size 9: K4 steek sts, k1, (k2tog, k2) 16 times,
marker, slmy, *k to 3 sts before next y marker, (k2tog, k1) 25 times, (k2tog, k2) 16 times, k2tog,
ssk, k1, slmy, k1, k2tog*, rep from * to * once k3 steek sts.
more, k to end of round. 4 sts dec; 226 (-, 242, Size 10: K4 steek sts, k1, (k2tog, k2) 7 times,
256, 270, 284, 302, 316, 346, -) sts remain, plus 7 (k2tog, k1) 52 times, (k2tog, k2) 7 times, k2tog,
steek sts. k3 steek sts.
52
EPISTROPHY
ALL sizes: 1 (1, 10, 19, 28, 22, 31, 40, 58, 67) sts picking up sts in the gap between final st of rep
dec; 133 (133, 133, 133, 133, 148, 148, 148, 148, and first st of steek, puk 143 (143, 148, 153,
148) sts remain plus 7 steek sts. 153, 158, 163, 163, 168, 168) sts up right front
Knit 1 round. edge opening. Beginning with a WS row, work
beaded rib pattern for front openings for 6 rows.
10
work neckline rib Using your preferred method, insert 10-12 3-st
horizontal buttonholes over beaded section of rib
Change to 40cm / 16in below-gauge-size needle. over next 2 rows. Work a further 4 rows and bind
Knitting all steek sts and working remaining off in pattern from WS.
neck sts in beaded rib pattern for body, work
12
8 rounds. Bind off all sts in pattern using your finishing
preferred stretchy bind-off.
Graft together 2 sets of sts at underarms.
11
cut steek, work front bands Soak garment in cool water and wool wash for
20-30 minutes. Rinse and remove excess water.
Weave in all ends. Following instructions in Shape and pin flat to dimensions given on sizing
special techniques section, or using your preferred table, paying close attention to ribbing, then
method, reinforce and cut steek up the centre st. leave to dry. Trim back steek edges, cover with
tape or ribbon, pin into place, and stitch down
Work puk at a rate of 3 sts to every 4 rows for using an invisible slip stitch. Stitch 10-12 buttons
front bands, ensuring the final st count is a onto exterior of left buttonband, corresponding
multiple of 5 + 3. If you have added / removed to buttonholes.
length to / from the body you may need to pick
up extra / fewer sts accordingly. Work as follows: Enjoy your Epistrophy!
For the Left Front edge: From the RS, using
below-gauge-size needle, and picking up sts in CHART: YOKE
the gap between final st of
rep and first st of steek, puk 34
143 (143, 148, 153, 153, 158,
163, 163, 168, 168) sts down
left front edge opening.
30
Beginning with a WS row,
work beaded rib pattern for
front openings for 12 rows.
Bind off in pattern from WS.
25
For the Right Front edge:
From the RS, using below-
gauge-size needle, and
20
KEY 15
MC Silver
CC Steel
10
k2tog in shade indicated
cdd in shade indicated
repeat marked section

5
s steek st
1
s s s 14 10 5 1 15 10 5 1 s s s s
53
54
KEITH MOON
KEITH MOON
This design is inspired by the neat boat-neck sweaters
sported by Mod girls in the 1960s and combines a classic
yoke construction with simple shaping and bracelet-length,
bell-shaped sleeves. A quick and easy project, with some
pleasing details and a really sleek finish, this design would
be a great introduction to yoke knitting for any beginner.
The tri-colour yoke and facings echo the roundels with
which Mods adorned their scooters, and the design is
named for Keith Moon, himself a Mod icon. SIZES
1 (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) – see sizing table 
DESIGN NOTES Sizing guidance: For a neat fit (as pictured) select
This design is one of the few in this collection to shape the a size with 2.5cm / 1in positive ease from your bust
yoke through single rounds of shaping, rather than with measurement, and for a relaxed fit choose a size with
integrated decreases set within or between motifs. The 5cm / 2in positive ease.
shaping works proportionately and there is no short-row
compensation to make the front neckline lower than the back. SIZING TABLE
The yoke concludes with a wide, slashed boat neck that is both 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
comfortable and flattering. The design also features a longer
bust
hip length, waist and bust shaping, and bracelet-length belled
81.5 84.5 90.5 96 100.5 105 110.5 115 119.5 126.5 cm
sleeves, which can easily be lengthened if preferred. Knitting
32 33¼ 35½ 37¾ 39½ 41¼ 43½ 45¼ 47 49¾ in
this sweater in a single shade of dark grey or black would lend
hip
it a singularly striking Mod look.
92.5 96 101.5 107 112 116.5 122 126.5 131 135.5 cm
36½ 37¾ 40 42¼ 44 45¾ 48 49¾ 51½ 53¼ in
waist
72 75.5 81.5 87 91.5 96 101.5 106 110.5 117.5 cm
28½ 29¾ 32 34¼ 36 37¾ 40 41¾ 43½ 46¼ in

43 43 43 45.5 45.5 45.5 48.5 48.5 48.5 48.5 cm
17 17 17 18 18 18 19 19 19 19 in
sleeve length to underarm
36 36 36 36 37.5 37.5 37.5 38.5 38.5 38.5 cm
14¼ 14¼ 14¼ 14¼ 14¾ 14¾ 14¾ 15¼ 15¼ 15¼ in
32.5 34 36 38.5 38.5 40.5 43 45 45 45 cm
13 13¼ 14¼ 15 15 16 17 17¾ 17¾ 17¾ in
neck circumference
61 61 61 61 61 63 63 65.5 66.5 67.5 cm
24 24 24 24 24 25 25 25¾ 26¼ 26¾ in
yoke depth
21 22.5 23.5 24 26 26 27 27.5 29 30 cm
8¼ 8¾ 9¼ 9½ 10¼ 10¼ 10¾ 10¾ 11½ 11¾ in
55
GAUGE
18 sts and 24 rounds to 10cm / 4in over stockinette
worked in the round on 4.5mm (UK 7 / US 7)
needles. It is important to check your gauge across
both small and large circumferences. You may find
you need to go up a needle size when working
the sleeves. Row gauge is important. Please check
gauge carefully over washed and blocked swatch
and adjust your needle size accordingly.
SPECIAL TECHNIQUES
See main Special Techniques section for
instructions about provisional cast on, 3-needle
bind off, i-cord bind off and grafting.
INSTRUCTIONS
1
cast on and create hem facing
With 60-80cm / 24-32in gauge-size circular needle

and waste yarn, using your preferred method,
provisionally cast on 164 (170, 180, 190, 198,
206, 216, 224, 232, 240) sts, pm, and join for
working in the round.
Join in CC1 and work as follows: 
Round 1: K82 (85, 90, 95, 99, 103, 108, 112, 116,
120) sts, pm, k82 (85, 90, 95, 99, 103, 108, 112,
YARN 116, 120) to end. Marker just placed, together
Ístex Létt Lopi (Aran weight; 100% Icelandic Wool; 100m / with start of round marker, sets position of waist
109yds per 50g ball) and bust shaping.
Knit 6 rounds.
SIZE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
MC: SHADE 0051 5 6 6 7 7 7 8 8 9 9 Break CC1, join in MC and continue as follows:

white
Knit 1 round.
CC1: SHADE 9418 Purl 1 round. 
stone blue heather 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 Knit 7 rounds.
CC2: SHADE 9434 Unzip provisional cast on, place these sts on
crimson 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 second gauge-size circular needle and fold up
along the purl round to the inside, so these sts sit
NEEDLES & NOTIONS
parallel to, and behind the working sts.
With MC, taking 1 st from front needle together
body
with 1 st from back needle, k2tog along the
100cm / 40in gauge-size circular needle for working yoke
round, thus joining the hem facing. 164 (170, 180,
Gauge-size needles of your preferred type for working small
190, 198, 206, 216, 224, 232, 240) sts
circumferences for sleeves
Knit 1 round.
Waste yarn in similar weight for provisional cast on
2
Waste yarn in 4ply / fingering weight for marking collar
waist shaping
round and holding underarm sts
Stitch markers
Continuing in MC only, work waist shaping as
Tapestry needle
follows: 
Step A: *Slm, k1, k2tog, k to 3 sts before marker,
ABBREVIATIONS
ssk, k1*, rep from * to * once more. 4 sts dec.
See full list of abbreviations on the inside back cover.
Step B: Knit 5 rounds.
56
KEITH MOON
Rep steps A and B a further 8 (8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, With MC, taking 1 st from front needle together
8, 7) times. 36 (36, 36, 36, 36, 36, 36, 36, 36, 32) with 1 st from back needle, k2tog along the
sts dec; 128 (134, 144, 154, 162, 170, 180, 188, round, joining the cuff facing. 48 (48, 50, 50, 52,
196, 208) sts remain. 54, 56, 56, 60, 60) sts
Knit 6 rounds. Knit 1 round.
3
bust shaping Commence sleeve shaping on next round as
follows:
Work bust shaping as follows:  Step A: Slm, k1, k2tog, k to 3 sts before marker,
Step C: *Slm, k1, m1, k to 1 st before marker, m1, ssk, k1. 2 sts dec.
k1*, rep from * to * once more. 4 sts inc. Step B: Knit 3 rounds.
Step D: Knit 5 (5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6) rounds.  Rep steps A and B once more. 4 sts dec; 44 (44,
Rep steps C and D twice more, then rep step C 46, 46, 48, 50, 52, 52, 56, 56) sts remain.
only once more. 16 sts inc; 144 (150, 160, 170,
178, 186, 196, 204, 212, 224) sts. Knit 4 rounds.
Knit every round until fabric measures 43 (43, Step C: Slm, k1, m1, k to 1 st before marker, m1,
43, 45.5, 45.5, 45.5, 48.5, 48.5, 48.5, 48.5)cm / k1. 2 sts inc.
17 (17, 17, 18, 18, 18, 19, 19, 19, 19)in from fold, Step D: Knit 8 (7, 6, 4, 5, 5, 4, 3, 4, 4) rounds.
or desired length to underarm. Rep steps C and D a further 5 (6, 7, 9, 8, 9, 10,
12, 10, 10) times then rep step C only once
4
set underarm sts aside and prepare start of more. 14 (16, 18, 22, 20, 22, 24, 28, 24, 24) sts
round for working yoke inc; 58 (60, 64, 68, 68, 72, 76, 80, 80, 80) sts.
Moving sts around needle without knitting, and Knit every round until sleeve measures 36 (36,
removing markers as you encounter them, slip 3 36, 36, 37.5, 37.5, 37.5, 38.5, 38.5, 38.5)cm /
(3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6) sts from each side of each 14¼ (14¼, 14¼, 14¼, 14¾, 14¾, 14¾, 15¼,
marker to waste yarn. 6 (6, 8, 8, 8, 10, 12, 12, 12, 15¼, 15¼)in or desired length from fold-line to
12) sts on hold for each underarm; 132 (138, 144, underarm – sleeves should be three-quarter or
154, 162, 166, 172, 180, 188, 200) body sts remain.  bracelet length.
Moving sts around needle without knitting, slip
next 33 (34, 36, 38, 40, 41, 43, 45, 47, 50) sts of Moving sts around needle without knitting, and
round from LH to RH needle. Beginning of new removing marker as you encounter it, slip 3 (3, 4,
round will now be at the centre back. 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6) sts from each side of marker to
Set body sts aside. waste yarn. 6 (6, 8, 8, 8, 10, 12, 12, 12, 12) sts on
hold for underarm; 52 (54, 56, 60, 60, 62, 64, 68,
5
sleeves 68, 68) sleeve sts remain.
Set aside. Make second sleeve in the same way.
With gauge-size needles of your preferred type
6
for working small circumferences and waste join body and sleeves into yoke
yarn, using your preferred method, provisionally
cast on 48 (48, 50, 50, 52, 54, 56, 56, 60, 60) With 100cm / 40in gauge-size circular needle
sts, pm, and join for working in the round. and CC2, beginning at centre back start of round
Join in CC1 and knit 7 rounds.  as est, join body and sleeves into yoke as follows:
K33 (35, 36, 39, 41, 42, 43, 45, 47, 50) back sts,
Break CC1, join in MC and continue as follows:  k52 (54, 56, 60, 60, 62, 64, 68, 68, 68) sleeve
Knit 1 round. sts, k66 (69, 72, 77, 81, 83, 86, 90, 94, 100)
Purl 1 round. front sts, k52 (54, 56, 60, 60, 62, 64, 68, 68,
Knit 7 rounds. Unzip provisional cast on, place 68) sleeve sts, k33, (34, 36, 38, 40, 41, 43, 45,
these sts on second gauge-size circular needle 47, 50) back sts, pm for start of round. 236 (246,
and fold up along purl round to the inside, 256, 274, 282, 290, 300, 316, 324, 336) sts total.
so that these sts sit parallel to and behind the Continue with CC2 and knit 15 (16, 17, 18, 18,
working sts. 18, 20, 20, 20, 20) rounds.
57
KEITH MOON
7
yoke shaping size 6 only:
Continue for your size as follows: Next round: (K2, k2tog) 9 times, (k2, k2tog, k3,
size 1 only:  k2tog) 24 times, (k2, k2tog) 9 times, k2. 66 sts
Next round: With CC2, k1, k2tog, (k3, k2tog) 46 dec; 224 sts remain.
times, k1, k2tog. 48 sts dec; 188 sts remain.  Change to MC and knit 9 rounds.
Change to MC and knit 8 rounds. Next round: (K3, k2tog) 5 times, (k3, k2tog, k2,
Next round: K2, k2tog, (k3, k2tog) 36 times, k2, k2tog) 19 times, (k3, k2tog) 5 times, k3. 48 sts
k2tog. 38 sts dec; 150 sts remain. dec; 176 sts remain.
Change to CC1 and knit 10 rounds. Change to CC1 and knit 15 rounds.
Next round: K12, (k1, k2tog) 42 times, k12. 42 sts Next round: [K2tog, (k1, k2tog) 3 times] 16
dec; 108 sts remain. times. 64 sts dec; 112 sts remain.
size 2 only: size 7 only:

Next round: With CC2, k1, k2tog, (k3, k2tog) 48 Next round: (K2, k2tog) 8 times, (k2, k2tog, k3,
times, k1, k2tog. 50 sts dec; 196 sts remain. k2tog) 26 times, (k2, k2tog) 8 times, k2 68 sts
Change to MC and knit 8 rounds. dec; 232 sts remain.
Next round: K1, k2tog, (k3, k2tog) 38 times, k1, Change to MC and knit 10 rounds.
k2tog. 40 sts dec; 156 sts remain. Next round: (K3, k2tog) 4 times, (k3, k2tog, k2,
Change to CC1 and knit 12 rounds. k2tog) 21 times, (k3, k2tog) 4 times, k3. 50 sts
Next round: K6, (k1, k2tog) 48 times, k6. 48 sts dec; 182 sts remain.
dec; 108 sts remain. Change to CC1 and knit 15 rounds.
Next round: (K1, k2tog) 7 times, (k2tog, k1,
size 3 only: k2tog) 28 times, (k2tog, k1) 7 times. 70 sts dec;
Next round: K1, k2tog, (k3, k2tog) 50 times, k1, 112 sts remain.
k2tog. 52 sts dec; 204 sts remain.
Change to MC and knit 8 rounds. size 8 only:
Next round: K2tog, (k3, k2tog) 40 times, k2tog. Next round: (K2, k2tog) 10 times, (k2, k2tog, k3,
42 sts dec; 162 sts remain. k2tog) 26 times, (k2, k2tog) 10 times, k2. 72 sts
Change to CC1 and knit 14 rounds. dec; 244 sts remain.
Next round: (K1, k2tog) 54 times. 54 sts dec; 108 Change to MC and knit 10 rounds.
sts remain. Next round: (K3, k2tog) 7 times, (k3, k2tog, k2,
k2tog) 19 times, (k3, k2tog) 7 times, k3. 52 sts
size 4 only: dec; 192 sts remain.
Next round: K2tog, (k3, k2tog) 54 times, k2tog. Change to CC1 and knit 16 rounds.
56 sts dec; 218 sts remain. Next round: (K1, k2tog) twice, (k2tog, k1,
Change to MC and knit 8 rounds. k2tog) 36 times, (k2tog, k1) twice. 76 sts dec; 116
Next round: K1, (k3, k2tog) 43 times, k2tog. 44 sts remain.
sts dec; 174 sts remain.
Change to CC1 and knit 14 rounds. size 9 only:  
Next round: (K1, k2tog) 9 times, (k2tog, k1, Next round: K11, (k2tog, k2) 75 times, k2tog,
k2tog) 24 times, (k2tog, k1) 9 times. 66 sts dec; k11. 76 sts dec; 248 sts remain.
108 sts remain. Change to MC and knit 10 rounds.
Next round: (K3, k2tog) twice, (k3, k2tog, k2,
size 5 only: k2tog) 25 times, (k3, k2tog) twice, k3. 54 sts dec;
Next round: K13, (k2, k2tog) 64 times, k13. 64 194 sts remain.
sts dec; 218 sts remain. Change to CC1 and knit 18 rounds.
Change to MC and knit 9 rounds. Next round: (K1, k2tog) 4 times, (k2tog, k1,
Next round: K1, (k3, k2tog) 43 times, k2tog. 44 k2tog) 34 times, (k2tog, k1) 4 times. 76 sts dec;
sts dec; 174 sts remain. 118 sts remain.
Change to CC1 and knit 15 rounds.
Next round: (K1, k2tog) 9 times, (k2tog, k1, size 10 only:
k2tog) 24 times, (k2tog, k1) 9 times. 66 sts dec; Next round: K13, (k2tog, k2) 77 times, k2tog,
108 sts remain. k13. 78 sts dec; 258 sts remain.
58
KEITH MOON
Change to MC and knit 10 rounds.

Next round: (K2, k2tog) 5 times, (k2, k2tog, k3,
k2tog) 24 times, (k2, k2tog) 5 times, k2. 58 sts
dec; 200 sts remain.
Change to CC1 and knit 20 rounds.
Next round: (K2tog, k1, k2tog) 40 times. 80 sts
dec; 120 sts remain.
8
collar
All sizes: Knit 2 rounds.

Continue in CC1 as follows and mark the next
round by knitting a length of 4ply / fingering
weight yarn loosely together with the working yarn: 
Knit 10 (10, 10, 10, 12, 12, 12, 12, 14, 14) rounds.
Purl 1 round.
Knit 10 (10, 10, 10, 12, 12, 12, 12, 14, 14) rounds.
Break yarn.
With gauge-size circular needle, and CC1
carefully (so they do not show through to the RS)
puk 108 (108, 108, 108, 108, 112, 112, 116, 118,
120) sts in the purl sts on the WS of the round
marked with waste yarn, removing waste yarn as
you go.
Fold collar to inside along purl round and work
a 3-needle bind off across the live sts and picked
up sts.
9
finishing
With CC2, puk 164 (170, 180, 190, 198, 206,

216, 224, 232, 240) in purl bumps at body hem
edge. Work i-cord bind-off across these sts.
With CC2, puk 48 (48, 50, 50, 52, 54, 56, 56,
60, 60) in purl bumps at sleeve hem edge. Work
i-cord bind off across these sts.
Rep for second sleeve.
With CC1, puk 108 (108, 108, 108, 108, 112,
112, 116, 118, 120) sts in the purl bumps at the
top of collar edge. Work i-cord bind-off across
these sts.
With MC, graft together the 2 sets of 6 (6, 8, 8,
8, 10, 12, 12, 12, 12) sts at underarms.
Weave in all ends to the back of the work. Soak

garment in cool water and wool wash for 20-30
minutes. Rinse and remove excess water. Shape
and pin flat to dimensions given in sizing table,
paying close attention to hems and facings,
which should lie smooth and flat. Leave to dry
completely.
Enjoy your Keith Moon!
59
60
FINTRY
FINTRY
Fintry is a pretty Stirlingshire village close to where I
live. Though Fintry nestles against the north face of the
rugged Campsie Fells, its direct environs have a gentle and
pastoral feel, with verdant lanes, hedgerows and fields.
In summer, the landscape around Fintry is extraordinarily
green and pleasingly textured – features which are
celebrated in this cardigan. The photographs were taken
at Knockcraich Farm, where you can enjoy delicious
home baking, and award-winning dairy produce, such as
crowdie, a local curd cheese.
DESIGN NOTES SIZES 

I wanted to include a wear-with-everything sort of cardigan in 1 (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) – see sizing table
this collection. Worked in a single colour of a beautiful hand- Sizing guidance: For a neat fit (as pictured) select
dyed yarn, such as the Old Maiden Aunt Corriedale used here, a size with 2.5cm / 1in positive ease from your bust
this garment makes simple and versatile use of the seamless measurement, and for a relaxed fit work with 5-7.5cm
yoke construction. The button bands are knit continuously / 2-3in positive ease.
with the body and yoke, and the neckline is shaped with short
SIZING TABLE
rows, which are wedged between the moss stitch bands to
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
create a flattering front scoop. Fintry is modelled here with
2.5cm / 1in of positive ease – you might go down a size from bust with bands overlapping
your bust measurement for a closer fit, or up a size if you prefer 74 82 88.5 94.5 101 105.5 110 115 121 126 cm
your cardigan to look more relaxed. I recommend you check 29¼ 32¼ 34¾ 37¼ 39¾ 41½ 43½ 45¼ 47¾ 49½ in
your gauge carefully over both moss stitch and stockinette, as hip with bands overlapping
it is particularly important that the moss stitch bands sit neatly 82 90 94.5 99.5 104 112 119.5 124.5 130.5 133.5 cm
against the stockinette fabric. 32¼ 35½ 37¼ 39 41 44 47 49 51½ 52½ in
waist with bands overlapping
63.5 71 77.5 82 88.5 94.5 99.5 104 110 113.5 cm
25 28 30½ 32¼ 34¾ 37¼ 39 41 43½ 44½ in
34.5 34.5 34.5 35.5 35.5 37 37 37 38 38 cm
13½ 13½ 13½ 14 14 14½ 14½ 14½ 15 15 in
37 37 37 38 38 38 39.5 40.5 40.5 40.5 cm
14½ 14½ 14½ 15 15 15 15½ 16 16 16 in
29.5 31.5 33 33.5 34.5 34.5 36 36.5 38.5 38.5 cm
11¾ 12¼ 13 13¼ 13½ 13½ 14¼ 14½ 15 15 in
neck circumference with bands overlapping
58.5 58.5 58.5 62.5 62.5 62.5 62.5 62.5 62.5 62.5 cm
23 23 23 24½ 24½ 24½ 24½ 24½ 24½ 24½ in
front yoke depth
16 16 16 16 17.5 18 20 20 20.5 22.5 cm
6¼ 6¼ 6¼ 6¼ 7 7¼ 8 8 8 8¾ in
back yoke depth
19 19 19 19 20.5 21 23 23 23.5 25.5 cm
7½ 7½ 7½ 7½ 8 8¼ 9 9 9¼ 10 in
61
FINTRY
YARN GAUGE
Old Maiden Aunt Corriedale (Sportweight; 100% Corriedale 26 sts and 34 rows to 10cm / 4in over stockinette and moss
wool; 347m / 380yds per 100g skein) stitch worked in rows on 3.25mm (UK 10 / US 3) needles.
Ensure you achieve the same gauge when working in the
SIZE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
round for sleeves. Row gauge is important. Please check
MC: GHILLIE DHU 4 4 5 5 5 6 6 6 7 7 your gauge carefully over a washed and blocked swatch and
adjust your needle size accordingly.
NEEDLES & NOTIONS
60-80cm / 24-32in gauge-size circular needle for body  SPECIAL TECHNIQUES
100cm / 40in gauge-size circular needle for working yoke  moss stitch
Gauge-size needles of your preferred type for working small Back and forth in rows over an even number of stitches
circumferences for sleeves Row A: *K1, p1*, rep from * to *.
Stitch markers of two types, x and y  Row B: *P1, k1*, rep from * to *.
Waste yarn  Rep rows A and B for pattern.
Tapestry needle 
Tape or ribbon for finishing button-band facings (optional)  moss stitch
5 x 1cm / ½in small clear snaps  In the round over an odd number of stitches
5 x 2.5cm / 1in buttons Round A: *K1, p1*, rep from * to * to last st, k1. 
Round B: *P1, k1*, rep from * to * to last st, p1.
ABBREVIATIONS Rep rounds A and B for pattern.
See main Special Techniques section for information on short
rows and grafting.
62
FINTRY
4
INSTRUCTIONS set underarm sts aside
1
cast on, place markers, establish pattern Moving sts around needle without knitting,
retaining x markers, but removing y markers as
With gauge-size 60-80cm / 24-32in needles, cast you encounter them, slip 4 (4, 4, 4, 6, 6, 6, 6, 8,
on 220 (240, 252, 264, 276, 296, 316, 328, 344, 8) sts each side of each y marker to waste yarn. 8
352) sts. (8, 8, 8, 12, 12, 12, 12, 16, 16) sts set aside at each
Work in moss st for 8 (8, 8, 8, 10, 10, 10, 10, 12, underarm; 184 (204, 220, 236, 244, 256, 268,
12) rows. 280, 288, 300) sts remain.
5
Place edging and side markers as follows: sleeves
Step A (RS): Moss 10, pmx, k50 (55, 58, 61, 64,
69, 74, 77, 81, 83) sts of right front, pmy, k100 Using preferred gauge-size needle for working
(110, 116, 122, 128, 138, 148, 154, 162, 166) sts small circumferences, cast on 55 (55, 59, 59, 63,
of back, pmy, k50 (55, 58, 61, 64, 69, 74, 77, 81, 63, 67, 67, 71, 71) sts, pmy, and join for working in
83) sts of left front, pmx, moss 10. the round. Work in moss st for 12 rounds. Change
Step B (WS): Moss 10, slmx, p50 (55, 58, 61, 64, to stockinette and continue as follows:
69, 74, 77, 81, 83) sts of left front, slmy, p100 Next round: Slmy, m1, k to end. 56 (56, 60, 60,
(110, 116, 122, 128, 138, 148, 154, 162, 166) sts 64, 64, 68, 68, 72, 72) sts.
of back, slmy, p50 (55, 58, 61, 64, 69, 74, 77, Knit 1 round. Continue in stockinette and work
81, 83) sts of right front, slmx, moss 10. sleeve shaping as follows:
Steps A and B set the pattern, with x markers Step A: Slmy, k1, m1, k to 1 st before end of
separating moss st edgings and y markers round, m1, k1. 2 sts inc.
indicating position of side shaping. Step B: Knit 10 (8, 8, 7, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8) rounds.
Working back and forth in pattern as est, work Rep steps A and B a further 8 (10, 10, 11, 10, 10,
2 rows. 10, 11, 11, 11) times then rep step A only once
more. 20 (24, 24, 26, 24, 24, 24, 26, 26, 26) sts
2
waist shaping inc; 76 (80, 84, 86, 88, 88, 92, 94, 98, 98) sts.
Knit every round until sleeve measures 37 (37,
Continue in pattern and commence waist 37, 38, 38, 38, 39.5, 40.5, 40.5, 40.5)cm / 14½
shaping on next RS row as follows: (14½, 14½, 15, 15, 15, 15½, 16, 16, 16)in, or
Step C: *Work to 3 sts before marker y, ssk, k1, desired length from cast-on edge.
slmy, k1, k2tog*, rep from * to * once more, work
as set to end of row. 4 sts dec. Moving sts around needle without knitting, and
Step D: Work 3 rows. removing y marker as you encounter it, slip 4 (4, 4,
Rep steps C and D a further 11 (11, 10, 10, 9, 10, 4, 6, 6, 6, 6, 8, 8) sts each side of marker to waste
12, 12, 12, 12) times. 48 (48, 44, 44, 40, 44, 52, yarn. 8 (8, 8, 8, 12, 12, 12, 12, 16, 16) sts on hold;
52, 52, 52) sts dec; 172 (192, 208, 220, 236, 252, 68 (72, 76, 78, 76, 76, 80, 82, 82, 82) sts remain.
264, 276, 292, 300) sts remain.
6
Work 8 rows back and forth as est without shaping. join body and sleeves into yoke
3
bust shaping With gauge-size circular needle, working from the
RS and keeping moss st edging correct as est, join
Work bust shaping as follows: body and sleeves into yoke as follows: Moss 10,
Step E: *Work to 1 st before marker y, m1, k1, slmx, k41 (46, 50, 54, 56, 59, 62, 65, 67, 70) sts
slmy, k1, m1*, rep from * to * once more, work as of right front, pmy, k68 (72, 76, 78, 76, 76, 80,
set to end of row. 4 sts inc.  82, 82, 82) sleeve sts, pmy, k82 (92, 100, 108,
Step F: Work 5 rows. 112, 118, 124, 130, 134, 140) back sts, pmy, k68
Rep steps E and F a further 5 (5, 5, 6, 6, 5, 5, 5, (72, 76, 78, 76, 76, 80, 82, 82, 82) sleeve sts,
5, 6) times then rep step E only once more. 28 pmy, k41 (46, 50, 54, 56, 59, 62, 65, 67, 70) sts
(28, 28, 32, 32, 28, 28, 28, 28, 32) sts inc; 200 of left front, slmx, moss 10. 320 (348, 372, 392,
(220, 236, 252, 268, 280, 292, 304, 320, 332) sts. 396, 408, 428, 444, 452, 464) sts.
Work straight in pattern until fabric measures 34.5 Note: The ‘x’ markers continue to mark edgings,
(34.5, 34.5, 35.5, 35.5, 37, 37, 37, 38, 38)cm / and ‘y’ markers indicate raglan decreases.
13½ (13½, 13½, 14, 14, 14½, 14½, 14½, 15, Next row (WS): Keeping moss st edging correct,
15)in from cast-on edge, ending with a WS row. purl 1 row.
63
FINTRY
7
work preparatory yoke decreases Short row 3: K182 (204, 222, 236, 240, 244,
258, 270, 270, 280) sts, turn.
Working back and forth, keeping moss st edging Short row 4: P178 (200, 218, 232, 236, 240,
correct as est, continue as follows: 254, 266, 266, 276) sts, turn.
Step A: *Work to 3 sts before marker y, ssk, k1, Knit to end of row (maintaining moss st edging),
slmy, k1, k2tog*, rep from * to * a further then work a further 1 (1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 3, 3, 3, 5)
3 times, work as est to end of row. 8 sts dec. full rows, closing gaps of short rows as you
Step B: Keeping moss st edging correct as est, encounter them and ending with a WS row.
purl 1 row.
9
Rep steps A and B a further 4 (4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, work textured rows, second set of yoke
6, 6) times, removing y markers on final WS row. decreases, second set of short rows
40 (40, 40, 40, 40, 48, 48, 48, 56, 56) sts dec; 280
(308, 332, 352, 356, 360, 380, 396, 396, 408) Now work moss st across entire row for 10 (10,
sts remain. 10, 10, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12) rows, ending with
a WS row.
Next row (RS): Keeping moss st edging correct
8
work textured rows, first set of yoke as est, knit 1 row.
decreases, short rows Next row (WS): Work decreases as follows:
Size 1: Moss 10, slmx, p4, (p2tog, p3) 38 times,
Work moss st across entire row for 10 (10, 10, 10, slmx, moss 10.
12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12) rows, ending with a WS row. Size 2: Moss 10, slmx, p5, (p2tog, p3) 41 times,
Next row (RS): Keeping moss st edging pattern p2tog, p4, slmx, moss 10.
correct as est, knit 1 row. Size 3: Moss 10, slmx, p2, (p2tog, p3) 46 times,
Next row (WS): Work first set of decreases as p2, slmx, moss 10.
follows: Size 4: Moss 10, slmx, p1, (p2tog, p3) 49 times,
Size 1: Moss 10, slmx, p2tog, (p2tog, k2) 64 p2tog, slmx, moss 10.
times, p2tog, slmx, moss 10. Size 5: Moss 10, slmx, p19, (p2tog, p2) 53 times,
Size 2: Moss 10, slmx, p2, (p2tog, p2) 71 times, p2tog, p19, slmx, moss 10.
p2tog, slmx, moss 10. Size 6: Moss 10, slmx, p13, (p2tog, p2) 57 times,
p2tog, slmx, moss 10. Size 7: Moss 10, slmx, p8, (p2tog, p2) 63 times,
Size 4: Moss 10, slmx, p2tog, (p2tog, p2) 82 p2tog, p8, slmx, moss 10.
times, p2tog, slmx, moss 10. Sizes 8 and 9: Moss 10, slmx, p6, (p2tog, p2) 67
Size 5: Moss 10, slmx, p2, (p2tog, p2) 83 times, times, p2tog, p6, slmx, moss 10.
p2tog, slmx, moss 10. Size 10: Moss 10, slmx, p7, (p2, p2tog) 69 times,
p2tog, p3, slmx, moss 10. 38 (42, 46, 50, 54, 58, 64, 68, 68, 70) sts dec; 176
Size 7: Moss 10, slmx, p1, (p2tog, p2) 89 times, (194, 208, 218, 218, 218, 226, 234, 234, 242)
p2tog, p1, slmx, moss 10. sts remain.
Sizes 8 and 9: Moss 10, slmx, p1, (p2tog, p2) 93
times, p2tog, p1, slmx, moss 10. ALL sizes: Work short rows as follows:
Size 10: Moss 10, slmx, p3, (p2tog, p2) 95 times, Short row 1 (RS): Moss 10, slmx, k152 (170,
p2tog, p3, slmx, moss 10. 184, 194, 194, 194, 202, 210, 210, 218) sts, turn.
66 (72, 78, 84, 84, 84, 90, 94, 94, 96) sts dec; 214 Short row 2 (WS): P148 (166, 180, 190, 190,
(236, 254, 268, 272, 276, 290, 302, 302, 312) 190, 198, 206, 206, 214) sts, turn.
sts remain. Short row 3: K144 (162, 176, 186, 186, 186,
194, 202, 202, 210) sts, turn.
ALL sizes: Commence short rows as follows: Short row 4: P140 (158, 172, 182, 182, 182,
Short row 1 (RS): Moss 10, slmx, k190 (212, 230, 190, 198, 198, 206) sts, turn.
244, 248, 252, 266, 278, 278, 288) sts, turn. Knit to end of row (maintaining moss st edging),
Short row 2 (WS): P186 (208, 226, 240, 244, then work a further 2 (2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 4, 4, 4, 6)
248, 262, 274, 274, 284) sts, turn. full rows, closing gaps of short rows, and ending
with a RS row.
64
FINTRY
10
work final set of yoke decreases, final
short rows
Work next row (WS) for your size as follows:

p2tog, p9, slmx, moss 10.
slmx, moss 10.
Size 3: Moss 10, slmx, [p1, p2tog (p2, p2tog) 11
times] 4 times, slmx, moss 10.
Sizes 4, 5 and 6: Moss 10, slmx, p4, p2tog (p2,
p2tog) 47 times, p4, slmx, moss 10.
Size 7: Moss 10, slmx, (p2, p2tog) 8 times; (p2,
p2tog, p1, p2tog) 20 times; (p2, p2tog) 8 times,
p2, slmx, moss 10.
Sizes 8 and 9: Moss 10, slmx, p12, (p2tog, p1)
63 times, p2tog, p11, slmx, moss 10.
Size 10: Moss 10, slmx, p4, p2tog (p1, p2tog) 71
times, p3, slmx, moss 10. 16 (34, 48, 48, 48, 48,
56, 64, 64, 72) sts dec; 160 (160, 160, 170, 170,
170, 170, 170, 170, 170) sts remain.
ALL sizes: Work final set of short rows as follows: 

Short row 1 (RS): Moss 10, slmx, k130 (130, 130,
140, 140, 140, 140, 140, 140, 140) sts, turn. 
Short row 2 (WS): P120 (120, 120, 130, 130,
130, 130, 130, 130, 130) sts turn. Work to end of
row (maintaining moss st edging), then work a
further 0 (0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 2, 2, 4) full rows, closing
gaps of short rows, and ending with a RS row.
11
work neckline edging
Work moss st across entire row for 10 (10, 10, 10,

12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12) rows, closing gaps of short
rows and ending with a RS row. Bind off all sts in
moss st from the WS.
12
finishing
Weave in all ends to the back of the work. Graft

together 2 sets of sts at underarms. Soak garment
in cool water and wool wash for 20-30 minutes.
Rinse and remove excess water. Shape and pin
flat to dimensions given on sizing table, paying
close attention to edgings, then leave to dry.
Optional: using an invisible slip stitch, stitch
ribbon or tape into place along interior of button
bands. Stitch 5-7 snaps into place on interior of
button bands. Stitch 5-7 buttons into place on
exterior of left button band.
Enjoy your Fintry!
65
66
BUCHANAN
BUCHANAN
I am lucky enough to live in a wonderful part of the world elsewhere) since the 1950s, and this is my take on that
for walking and the hills, woods, and villages around distinctive style. Like the tartan that inspired it, the design
the eastern shores of Loch Lomond are my favourite of the Buchanan yoke is bold and simple. It can be worn as
local places for a stroll. This beautiful stretch of land a tee in spring, or over layers as the weather cools.
was granted to Absalom Buchanan in 1225, and the rich
palette of the Buchanan tartan provided the starting point The photographs were taken above Loch Lomond, from
for this design. Colourful yoke and kilt combinations, in Duncryne, a hill known as ‘The Dumpling’ and the
which the shades of the yoke echo those of the tartan, Buchanan ‘midi’ kilt was hand-made for me by Sally and
have been worn by women all over Scotland (and Janet at Scottesque. www.scottesque.co.uk
67
BUCHANAN
SIZING TABLE
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
bust
79.5 85 88.5 94 100 105.5 109 114.5 120 125.5 cm
31¼ 33½ 35 37 39¼ 41½ 43 45 47¼ 49½ in
hip
88.5 92.5 98 103.5 109 114.5 118 124 129.5 135 cm
35 36¼ 38½ 40¾ 43 45 46½ 48¾ 51 53 in
waist
66.5 70 75.5 81.5 87 92.5 96 101.5 107 112.5 cm
26¼ 27¾ 29¾ 32 34¼ 36¼ 37¾ 40 42¼ 44¼ in

42 42 42 42 42 44 44 44.5 44.5 46.5 cm
16½ 16½ 16½ 16½ 16½ 17¼ 17¼ 17½ 17½ 18¼ in
3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5 cm
1¼ 1¼ 1¼ 1¼ 1¼ 1¼ 1¼ 1¼ 1¼ 1¼ in
DESIGN NOTES 29.5 29.5 31.5 31.5 33.5 35 35 37 39 40.5 cm
This design combines Shetland corrugated rib with the deep 11¾ 11¾ 12¼ 12¼ 13 13¾ 13¾ 14½ 15¼ 16 in
points and allover patterning characteristic of Icelandic yokes. neck circumference
In the shades of the Buchanan tartan I had a pre-determined 53.5 53.5 55.5 55.5 55.5 55.5 55.5 55.5 55.5 55.5 cm
palette and find that sometimes limiting one’s ideas in one 21 21 21¾ 21¾ 21¾ 21¾ 21¾ 21¾ 21¾ 21¾ in
respect (in this instance, colour) can allow one’s imagination front yoke depth
free rein in another (motif design). I find the end result 18 19 19.5 20.5 20.5 21.5 22 23.5 24.5 25 cm
curiously reminiscent of the bows of cruise liners, and their 7 7½ 7¾ 8 8¼ 8½ 8¾ 9¼ 9¾ 9¾ in
art-deco styling. Buchanan is a longer-length, neatly-fitting
back yoke depth
tee, with waist and bust shaping and is worn here with zero
18.5 19.5 20.5 21 22 22.5 23.5 24.5 26 26.5 cm
ease. Knit with an inch or more of positive ease if you wish
7¼ 7¾ 8 8¼ 8¾ 9 9¼ 9¾ 10¼ 10½ in
to wear layers underneath, or add sleeves and length to the
body to make a stunning winter tunic. The Rowan Kid Classic NEEDLES & NOTIONS
yarn has a lovely hand and halo, and, worked at this gauge, 60-80cm / 24-32in gauge-size circular needle for body
is surprisingly light and warm. 60-80cm / 24-32in below-gauge-size circular needle for rib
100cm / 40in gauge-size circular needle for yoke
YARN Below-gauge-size needle of your preferred type for working
Rowan Kid Classic (Aran weight; 70% Lambswool; 22% Kid small circumferences for sleeve caps
Mohair; 8% Polyamide; 140m / 153yds per 50g ball) 40cm / 16in below-gauge-size circular needle for working neck
SIZE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Stitch markers 
MC: SHADE 871 Waste yarn 
canard 4 5 5 5 6 6 6 7 7 8 Tapestry needle
CC1: SHADE 856
tattoo 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
GAUGE
CC2: SHADE 847
cherry red 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 the round on 3.75mm (UK 9 / US 5) needles. Row gauge is
CC3: SHADE 881 important. Please check gauge carefully over washed and
ochre 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 blocked swatch and adjust your needle size accordingly.
SIZES  SPECIAL TECHNIQUES
1 (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) – see sizing table See main Special Techniques section for instructions about
Sizing guidance: For a close fit (as pictured), select a size working from charts, corrugated rib and grafting.
with zero ease from your actual bust measurement. For a
ABBREVIATIONS
neat fit, choose a size with 2.5-5cm / 1-2in positive ease and
for a relaxed fit work with 5-7.5cm / 2-3in positive ease.
68
INSTRUCTIONS
1
cast on, work corrugated rib, place
side markers
With 60-80cm / 24-32in below-gauge-size

circular needle and MC, cast on 192 (200, 212,
224, 236, 248, 256, 268, 280, 292) sts, pm, and
join for working in the round. 
Knit 1 round. 
Purl 1 round. 
Knit 1 round.
Join in CC2 and work corrugated rib as follows:
*P2MC, k2CC2*, rep from * to * around for 3
rounds. Break yarns.
Change to CC1 and CC3 and work corrugated
rib as follows: *P2CC1, k2CC3*, rep from * to *
around for 3 rounds. Break yarns.
Change to gauge-size circular needle and
continue in MC only as follows: 
Next round: K96 (100, 106, 112, 118, 124, 128,
134, 140, 146) sts, pm for side ‘seam’, k96 (100,
106, 112, 118, 124, 128, 134, 140, 146) sts to end.
4
set aside sts at underarm, set up body for
2
waist shaping working yoke
Knit 1 round. Moving sts around needle without knitting, and

Work waist shaping as follows: removing markers as you encounter them, slip
Step A: *Slm, k1, k2tog, k to 3 sts before marker, 4 (4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7) sts each side of each
ssk, k1*, rep from * to * once more. 4 sts dec. marker to waste yarn. 8 (8, 8, 8, 10, 10, 10,
Step B: Knit 3 (3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4) rounds. 12, 12, 14) sts set aside for each underarm; 156
Rep steps A and B a further 11 times. 48 sts dec; (168, 176, 188, 196, 208, 216, 224, 236, 244)
144 (152, 164, 176, 188, 200, 208, 220, 232, 244) sts remain. Moving sts around needle without
sts remain. knitting, slip next 39 (42, 44, 47, 49, 52, 54, 56,
Knit 8 (8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 4, 4, 4, 4) rounds. 59, 61) sts from LH to RH needle. Beginning of
new round will now be at the centre back. Set
3
bust shaping body sts aside.
5
Work bust shaping as follows: sleeve caps
Step C: *Slm, k1, m1, k to 1 st before marker, m1,
k1*, rep from * to * once more. 4 sts inc. With below-gauge-size needle of your preferred
Step D: Knit 7 (6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 7, 7, 7, 8) rounds. length for working small circumferences and MC,
Rep steps C and D a further 5 (6, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, cast on 64 (64, 68, 68, 72, 76, 76, 80, 84, 88)
5, 5) times then work step C only once more. sts, pm, and join for working in the round. Knit 1
28 (32, 28, 28, 28, 28, 28, 28, 28, 28) sts inc; 172 round. Purl 1 round. Knit 1 round.
(184, 192, 204, 216, 228, 236, 248, 260, 272) sts. Join in CC2 and work corrugated rib as follows:
Knit every round until fabric measures 42 (42, *P2MC, k2CC2*, rep from * to * around for 3
42, 42, 42, 44, 44, 44.5, 44.5, 46.5)cm / 16½ rounds. Break yarns.
(16½, 16½, 16½, 16½, 17¼, 17¼, 17½, 17½, Change to CC1 and CC3 and work corrugated
18¼)in from cast-on edge, or desired length to rib as follows: *P2CC1, k2CC3*, rep from * to *
underarm. around for 3 rounds. Break yarns.
Change to gauge-size needle and MC and knit
1 round.
69
BUCHANAN
Moving sts around needle without knitting, slip Sizes 9 and 10

4 (4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7) sts each side of marker Step D: Slmx, *k to 3 sts before marker y, ssk, k1,
to waste yarn. 8 (8, 8, 8, 10, 10, 10, 12, 12, 14) sts slm, k1, k2tog*, rep from * to * a further 3 times,
on hold; 56 (56, 60, 60, 62, 66, 66, 68, 72, 74) sts k to end of round. 8 sts dec.
remain. Step E: Knit 1 round.
Set aside. Make second sleeve cap in the same way. Rep steps D and E twice more. 24 sts dec; - (-, -, -,
-, -, -, -, 356, 368) sts remain
6
join body and sleeves into yoke Step F: Slmx, k to first y marker, slmy, *k to 3 sts
before next y marker, ssk, k1, slmy, k1, k2tog*, rep
With 100cm / 40in gauge-size circular needle from * to * once more, k to end of round. 4 sts
and MC, beginning at centre back start of round dec; - (-, -, -, -, -, -, -, 352, 364) sts remain.
as est, join body and sleeves into yoke as follows:
K39 (42, 44, 47, 49, 52, 54, 56, 59, 61) back sts, Size 9 only
pmy, k56 (56, 60, 60, 62, 66, 66, 68, 72, 74) Step G: Slmx, k to first y marker, slmy, k to next
sleeve sts, pmy, k78 (84, 88, 94, 98, 104, 108, y marker, slmy, k1, k2tog, k to 3 sts before next y
112, 118, 122) front sts, pmy, k56 (56, 60, 60, marker, ssk, k1, slmy, k to end of round. 2 sts dec;
62, 66, 66, 68, 72, 74) sleeve sts, pmy, k39 (42, - (-, -, -, -, -, -, -, 350, 364) sts remain
44, 47, 49, 52, 54, 56, 59, 61) back sts and pmx
for start of round. 268 (280, 296, 308, 320, 340, Sizes 9 and 10
348, 360, 380, 392) sts. Removing y markers as you encounter them, knit
Note: The ‘x’ marker sets start of round and ‘y’ - (-, -, -, -, -, -, -, 5, 5) rounds without shaping.
markers set position of preparatory yoke shaping. Move to step 8.
Knit 1 (3, 4, 6, 5, 6, 8, 12, 10, 12) rounds
8
without shaping. short rows
7
preparatory yoke shaping Using your preferred method, work short rows as
follows:  
Sizes 1-8 Short row 1 (RS): K58 (64, 67, 72, 76, 80, 84,
Step A: Slmx, *k to 3 sts before y marker, ssk, 88, 92, 96) sts, turn.
k1, slmy, k1, k2tog*, rep from * to * a further 3 Short row 2 (WS): P116 (128, 134, 144, 152,
times, k to end of round. 8 sts dec. 160, 168, 176, 184, 192) sts, turn. Knit to end
Rep step A a further 2 (2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 2, 2, -, -) of round, then knit one more full round, closing
times. 24 (24, 24, 24, 24, 32, 24, 24, -, -) sts dec; gaps of both short rows.
244 (256, 272, 284, 296, 308, 324, 336, -, -) sts
9
remain. work chart
Sizes 1, 2, 3 and 4 Join in CC2. Reading chart from right to left,

Step B: Slmx, k to first y marker, slmy, *k to 3 sts rep chart 17 (18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26)
before next y marker, ssk, k1, slmy, k1, k2tog*, times across each round, joining in shades and
rep from * to * once more, k to end of round. 4 working decreases as indicated, and changing
sts dec. length of needle as yoke circumference reduces,
work all 36 rounds of chart.
Sizes 1, 3, 5 and 7 119 (126, 133, 140, 147, 154, 161, 168, 175, 182)
Step C: Slmx, k to first y marker, slmy, k to next sts remain.
y marker, slmy, k1, k2tog, k to 3 sts before next y With MC only, knit 1 round.
marker, ssk, k1, slmy, k to end of round. 2 sts dec.
10
238 (252, 266, 280, 294, 308, 322, 336, -, -) sts work final decrease round
remain.
Continue in MC only and work decreases for
Sizes 1-8 your size as follows:
Removing y markers as you encounter them, knit Size 1: Slmx, k29, (k2tog, k28) 3 times.
0 (2, 2, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, -, -) rounds without shaping. Size 2: Slmx, k8, (k2tog, k10) 9 times, k2tog, k8.
Move to step 8. Size 3: Slmx, k6, (k2tog, k8) 12 times, k2tog, k5.
70
BUCHANAN
Size 4: Slmx, k3, (k2tog, k5) 19 times, k2tog, k2.

Size 5: Slmx, k8, (k2tog, k3) 26 times, k2tog, k7.
Size 6: Slmx, k2, k2tog, (k2, k2tog, k3, k2tog) 16
times, k2, k2tog, k2.
Size 7: Slmx, k1, [(k2tog, k2) 9 times, k2tog, k1]
4 times, k2tog, k2.
Size 8: Slmx, k1, k2tog, (k2, k2tog, k1, k2tog) 23
times, k1, k2tog, k1.
Size 9: Slmx, k6, (k2tog, k1) 54 times; k2tog, k5.
Size 10: Slmx; k1, k2tog, [(k2tog, k1) 14 times,
k2tog] 4 times, k2tog, k1.
3 (10, 13, 20, 27, 34, 41, 48, 55, 62) sts dec; 116 (116,
120, 120, 120, 120, 120, 120, 120, 120) sts remain.
11
short rows to shape neckline
Sizes 1-4: Move to step 12.
Sizes 5-10
Short row 1 (RS): K - (-, -, -, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20,
20) sts, turn. 
Short row 2 (WS): P - (-, -, -, 40, 40, 40, 40, 40, KEY CHART: YOKE
40) sts, turn. Knit to end of round, then knit 1
further full round closing the gaps of short rows. MC Canard 36
12
work neck edging CC1 Tattoo
CC2 Cherry Red

Change to 40cm / 16in below-gauge-size
circular needle, join in CC1 and CC3 and work in CC3 Ochre 30
corrugated rib as follows: *P2CC1, k2CC3*, rep
from * to * around.  k2tog in shade
Work a further 1 (1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2) rounds indicated
in corrugated rib as est. Join in CC2 and MC and 25
work corrugated rib as est for a further 1 (1, 1, 2,
2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2) rounds as est. 
Continue with MC only. Knit 1 round. Purl 1
round.  20
Knit 1 round. 
Bind off all sts using your preferred stretchy
bind-off.
15
13
finishing
Weave in all ends. Graft together 2 sets of sts

at underarms. Soak garment in cool water and 10
wool wash for 20-30 minutes. Rinse and remove
excess water. Shape and pin flat to dimensions
given on sizing table, paying close attention to
ribbing and edges, which should lie completely 5
flat, then leave to dry.
Enjoy your Buchanan!

1
14 10 5 1
71
72
ÁSTA SÓLLILJA
ÁSTA SÓLLILJA
Featuring the traditional Icelandic hammer rose, this
yoke is named for the dogged protagonist of Halldór
Laxness’s dry and incisive Independent People (1954),
on whose arrested potential much of the novel turns.
The photographs were taken at Machir Bay on the SIZES 
1 (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) – see sizing table
beautiful Hebridean Island of Islay.
Sizing guidance: For a neat fit, choose a size
with 2.5-5cm/1-2in positive ease from your bust
DESIGN NOTES
measurement, and for a relaxed fit (as Icelandic
I began this design with the transition from dark navy to
sweaters are perhaps more generally worn) work with
silver-grey around the hem, cuffs and neckline. This simple
7.5cm/3in positive ease or more.
use of colour creates a subtle shimmering effect, in which
the sweater can appear to merge and fuse with a darker SIZING TABLE
skirt or pair of jeans. Inverting and adjusting the hammer 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
rose motif allowed me to feature it in different forms over
bust at underarm
the majority of the yoke depth. The shade changes here are
74 79.5 83 88.5 92.5 98 101.5 107 111 116.5 cm
frequent, there are no plain rows to interrupt the design,
29 31¼ 32¾ 35 36¼ 38½ 40 42¼ 43¾ 45¾ in
and the shaping is integrated into the motifs. The garment is
hip at cast on
a longer length with gentle waist and bust shaping.
77.5 83 88.5 94 100 105.5 105.5 111 116.5 122 cm
30½ 32¾ 35 37 39¼ 41½ 41½ 43¾ 45¾ 48 in
waist
63 68.5 74 79.5 85 90.5 90.5 96 101.5 107 cm
24¾ 27 29 31¼ 33½ 35¾ 35¾ 37¾ 40 42¼ in

40.5 42 43 43 45.5 45.5 45.5 45.5 47 47 cm
16 16½ 17 17 18 18 18 18 18½ 18½ in

42 43 43 43 44.5 45.5 45.5 45.5 47 48.5 cm
16½ 17 17 17 17½ 18 18 18 18½ 19 in

27 27.5 30.5 31.5 32.5 33.5 34 35 37 37 cm
10½ 11 12 12¼ 12¾ 13 13½ 13¾ 14½ 14½ in
neck circumference
50 52.5 55.5 58 61 63.5 63.5 66.5 69.5 72 cm
19¾ 20¾ 21¾ 23 24 25 25 26¼ 27¼ 28¼ in
front yoke depth
19.5 20.5 20.5 22.5 23 23.5 23.5 24 25 25.5 cm
7¾ 8 8 8¾ 9 9¼ 9¼ 9½ 9¾ 10 in
back yoke depth
20.5 21 22 24 24.5 25 25 26 26.5 27 cm
8 8¼ 8¾ 9½ 9¾ 9¾ 9¾ 10¼ 10½ 10¾ in
73
ÁSTA SÓLLILJA
INSTRUCTIONS
1
cast on, work rib, work from chart
With 60-80cm / 24-30in below-gauge-size needle

and CC1, cast on 168 (180, 192, 204, 216, 228,
228, 240, 252, 264) sts, pm, and join for working
in the round. Work 2x2 rib as follows: *P2, k2*,
rep from * to * around for 10 (10, 10, 10, 10, 10,
10, 10, 12, 12) rounds. 
Change to gauge-size needle and commence hem
and cuff chart, reading from right to left, changing
shades as indicated and working the repeat 28
(30, 32, 34, 36, 38, 38, 40, 42, 44) times across
YARN the round. Work all 11 rounds of chart.
Ístex Létt Lopi (Aran weight; 100% Icelandic Wool; Next round: Change to MC, slm, k84 (90, 96, 102,
100 m / 109 yds per 50g ball) 108, 114, 114, 120, 126, 132) sts, pm, k84 (90,
96, 102, 108, 114, 114, 120, 126, 132) sts to end.
SIZE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Marker just placed, together with start of round
MC: SHADE 0054 5 6 6 7 7 8 8 9 9 9 marker, sets position of waist and bust shaping.
CC1: SHADE 9419 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3
2
waist shaping
CC2: SHADE 0058 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
CC3: SHADE 1402 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Continue with MC only and work waist shaping
CC4: SHADE 1410 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 as follows:
CC5: SHADE 9264 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Step A: *Slm, k1, k2tog, k to 3 sts before marker,
NEEDLES & NOTIONS Step B: Knit 3 (3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4) rounds.
60-80cm / 24-30in below-gauge-size needle for rib 60-80cm / Rep steps A and B a further 7 times. 32 sts dec;
24-30in gauge-size circular needle for body 136 (148, 160, 172, 184, 196, 196, 208, 220, 232)
Gauge-size and below-gauge-size needles of your preferred sts remain.
type for working small circumferences for sleeves Knit 6 (6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 8, 8) rounds.
100cm / 40in gauge-size circular needle for yoke
3
40cm / 16in below-gauge-size circular needle for neck rib bust shaping
Waste yarn
Stitch markers Work bust shaping as follows:
Tapestry needle Step C: *Slm, k1, m1, k to 1 st before marker, m1,
k1*, rep from * to * once more. 4 sts inc.
GAUGE Step D: Knit 5 (5, 6, 6, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7) rounds.
22 sts and 24 rounds to 10cm / 4in over stockinette Rep steps C and D a further 4 (4, 3, 3, 2, 2, 4,
worked in the round on 4.5mm (UK 7/US 7) needles. It is 4, 3, 3) times then rep step C only once more.
particularly important to check your gauge over large and 24 (24, 20, 20, 16, 16, 24, 24, 20, 20) sts inc; 160
small circumferences – adjust your needle size if necessary (172, 180, 192, 200, 212, 220, 232, 240, 252) sts. 
when working the sleeves. Row gauge is important. Please Knit every round until work measures 40.5 (42,
check gauge carefully over washed and blocked swatch and 43, 43, 45.5, 45.5, 45.5, 45.5, 47, 47)cm / 16
adjust your needle size accordingly. (16½, 17, 17, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18½, 18½)in or
desired length to underarm.
SPECIAL TECHNIQUES 
4
See main Special Techniques section for instructions about set aside sts at underarm
working from charts, short rows and grafting.
Moving sts around needle without knitting, and
ABBREVIATIONS removing markers as you encounter them, slip
See full list of abbreviations on the inside back cover. 3 (3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6) sts each side of each
74
ÁSTA SÓLLILJA
marker to waste yarn. 6 (6, 8, 8, 8, 8, 10, 10, 12, 36 (36, 42, 48, 48, 48, 48, 48, 48, 48) sleeve sts.
12) sts on hold for each underarm; 148 (160, 164, Working from right to left, and changing shades
176, 184, 196, 200, 212, 216, 228) body sts remain. as indicated, work all 11 rounds of hem and cuff
Moving sts around needle without knitting, slip chart. Change to MC and gauge-size needle and
next 37 (40, 41, 44, 46, 49, 50, 53, 54, 57) sts knit 1 round.
of round from LH to RH needle. Beginning of
round will now be at the centre back. Set body Commence sleeve shaping as follows:
sts aside. Step A: *Slm, k1, m1, k to 1 st before marker, m1,
5
sleeves Step B: Knit 6 (5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 5, 5, 4, 4) rounds.
Rep steps A and B a further 9 (10, 10, 8, 9, 10,
With below-gauge-size needle of your preferred 11, 12, 14, 14) times then rep step A only once
type for working small circumferences and CC1, more. 22 (24, 24, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 32, 32) sts
cast on 36 (36, 40, 40, 40, 44, 44, 44, 48, 48) inc; 58 (60, 66, 68, 70, 72, 74, 76, 80, 80) sts.
sts, pm, and join for working in the round. Work Knit every round until sleeve measures 42 (43,
in 2x2 rib for 9 rounds. Change to gauge-size 43, 43, 44.5, 45.5, 45.5, 45.5, 47, 48.5)cm /
needle and continue with CC1 for your size as 16½ (17, 17, 17, 17½, 18, 18, 18, 18½, 19)in.
follows:
Sizes 1, 2, 9 and 10: Knit 1 round. Moving sts around needle without knitting, and
Size 3: K1, m1, k to 1 st before end of round, m1, removing marker as you encounter it, slip 3 (3,
k1. 2 sts inc. 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6) sts each side of marker to
Sizes 4 and 5: *K5, m1*, rep from * to * a further waste yarn. 6 (6, 8, 8, 8, 8, 10, 10, 12, 12) sts set
7 times. 8 sts inc. aside and 52 (54, 58, 60, 62, 64, 64, 66, 68, 68)
Sizes 6, 7 and 8: *K11, m1*, rep from * to * a sts remain. Set aside.
further 3 times. 4 sts inc. Make second sleeve in the same way.
75
ÁSTA SÓLLILJA
6
join body and sleeves into yoke
With 100cm / 40in gauge-size circular needle,

and beginning at centre back as est, using MC,
join body and sleeves into yoke as follows:
K37 (40, 41, 44, 46, 49, 50, 53, 54, 57) back sts,
k52 (54, 58, 60, 62, 64, 64, 66, 68, 68) sleeve
sts, k74 (80, 82, 88, 92, 98, 100, 106, 108, 114)
front sts, k52 (54, 58, 60, 62, 64, 64, 66, 68, 68)
sleeve sts, k37 (40, 41, 44, 46, 49, 50, 53, 54,
57) back sts, pm. 252 (268, 280, 296, 308, 324,
328, 344, 352, 364) sts.
Sizes 1, 3, 5 and 10: Move to step 7.

Sizes 2, 4, 6 and 9: Knit 1 round, decreasing 2
sts by working 1 k2tog at each back underarm.
Size 7: Knit 1 round, decreasing 6 sts by working
2 k2togs at each back underarm and 1 k2tog at
each front underarm.
Size 8: Knit 1 round, decreasing 8 sts by working
2 k2togs at each back and front underarm. 
252 (266, 280, 294, 308, 322, 322, 336, 350,
364) sts remain.
Size 2: Slm, k14, (k2tog, k15) 5 times, k2tog,
7
short rows k13. Move to step 11.
Size 3: Slm, k10, (k2tog, k7) 11 times, k2tog, k9.
Using your preferred method, work short rows Size 4: Slm, k3, (k2tog, k5) 17 times, k2tog, k2.
as follows:  Size 5: Slm, k8, (k2tog, k4) 19 times, k2tog, k8.
Short row 1 (RS): K61 (65, 68, 72, 76, 80, 81, Sizes 6 and 7: Slm, k6, (k2tog, k3) 25 times,
86, 89, 95) sts, turn.  k2tog, k5.
Short row 2 (WS): P122 (130, 136, 144, 152, Size 8: Slm, k4, (k2tog, k3) 28 times.
160, 162, 172, 178, 190) sts, turn. Size 9: Slm, k8, (k2tog, k2) 33 times, k2tog, k8.
Knit to end of round, then work 1 further Size 10: Slm, k1, [(k2tog, k2) 7 times, k2tog, k1]
complete round, closing gaps of both short rows. 5 times.
- (6, 12, 18, 20, 26, 26, 28, 34, 40) sts dec; - (108,
8
begin yoke, work from chart 108, 108, 112, 112, 112, 116, 116, 116) sts remain.
10
With MC, knit 0 (0, 0, 2, 4, 4, 4, 6, 8, 10) rounds. short rows
Next round: Working from right to left, and
changing shades as indicated, begin working Sizes 3-10: Using CC1, work short rows across
from yoke chart, and rep chart 18 (19, 20, 21, back neck as follows:
22, 23, 23, 24, 25, 26) times across each round, Short row 1 (RS): K - (-, 18, 18, 19, 19, 19, 20,
decreasing sts where indicated, and shifting to 20, 20) sts, turn. 
shorter-length needle as yoke circumference Short row 2 (WS): P - (-, 36, 36, 38, 38, 38, 40,
reduces. Work all 40 rounds of chart. 108 (114, 40, 40) sts, turn. K to end of round, then work
120, 126, 132, 138, 138, 144, 150, 156) sts remain. 1 further complete round, closing gaps of both
short rows.
9
final decreases
11
rib
Size 1: Move to step 11.
Sizes 2-10 on next round, with CC1, work as With CC1, work in 2x2 rib for 4 (4, 4, 6, 6, 6,
follows for your size: 6, 6, 6, 6) rounds. Bind off all sts using your
preferred stretchy bind off method.
76
ÁSTA SÓLLILJA
12
finishing
Weave in all ends. Graft together 2 sets of sts

at underarms. Soak garment in cool water and
wool wash for 20-30 minutes. Rinse and remove
excess water. Shape and pin flat to dimensions
given on sizing table, paying close attention to
yoke sts (which should lie smooth and flat) and
ribbing (which should not be overstretched) then
leave to dry completely.
Enjoy your Ásta Sóllilja!
KEY CHART: YOKE
MC 0054 40
CC1 9419
CC2 0058
35
CC3 1402
CC4 1410
CC5 9264 30
25
20
15
CHART:
HEM AND CUFF
11
10
5 5
1 1
14 10 5 1 6 1
77
78
FOXGLOVE
A local wild flower that thrives on acid Highland soils,

foxgloves line the route of many of my daily walks
throughout summer. I love their rich colours and, after SIZES 
spending some time with my camera thinking about their 1 (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) – see sizing table
lines and structure, I was excited to develop a chart which Sizing guidance: For a neat fit (as pictured), choose a
meant that I could knit these beautiful flowers up into a size with 2.5cm / 1in positive ease from your actual bust
yoke. The photographs are taken on the West Highland measurement, and for a relaxed fit work with 5cm / 2in
positive ease.
Way near Conic Hill.
SIZING TABLE
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
DESIGN NOTES
This is a ‘traditional’ Shetland yoked cardigan, but with a bust with bands overlapping
more contemporary fit. It is a shorter length with waist and 84.5 90.5 95 100.5 105 111 115 121 125.5 131 cm
bust shaping, and though the colourwork motifs are placed 33¼ 35½ 37¼ 39½ 41¼ 43½ 45¼ 47½ 49¼ 51½ in
to sit across the shoulders, the neckline is wider and will not hip with bands overlapping
ride as high as the majority of Shetland yokes. Worked in the 89.5 95.5 101.5 105.5 111.5 116 120 126 132 136 cm
round with steeks, this is a cardigan of classic design that 35¼ 37½ 40 41½ 44 45½ 47¼ 49½ 52 53½ in
should wear well and look great for years to come. Length waist with bands overlapping
can be added if desired by working extra rounds between the 79 84.5 90.5 95 100.5 105 109.5 115 121 125.5 cm
waist and bust shaping. 31 33¼ 35½ 37¼ 39½ 41¼ 43 45¼ 47½ 49¼ in

34.5 34.5 34.5 34.5 34.5 35.5 36 37 37 38 cm
13½ 13½ 13½ 13½ 13½ 14 14¼ 14½ 14½ 15 in

42 43 43 44.5 45.5 45.5 47 47 48.5 48.5 cm
16½ 17 17 17½ 18 18 18½ 18½ 19 19 in

29 29 30.5 32 33.5 34 35.5 37 37.5 39 cm
11½ 11½ 12 12½ 13¼ 13½ 14 14½ 14¾ 15½ in
58 58 60.5 60.5 60.5 60.5 60.5 60.5 60.5 60.5 cm
22¾ 22¾ 24 24 24 24 24 24 24 24 in
depth of yoke front including neckband
18 20 20 20.5 20.5 21.5 23 23.5 24.5 25.5 cm
7 7¾ 7¾ 8 8 8½ 9 9¼ 9¾ 10 in
depth of yoke back including neckband
19 21 21 21.5 21.5 23 24 25 25.5 26.5 cm
7½ 8¼ 8¼ 8½ 8½ 9 9½ 9¾ 10 10½ in
79
FOXGLOVE
YARN SPECIAL TECHNIQUES 

Jamieson and Smith 2ply Jumper Weight (100% Real See main Special Techniques section for more information
Shetland Wool; 115m / 125yds per 25g ball) about working from charts, steeks, stretchy bind off and
buttonholes.
SIZE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
MC: SHADE 134 8 9 9 10 11 11 12 13 14 14 2x2 Twisted Rib Pattern

for hem and neck
CC1: SHADE FC24 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
*P2, k2tbl*, rep from * to * to last 2 sts, p2.
CC2: SHADE 29 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 for cuffs
CC3: SHADE 202 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 *P2, k2tbl*, rep from * to * to end of round.
CC4: SHADE 43 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 for front bands
RS rows: *P2, k2tbl*, rep from * to * to last 2 sts, p2. 
NEEDLES & NOTIONS WS rows: *K2, p2tbl*, rep from * to * to last 2 sts, k2.
body Three colours in one round
60-80cm / 24-32in below-gauge-size circular needle for body This yoke involves working three colours over a few rounds
rib of the yoke. As is so often the case, Elizabeth Zimmermann
100cm / 40in gauge-size circular needle for yoke has a neat and simple method of managing this, which
40cm / 16in below-gauge-size circular needle for neck rib  she explains in an article about Bohus design produced for
Gauge-size and below-gauge-size needles of your preferred Vogue Knitting in 1985: “The third colour may have a round
type for working small circumferences for sleeves all to itself, the other stitches being slipped (purlwise of course)
Waste yarn between its incidence.”
Tapestry needle  Following her suggestion, I managed the chart thus:
Stitch markers of two different types, x and y Work the round, slipping the ‘stem’ sts (shade 29), and
10-12 x 1.25cm / ½in buttons  knitting the chart background (shade 202) and foxglove
Tape or ribbon for finishing steek edges (optional) petals (shade 43) in your usual manner. Then work over
the same round again, slipping the petal and background
GAUGE stitches, and working the stem sts only.
the round on 2.75mm (UK 12 / US2) needles. Row gauge is ABBREVIATIONS
important. Please check gauge carefully over washed and See full list of abbreviations on the inside back cover.
blocked swatch and adjust your needle size accordingly.
80
FOXGLOVE
INSTRUCTIONS Rep steps C and D a further 2 (2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 2,

2, 1, 2) times, then rep step C only once more.
1
cast on, place markers, establish steek 16 (16, 12, 16, 12, 16, 16, 16, 12, 16) sts inc; 224
and rib (240, 252, 268, 280, 296, 308, 324, 336, 352) sts,
plus 7 steek sts.
circular needle, cast on 245 (261, 277, 289, 305, Knit every round until fabric measures 34.5
317, 329, 345, 361, 373) sts and join for working (34.5, 34.5, 34.5, 34.5, 35.5, 36, 37, 37, 38)
in the round. cm / 13½ (13½, 13½, 13½, 13½, 14, 14¼, 14½,
Round 1: K4 steek sts, pmx, and working in 2x2 14½, 15)in from cast-on edge.
twisted rib, work 60 (64, 68, 71, 75, 78, 81, 85,
4
89, 92) front sts, pmy, work 118 (126, 134, 140, set sts aside at underarms
148, 154, 160, 168, 176, 182) back sts, pmy, work
60 (64, 68, 71, 75, 78, 81, 85, 89, 92) front sts, Moving sts around needles without knitting, and
pmx, k3 steek sts, pmx. 238 (254, 270, 282, 298, removing y markers as you encounter them, slip
310, 322, 338, 354, 366) body sts plus 7 steek sts.  4 (4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8) sts each side of each y
Note: The ‘x’ markers set steek position and start marker to waste yarn. 8 (8, 10, 10, 12, 12, 14, 14,
of round. The ‘y’ markers set position of shaping 16, 16) sts set aside at each underarm and 208
and underarms. (224, 232, 248, 256, 272, 280, 296, 304, 320) sts
remain, plus 7 steek sts.
Knitting all steek sts, and working body sts in 2x2 Set body sts aside.
twisted rib as est, work a further 14 rounds.
5
sleeves
2
waist shaping
With below-gauge-size needles of your preferred
Change to 60-80cm / 24-32in gauge-size needle type for working small circumferences and MC,
and, working in stockinette throughout, work cast on 48 (48, 48, 52, 52, 56, 56, 60, 60, 60)
set-up round as follows: Slmx, k4 steek sts, slmx, sts, pmx and join for working in the round. 
k2tog, k to 2 sts before x marker, k2tog, slmx, k3 Work in 2x2 twisted rib for cuffs for 17 rounds.
steek sts. 2 sts dec; 236 (252, 268, 280, 296, 308,
320, 336, 352, 364) sts remain, plus 7 steek sts. Change to gauge-size needles and work in
stockinette as follows:
Work waist shaping as follows: Step A: Slmx, k1, m1, k to 1 st before end of
Step A: Slmx, k4 steek sts, slmx, *k to 3 sts before round, m1, k1. 2 sts inc.
y marker, ssk, k1, slmy, k1, k2tog*, rep from * to * Step B: Knit 7 (7, 6, 6, 6, 6, 5, 5, 5, 5) rounds
once more, k to end of round. 4 sts dec. Rep steps A and B a further 14 (14, 16, 16, 18, 17,
Step B: Knit 6 (6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7) rounds. 19, 19, 20, 22) times then rep step A only once
Rep steps A and B a further 6 times. 28 sts dec; more. 32 (32, 36, 36, 40, 38, 42, 42, 44, 48) sts
208 (224, 240, 252, 268, 280, 292, 308, 324, 336) inc; 80 (80, 84, 88, 92, 94, 98, 102, 104, 108) sts.
sts remain, plus 7 steek sts.
Work in stockinette as est for 9 rounds. Knit every round until sleeve measures 42
(43, 43, 44.5, 45.5, 45.5, 47, 47, 48.5, 48.5)
3
bust shaping  cm / 16½ (17, 17, 17½, 18, 18, 18½, 18½, 19,
19)in from cast-on edge or desired length to
Work bust shaping as follows: underarm.
Step C: Slmx, k4 steek sts, slmx, *k to 1 st before
y marker, m1, k1, slm, k1, m1*, rep from * to * Moving sts around needle without knitting, and
once more, k to end of round. 4 sts inc. removing x marker as you encounter it, slip 4
Step D: Knit 9 (9, 12, 9, 13, 9, 10, 11, 15, 11) (4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8) sts each side x marker to
rounds. waste yarn. 8 (8, 10, 10, 12, 12, 14, 14, 16, 16) sts
set aside at underarm; 72 (72, 74, 78, 80, 82, 84,
88, 88, 92) sts remain. Set aside.
Make second sleeve in the same way.
81
FOXGLOVE
6
join body and sleeves into yoke Rep steps B and C a further 5 (6, 6, 8, 8, 8, 11,
15, 15, 19) times. 48 (56, 56, 72, 72, 72, 96, 128,
With 100cm / 40in gauge-size needle and MC, 128, 160) sts dec; 264 (272, 284, 292, 304, 316,
join body and sleeves into yoke as follows: 320, 320, 336, 336) sts remain.
Slmx, k4 steek sts, slmx, k52 (56, 58, 62, 64,
68, 70, 74, 76, 80) front sts, pmy, k72 (72, 74, Adjust st count for your size as follows, removing
78, 80, 82, 84, 88, 88, 92) sleeve sts, pmy, k104 y markers as you encounter them:
(112, 116, 124, 128, 136, 140, 148, 152, 160) Sizes 1, 3 and 5: K to first y marker, slmy, k to 3
back sts, pmy, k72 (72, 74, 78, 80, 82, 84, 88, sts before next y marker, ssk, k1, slmy, k1, k2tog,
88, 92) sleeve sts, pmy, k52 (56, 58, 62, 64, 68, k to 3 sts before next y marker, ssk, k1, slmy, k to
70, 74, 76, 80) front sts, slmx, k3 steek sts. 352 end. 3 sts dec.
(368, 380, 404, 416, 436, 448, 472, 480, 504) sts, Sizes 2 and 4: Slmx, k4 steek sts, slmx, k1, k2tog,
plus 7 steek sts. k to end of round. 1 st dec.
Knit 5 (9, 9, 7, 7, 9, 9, 5, 9, 5) rounds without Sizes 6, 9 and 10: K to first y marker, slmy, *k
shaping. to 3 sts before next y marker, ssk, k1, slmy, k1,
k2tog*, rep from * to * once more, k to 3 sts
7
work preparatory yoke shaping before next y marker, ssk, k1, slmy, k to end of
round. 5 sts dec.
On the next round commence preparatory yoke Sizes 7 and 8: Slmx, k4 steek sts, slmx, k1, m1, k
shaping as follows: to end of round. 1 st inc.
Step A: *K to 3 sts before y marker, ssk, k1, slmy, 261 (271, 281, 291, 301, 311, 321, 321, 331, 331)
k1, k2tog*, rep from * to * a further 3 times, k to sts, plus 7 steek sts.
end of round. 8 sts dec.
8
Rep step A a further 4 (4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 3, 2, 1, 0) short rows
times. 40 (40, 40, 40, 40, 48, 32, 24, 16, 8) sts
dec; 312 (328, 340, 364, 376, 388, 416, 448, 464, Using your preferred method work short rows
496) sts remain plus 7 steek sts. as follows:  
Short row 1 (RS): K4 steek sts, slmx, k253 (263,
Continue as follows: 273, 283, 293, 303, 313, 313, 323, 323) sts, turn. 
Step B: *K to 3 sts before y marker, ssk, k1, slmy, Short row 2 (WS): P245 (255, 265, 275, 285,
k1, k2tog*, rep from * to * a further 3 times, k to 295, 305, 305, 315, 315) sts, turn.
end of round. 8 sts dec. Knit to end of round, then knit 1 further full
Step C: Knit 1 round. round, removing y markers, and closing the gaps
of all short rows.
9
work from chart
Commence chart as follows:

Join in CC1. Reading chart from right to left, rep
marked section 26 (27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 32,
33, 33) times across the round, working steek
sts in stripe pattern as charted, changing shades,
decreasing sts where indicated, and shifting to
shorter-length needle as necessary, work all 29
rounds of the chart. 157 (163, 169, 175, 181, 187,
193, 193, 199, 199) sts remain, plus 7 steek sts.
10
work final decreases
With MC, work final decreases for your size as

follows, slipping markers as you come to them:
Size 1: Slmx, k4 steek sts, slmx, k2, (k20, k2tog)
7 times, k1, slmx, k3 steek sts.
82
Size 2: Slmx, k4 steek sts, slmx, k9, (k2tog, k10) 7 (13, 11, 17, 23, 29, 35, 35, 41, 41) sts dec;
12 times, k2tog, k8, slmx, k3 steek sts. 150 (150, 158, 158, 158, 158, 158, 158, 158,
Size 3: Slmx, k4 steek sts, slmx, k14, (k2tog, k12) 158) sts remain.
10 times, k2tog, k13, slmx, k3 steek sts.
11
Size 4: Slmx, k4 steek sts, slmx, k7, (k2tog, k8) short rows
16 times, k2tog, k6, slmx, k3 steek sts.
Size 5: Slmx, k4 steek sts, slmx, k2, (k2tog, k6) Work neckline short rows as follows:
22 times, k2tog, k1, slmx, k3 steek sts. Short row 1 (RS): K4 steek sts, slmx, k100
Size 6: Slmx, k4 steek sts, slmx, k9, (k2tog, k4) (100, 105, 105, 105, 105, 105, 105, 105, 105)
28 times, k2tog, k8, slmx, k3 steek sts. sts, turn. 
Sizes 7 and 8: Slmx, k4 steek sts, slmx, k11, Short Row 2 (WS): P50 (50, 52, 52, 52, 52, 52,
(k2tog, k3) 34 times, k2tog, k10, slmx, k3 52, 52, 52) sts, turn. 
steek sts. Knit to end of round, then knit a further full
Sizes 9 and 10: Slmx, k4 steek sts, slmx, k19, round, closing the gaps of all short rows.
(k2tog, k2) 40 times, k2tog, k18, slmx, k3
steek sts.
83
FOXGLOVE
12
neckline rib
Change to 40cm / 16in below-gauge-size needle.

Knitting all steek sts as est, work remaining sts
in 2x2 twisted rib for 6 (6, 6, 6, 6, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8)
rounds. Bind off all sts in pattern using your
preferred stretchy bind off.
13
cut steek, work front bands
Weave in all ends. Following instructions in special

techniques section (or using your preferred
method) reinforce and cut steek up the centre st. KEY
Work puk at a rate of 3 sts to every 4 rows for MC 134

front bands, ensuring the final st count is a
CC1 FC24
multiple of 4 + 2. If you have added / removed
length to / from the body you may need to pick CC2 29
up extra / fewer sts accordingly. Work as follows:
For the Left Front edge: From the RS, using CC3 202
60-80cm / 24-32in below-gauge-size needle, CC4 43
and picking up sts in the gap between final st of
rep and first st of steek, puk 138 (142, 142, 146, k2tog in shade indicated
146, 150, 154, 162, 162, 166) sts down left front
edge opening. Beginning with a WS row, work
2x2 twisted rib pattern for front openings for 12 s steek st
rows. Bind off in pattern.
For the Right Front edge: From the RS, using CHART: YOKE
60-80cm / 24-32in below-gauge-size needle,
and picking up sts in the gap between final st of 29
rep and first st of steek, puk 138 (142, 142, 146,
146, 150, 154, 162, 162, 166) sts up right front
edge opening. Beginning with a WS row, work 25
2x2 twisted rib pattern for front openings for 4
rows. Using your preferred method, insert 10-12
evenly spaced 2-st horizontal buttonholes over
next two rows. Work a further 6 rows and bind 20
off in pattern.
14
finishing
15
Graft together 2 sets of sts at underarms. Soak
garment in cool water and wool wash for 20-
30 minutes. Rinse and remove excess water.
Shape and pin flat to dimensions given on sizing 10
table, paying close attention to ribbing, then
leave to dry.
Trim back steek edges, cover with tape or ribbon,
pin into place, and stitch down using an invisible
5
slip stitch. Stitch 10-12 buttons onto exterior of
left button band, corresponding to buttonholes.
Enjoy your Foxglove! 1

s s s 1 10 5 1 s s s s
84
COCKATOO BRAE
Created with Ella Gordon
This yoke is designed to be made following the general

method by which hundreds of thousands of hybrid
machined and hand-knitted yokes have been produced
in Shetland over the past half century, and indeed are
still being produced today. The cardigan is named after
the lane where it all began, in Ella’s knitting room at
Cockatoo Brae, in Lerwick, Shetland. Ella prepared the
body and sleeves on her machine, and I hand-knitted the
yoke. The shades we have chosen are reminiscent of the
1970s, a decade when yokes were being produced in the
homes of many Shetlanders for a buoyant commercial
market, and when the advent of North Sea Oil also
changed the face of Shetland knitting.
DESIGN NOTES
Following the instructions and numbers from the Foxglove
pattern, you can knit the body and sleeves of this cardigan
either by hand or machine. If working with a machine, you
will knit the body and sleeves in flat pieces and then cast on
steek stitches at the centre front before hand knitting the yoke
in the round. If working by hand, simply follow the Foxglove
pattern exactly as written for body and sleeves and begin this
pattern by joining the yoke at step 3. Short rows are worked
before the yoke pattern to allow the neck to dip slightly. Feel
free to add rows / rounds between the waist and bust shaping
if you would prefer a longer garment. Necks of Shetland
yokes tend to ride quite high: this neckline is wider and lower
than the general Shetland standard.
85
COCKATOO BRAE
YARN
Jamieson and Smith 2ply Jumper Weight (100% Real Shetland
Wool; 115m / 125yds per 25g ball)
Note: MC quantity is given in yards and CC is given in balls
SIZE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
MC: SHADE FC58

Quantity in yards 1000 1100 1150 1200 1250 1350 1450 1550 1600 1750
CC1: SHADE 202 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
CC2: SHADE 91 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
CC3: SHADE 125 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
CC4: SHADE FC11 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
CC5: SHADE 65 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
CC6: SHADE FC41 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
NEEDLES & NOTIONS

SIZES  100cm / 40in gauge-size circular needle for yoke
1 (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) – see sizing table 40cm / 16in below-gauge-size circular needle for neck rib 
Sizing guidance: Worn with a relaxed fit with 2in positive Waste yarn 
ease. For a neater fit, select a size with 2.5cm / 1in positive Tapestry needle 
ease or less from your bust measurement. Stitch markers of two different types, x and y
SIZING TABLE 10-12 x 1.25cm / ½in buttons
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Tape or ribbon for finishing steek edges (optional)
bust with bands overlapping
GAUGE 
84.5 90.5 95 100.5 105 111 115 121 125.5 131 cm
33¼ 35½ 37¼ 39½ 41¼ 43½ 45¼ 47½ 49¼ 51½ in
the round on 2.75mm (UK 12 / US 2) needles. Row gauge
hip with bands overlapping
is important. Please check gauge carefully over washed and
89.5 95.5 101.5 105.5 111.5 116 120 126 132 136 cm
blocked swatch and adjust your needle size accordingly. You
35¼ 37½ 40 41½ 44 45½ 47¼ 49½ 52 53½ in
should pay particular care to match the gauge between your
waist with bands overlapping machine and hand-knitted fabric.
79 84.5 90.5 95 100.5 105 109.5 115 121 125.5 cm
31 33¼ 35½ 37¼ 39½ 41¼ 43 45¼ 47½ 49¼ in SPECIAL TECHNIQUES 
body length to underarm See Special Techniques section for working from charts, short
34.5 34.5 34.5 34.5 34.5 35.5 36 37 37 38 cm rows, steeks, stretchy bind off and buttonholes.
13½ 13½ 13½ 13½ 13½ 14 14¼ 14½ 14½ 15 in
ABBREVIATIONS
42 43 43 44.5 45.5 45.5 47 47 48.5 48.5 cm
16½ 17 17 17½ 18 18 18½ 18½ 19 19 in

29 29 30.5 32 33.5 34 35.5 37 37.5 39 cm
11½ 11½ 12 12½ 13¼ 13½ 14 14½ 14¾ 15½ in
58 58 60.5 60.5 60.5 60.5 60.5 60.5 60.5 60.5 cm
22¾ 22¾ 24 24 24 24 24 24 24 24 in
depth of yoke front including neckband
19 19.5 20.5 21 21 22 23.5 24.5 24.5 26 cm
7½ 7¾ 8 8¼ 8¼ 8¾ 9¼ 9½ 9¾ 10¼ in
depth of yoke back including neckband
20 20.5 21.5 22 22.5 23 24.5 25.5 25.5 27 cm
8 8 8½ 8¾ 8¾ 9 9¾ 10 10 10¾ in
86
COCKATOO BRAE
INSTRUCTIONS
1
machine-knit body and sleeves
Make two cardigan fronts using the basic

instructions from Foxglove as follows:
Working plain 2x2 rib (p2, k2) at the hem, use
the front stitch count from Foxglove step 1, round
1, adding 1 selvedge st at each edge. Follow
waist shaping instructions for your size from
Foxglove step 2, decreasing 1 st at underarm
edge in step A each time.
Follow bust shaping instructions from Foxglove
step 3, and inc 1 st at underarm edge in step C
each time.
Bind off selvedge sts, and slip sts to waste yarn at
underarm as in Foxglove step 4.
Make a back, as above, but this time increasing

and decreasing 1 st at each end of rows in steps A
and C.
Make 2 sleeves using the basic instructions from

Foxglove as follows:
Working plain 2x2 rib (p2, k2) at the cuff, use
the cast on sts for the sleeves of Foxglove step 5,
adding 1 selvedge st at each edge.
Follow shaping instructions as given (increasing
at each end of rows in step A). Bind off selvedge
sts, and slip sts to waste yarn at underarm as in
Foxglove step 5. Seam body and fronts together
using mattress st along the selvedges, then seam
sleeves together using mattress st along the
selvedges. Slip the remaining sleeve and body
sts onto a gauge-size 100cm / 40in needle, in the
following order: left front, left sleeve, back, right
sleeve, right front.
Move to step 3.
2
hand-knit body and sleeves
Follow instructions for body and sleeves of

Foxglove (steps 1-5), using shade FC58 as MC.
3
If you have hand-knitted the body from the

Foxglove instructions, simply continue working the
steek sts as est, rather than casting them on here.
With 100cm / 40in gauge-size circular needle,
join body and sleeves into yoke as follows:
87
33
30
25
20
10
15
1
1 s s s s
KEY
MC FC58
5
CC1 202
CC2 91
CC3 125
10
CC4 FC11
CC5 65
15
CC6 FC41
k2tog in shade indicated
ssk in shade indicated
20
s steek st
25
Using MC and the long tail method, cast on 4

30
steek sts pmx, k52 (56, 58, 62, 64, 68, 70, 74,
76, 80) front sts, pmy, k72 (72, 74, 78, 80, 82,
84, 88, 88, 92) sleeve sts, pmy, k104 (112, 116,
124, 128, 136, 140, 148, 152, 160) back sts,
35
pmy, k72 (72, 74, 78, 80, 82, 84, 88, 88, 92)
sleeve sts, pmy, k52 (56, 58, 62, 64, 68, 70, 74,
76, 80) front sts, slmx, using backward loop
40
method, cast on 3 steek sts, pmx for start of

round. 352 (368, 380, 404, 416, 436, 448, 472,
480, 504) sts, plus 7 steek sts.
45
Knit 6 (6, 6, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 8, 7) rounds.
4
1 48
preparatory yoke shaping 
Commence preparatory yoke shaping as follows:

Step A: *K to 3 sts before y marker, ssk, k1, slmy,
5
k1, k2tog*, rep from * to * a further 3 times, k to

Step B: Knit 1 round.
10
Rep steps A and B a further 4 (4, 6, 6, 11, 10, 14,

13, 13, 16) times. 40 (40, 56, 56, 96, 88, 120, 112,
112, 136) sts dec; 312 (328, 324, 348, 320, 348,
328, 360, 368, 368) sts remain, plus 7 steek sts.
15
Sizes 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 and 8
Step C: *K to 3 sts before y marker, ssk, k1, slmy,
20
k1, k2tog*, rep from * to * a further 3 times, k to

Rep step C a further 4 (6, 6, 9, -, 3, 0, 4, -, -)
CHART: YOKE
times. 40 (56, 56, 80, -, 32, 8, 40, -, -) sts dec; 272

s s s 27 25
(272, 268, 268, -, 316, 320, 320, -, -) sts remain,

plus 7 steek sts.
88
COCKATOO BRAE
Sizes 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10
Step D: K to y marker, slm, *k to 3 sts before y
marker, ssk, k1, slm, k1, k2tog*, rep from * to
* once more, k to y marker, slm, k to end. 4 sts
dec; 268 (268, -, -, 316, -, 316, 316, 364, 364) sts
remain, plus 7 steek sts.
ALL sizes 
Step E: K to y marker, slm, k to next y marker,
slm, k1, k2tog, k to end. 1 st dec; 267 (267, 267,
267, 315, 315, 315, 315, 363, 363) sts remain.
5
short rows
Using your preferred method, work short rows

as follows:  
Short row 1 (RS): Slmx, k4 steek sts, slmx, k259
(259, 259, 259, 307, 307, 307, 307, 355, 355)
sts, turn. 
Short row 2 (WS): P251 (251, 251, 251, 299,
299, 299, 299, 347, 347) sts, turn.
Short row 3: K247 (247, 247, 247, 295, 295,
295, 295, 343, 343) sts, turn. 
Short row 4: P243 (243, 243, 243, 291, 291,
291, 291, 339, 339) sts, turn.
Knit to end of round, then knit 1 further full
round, removing y markers and closing the gaps
of all short rows.
6
work from chart
Commence chart as follows: 37 (37, 37, 37, 61, 61, 61, 61, 83, 83) sts dec; 150
Join in CC1. Following chart from right to left, (150, 150, 150, 158, 158, 158, 158, 168, 168) sts
rep marked section 5 (5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7) remain, plus 7 steek sts.
times across each round, working steek sts in
stripe pattern as charted, changing shades and Sizes 1-8: Move to step 8.
working decreases where indicated, and shifting Sizes 9 and 10: With MC, knit 2 rounds.
to shorter-length needle as necessary, work all Next round: Slmx, k4 steek sts, slmx, k16,
33 rounds of the chart. 187 (187, 187, 187, (k2tog, k13) 9 times, k2tog, k15, slmx, k3 steek
219, 219, 219, 219, 251, 251) sts remain, plus 7 sts. 10 sts dec; 158 sts remain, plus 7 steek sts.
steek sts.
8
finish as per foxglove instructions
7
final decreases
Follow the instructions in the Foxglove pattern for
With MC only, knit 1 round. working the neckline rib and front bands (steps
With MC, decrease sts for your size as follows: 12-14), remembering to use plain 2x2 rib, rather
Sizes 1, 2, 3 and 4: Slmx, k4 steek sts, slmx, than twisted rib if you’ve machined the body. I
(k3, k2tog) 37 times, k2, slmx, k3 steek sts. worked two button bands, sewing on clear snap
Sizes 5, 6, 7 and 8: Slmx, k4 steek sts, slmx, fasteners in place of buttonholes, but feel free to
k19, k2tog, (k1, k2tog) 60 times, k18, slmx, k3 work a buttonhole band if preferred. Block and
steek sts. finish as directed for Foxglove and…
Sizes 9 and 10: Slmx, k4 steek sts, slmx, k2
(k2tog, k1) 83 times, slmx, k3 steek sts. Enjoy your Cockatoo Brae!
89
90
BLUEBELLS
One of my favourite wild flowers, bluebells transform the
woods and glens with their luminous glow throughout the SIZES 
month of May and are one of the undoubted highlights of 1 (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) – see sizing table
a Scottish spring. I think bluebell flowers are at their most
lovely when they flip upwards just before they turn to seed, Sizing guidance: For a close fit (as pictured) select a
size with 2.5cm / 1in negative ease from your actual
and this is how they are represented on this neatly-fitting,
bust measurement. For a neat fit, choose a size with
Shetland wool pullover. Stranded colourwork is situated
0-2.5cm / 0-1in positive ease, and for a relaxed fit work
high up on the yoke, necklace style, and the motifs are with 5-7.5cm / 2-3in positive ease.
echoed around the hem and cuffs. The photographs were
taken in Glen Finglas and above the Blane Valley, both SIZING TABLE
wonderful local spots for bluebells. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
bust at underarm
77 81.5 85.5 90 96 103 107.5 113 117.5 122 cm
30¼ 32 33¾ 35½ 37¾ 40½ 42¼ 44½ 46¼ 48 in
DESIGN NOTES hip
This design combines raglan decreases with shallow colourwork 82.5 87 91.5 96 100 109 113 117.5 122 126.5 cm
motifs to create the effect of a delicate garland of bluebells 32½ 34¼ 36 37¾ 39½ 42¾ 44½ 46¼ 48 49¾ in
framing the face and shoulders. It is a close-fitting, shorter-
waist
length sweater with waist and bust shaping. It is worn here with
65.5 69.5 74 78.5 82.5 91.5 96 100 104.5 109 cm
negative ease – go up a size or two for a more relaxed fit.
25¾ 27½ 29¼ 30¾ 32½ 36 37¾ 39½ 41¼ 42¾ in

33 33 33 33.5 35 35 35 36 38 38 cm
13 13 13 13¼ 13¾ 13¾ 13¾ 14¼ 15 15 in

43 43 45.5 45.5 48.5 48.5 48.5 48.5 48.5 48.5 cm
17 17 18 18 19 19 19 19 19 19 in
29 29 30.5 32 33.5 35 35.5 36.5 37.5 39 cm
11½ 11½ 12 12½ 13¼ 13¾ 14 14¼ 14¾ 15½ in
neck circumference
53.5 53.5 53.5 53.5 53.5 53.5 56.5 56.5 56.5 56.5 cm
21¼ 21¼ 21¼ 21¼ 21¼ 21¼ 22¼ 22¼ 22¼ 22¼ in
front yoke depth
18 19 20 21 21.5 22.5 23 25 25.5 26 cm
7 7½ 8 8¼ 8½ 9 9 9¾ 10 10¼ in
depth of yoke back
18.5 19.5 20.5 21.5 22 23 23.5 25.5 26 26.5 cm
7¼ 7¾ 8 8½ 8¾ 9 9¼ 10 10¼ 10½ in
91
BLUEBELLS
INSTRUCTIONS
1
cast on, work rib and colourwork

circular needle and MC, cast on 228 (240, 252,
264, 276, 300, 312, 324, 336, 348) sts, pmx,
and join for working in the round. Work 1x1
twisted rib as follows: *K1tbl, p1*, rep from * to
* around for 8 (8, 8, 8, 10, 10, 10, 10, 12, 12)
rounds.
Next round: Change to gauge-size circular
needle and, joining CC1 as indicated, commence
hem and cuff chart, reading chart from right to
left, changing shades where indicated, and rep
chart 19 (20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29)
times across each round. Work all 16 rounds
of chart.
YARN Continue with MC only as follows:
Jamieson and Smith 2ply Jumper Weight (100% Real Next round: K114 (120, 126, 132, 138, 150, 156,
Shetland Wool; 115m / 125yds per 25g ball) 162, 168, 174) sts, pmx, k114 (120, 126, 132,
138, 150, 156, 162, 168, 174) sts to end. Marker
SIZE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 just placed, together with start of round marker,
MC: SHADE FC47 8 9 9 10 11 12 12 13 14 14 sets position of waist and bust shaping.
2
CC1: SHADE 202 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
waist shaping
CC2: SHADE FC11 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
CC3: SHADE FC24 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Work waist shaping as follows:

CC4: SHADE FC37 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Step A: *Slm, k1, k2tog, k to 3 sts before marker,
NEEDLES & NOTIONS Step B: Knit 3 rounds.
60-80cm / 24-32in gauge-size circular needle for working body Rep steps A and B a further 11 times. 48 sts dec;
60-80cm / 24-32in below-gauge-size circular needle for 180 (192, 204, 216, 228, 252, 264, 276, 288, 300)
body rib sts remain.
100cm / 40in gauge-size circular needle for yoke Knit 5 (5, 5, 8, 5, 10, 10, 10, 5, 5) rounds.
40cm / 16in below-gauge-size circular needle for neck rib 
3
Gauge-size and below-gauge-size needles of your preferred bust shaping
type for working small circumferences for sleeves
Stitch markers of two different types, x and y  Work bust shaping as follows:
Waste yarn; Tapestry needle  Step C: *Slm, k1, m1, k to 1 st before marker, m1,
GAUGE Step D: Knit 4 (4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5) rounds.
28 sts and 36 rounds to 10cm / 4in over stockinette Rep steps C and D a further 6 (6, 6, 6, 7, 6, 6, 7,
worked in the round on 2.75mm (UK 12/US 2) needle. 7, 7) times then step C only once more. 32 (32,
Row gauge is important. Please check gauge carefully over 32, 32, 36, 32, 32, 36, 36, 36) sts inc; 212 (224,
washed and blocked swatch. 236, 248, 264, 284, 296, 312, 324, 336) sts.
Knit every round until fabric measures 33 (33,
SPECIAL TECHNIQUES 33, 33.5, 35, 35, 35, 36, 38, 38)cm / 13 (13, 13,
See Special Techniques section for instructions on working 13¼, 13¾, 13¾, 13¾, 14¼, 15, 15)in from cast-
from charts and grafting. on edge, or desired length to underarm.
ABBREVIATIONS
92
BLUEBELLS
4
set aside sts at underarms
Moving sts around needle without knitting and

removing markers as you encounter them, slip
5 (5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8) sts from each side of
each marker to waste yarn. 10 (10, 10, 12, 12,
12, 14, 16, 16, 16) sts on hold for each underarm;
192 (204, 216, 224, 240, 260, 268, 280, 292, 304)
sts remain.
next 48 (51, 54, 56, 60, 65, 67, 70, 73, 76) sts
from LH to RH needle.
Beginning of round will now be at the centre back. 
Set body sts aside.
5
sleeves
With below-gauge-size needle of your preferred

type for working small circumferences and MC,
cast on 48 (48, 48, 48, 48, 60, 60, 60, 60, 60)
sts, pm, and join for working in the round. Work
in 1x1 twisted rib for 12 rounds.
Change to gauge-size needles.
Next round: Join CC1 as indicated, commence
hem and cuff chart, working chart from right to
left, changing shades where indicated and rep
chart 4 (4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5) times across each
round. Work all 16 rounds of chart.
Step A: Slm, m1, k to 1 st of end of round, m1,

k1. 2 sts inc.
Step B: Knit 6 (6, 6, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 5, 5) rounds.
Rep steps A and B a further 14 (14, 16, 18, 20,
16, 17, 18, 20, 22) times, then step A only once
more. 32 (32, 36, 40, 44, 36, 38, 40, 44, 48) sts
inc; 80 (80, 84, 88, 92, 96, 98, 100, 104, 108) sts.
Knit every round until sleeve measures 43 (43,
45.5, 45.5, 48.5, 48.5, 48.5, 48.5, 48.5, 48.5)
cm / 17 (17, 18, 18, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, 19)in or
desired length to underarm.
Moving sts around needle without knitting and,

removing marker as you encounter it, slip 5 (5, 5,
6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8) sts from each side of marker to
waste yarn. 10 (10, 10, 12, 12, 12, 14, 16, 16, 16)
sts set aside at underarm and 70 (70, 74, 76, 80,
84, 84, 84, 88, 92) sts remain. Set sleeve sts aside.
Make second sleeve in the same way.
93
BLUEBELLS
6
With 100cm / 40in gauge-size circular needle

and MC, beginning at centre back as est, join
body and sleeves into yoke as follows:
K48 (51, 54, 56, 60, 65, 67, 70, 73, 76) back sts,
pmy, k70 (70, 74, 76, 80, 84, 84, 84, 88, 92)
sleeve sts, pmy, k96 (102, 108, 112, 120, 130,
134, 140, 146, 152) front sts, pmy, k70 (70, 74,
76, 80, 84, 84, 84, 88, 92) sleeve sts, pmy, k48 KEY
(51, 54, 56, 60, 65, 67, 70, 73, 76) back sts, pmx
for start of round. 332 (344, 364, 376, 400, 428, MC FC47
436, 448, 468, 488) sts.
CC1 202
Note: The ‘x’ marker sets start of round and ‘y’
markers set position of preparatory yoke shaping. CC2 FC11
Knit 1 (4, 5, 6, 5, 4, 6, 9, 9, 8) rounds straight.
CC3 FC24
7
preparatory yoke shaping CC4 FC37
Shape yoke as follows, shifting to shorter-length k2tog in shade indicated

needle when necessary as yoke circumference
reduces:
Step A: Slmx, *k to 3 sts before y marker, ssk, CHART: YOKE
k1, slmy, k1, k2tog*, rep from * to * a further 3 16
times, k to end of round. 8 sts dec.
Rep step A a further 4 (7, 6, 7, 10, 12, 11, 11,
11, 13) times. 40 (64, 56, 64, 88, 104, 96, 96, 96,
112) sts dec; 292 (280, 308, 312, 312, 324, 340,
352, 372, 376) sts remain. 10
Step B: Slmx, *k to 3 sts before y marker, ssk,

k1, slmy, k1, k2tog*, rep from * to * a further 3
times, k to end of round. 8 sts dec. 5
Step C: Knit 1 round.
Rep steps B and C a further 13 (11, 13, 14, 14,
15, 16, 17, 18, 19) times. 112 (96, 112, 120, 120, 1
12 6 1
128, 136, 144, 152, 160) sts dec; 180 (184, 196,
192, 192, 196, 204, 208, 220, 216) sts remain.
Sizes 1, 4, 5, 7, and 10: Move to step 8. CHART: HEM AND CUFF

Sizes 2, 3, 6, 8 and 9: Continue as follows: 16
Step D: Slmx, k to first y marker, slmy, *k to 3 sts
before next y marker, ssk, k1, slmy, k1, k2tog*,
rep from * to * once more, k to end. 4 sts dec; -
(180, 192, -, -, 192, -, 204, 216, -) sts remain.
10
1
12 6 1
94
ILLUSTRATION
8 10
work chart short rows to shape upper back and shoulders
Join in CC1. Begin working from yoke chart, Short row 1 (RS): K24 (24, 24, 24, 24, 24, 26,
working chart from right to left, changing shades 26, 26, 26) sts, turn. 
and decreasing sts where indicated, removing y Short row 2 (WS): P48 (48, 48, 48, 48, 48, 52,
markers as you encounter them, and rep chart 15 52, 52, 52) sts, turn.
(15, 16, 16, 16, 16, 17, 17, 18, 18) times across Knit to end of round, then knit 1 further round,
each round. Work all 16 rounds of chart. 150 closing the gaps of both short rows.
(150, 160, 160, 160, 160, 170, 170, 180, 180) sts
11
remain. neck rib
9
work final decreases Change to 40cm / 16in below-gauge-size needle.
Work in 1x1 twisted rib for 10 rounds. Bind off all
Continue with MC only for your size as follows: sts using your preferred stretchy bind off.
Sizes 1 and 2: Slmx, k2tog, k to 2 sts before end
12
of round, k2tog. finishing
Sizes 3, 4, 5 and 6: Slmx, k8, k2tog, (k11, k2tog)
11 times, k7. Weave in all ends. Graft together the two sets of
Sizes 7 and 8: Slmx, k6, k2tog, (k10, k2tog) 13 sts at underarms. Soak garment in cool water
times, k6. and wool wash for 20-30 minutes. Rinse and
Sizes 9 and 10: Slmx, k9, k2tog, (k5, k2tog) 23 remove excess water. Shape and pin flat to
times, k8. dimensions given on sizing table, paying close
2 (2, 12, 12, 12, 12, 14, 14, 24, 24) sts dec; 148 attention to ribbing, then leave to dry.
(148, 148, 148, 148, 148, 156, 156, 156, 156) sts
remain. Enjoy your Bluebells!
95
96
FROST AT
MIDNIGHT
The title of one of my favourite poems by S T Coleridge, DESIGN NOTES
the shimmering beaded trees that surround this The whole purpose of this design is to feature the yoke as
jewellery. Worked in a luxurious silk and merino laceweight
yoke seem to be captured in frost on a cold winter’s
yarn, the yoke is decorated with a stunning necklace of over
night. Coleridge’s poem was composed on such a night, a thousand glass beads. The garment is worked straight
and is addressed to his son, who sleeps quietly in his from hem to bust and the simple shape drapes beautifully
cradle next to the reflective poet. It ends with these from the yoke. Short rows shape the neckline, which scoops
marvellous lines: to frame the face and neck.
SIZES 
Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee, 1 (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) – see sizing table
Whether the summer clothe the general earth Sizing guidance: For a close fit (as pictured) select a size
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing with 2.5cm / 1in negative ease from your actual bust
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch measurement. For a neat fit, choose a size with 0-2.5cm /
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch 0-1in positive ease, and for a relaxed fit work with 5-7.5cm /
2-3in positive ease.
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the
eave-drops fall SIZING TABLE
Heard only in the trances of the blast, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Or if the secret ministry of frost body excl bands
Shall hang them up in silent icicles, 78.5 82.5 88.5 93 100 104.5 109 114.5 119 123.5 cm
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon. 30¾ 32½ 34¾ 36½ 39½ 41¼ 42¾ 45¼ 46¾ 48½ in

39.5 39.5 39.5 39.5 39.5 40.5 40.5 40.5 40.5 40.5 cm
15½ 15½ 15½ 15½ 15½ 16 16 16 16 16 in

40.5 40.5 40.5 40.5 40.5 42 42 42 42 43 cm
16 16 16 16 16 16½ 16½ 16½ 16½ 17 in

28.5 29 30.5 32 33.5 35 37 39 40.5 42 cm
11¼ 11½ 12 12½ 13¼ 13¾ 14½ 15½ 16 16½ in
neck circumference excluding bands
55 55 55 55 55 59.5 59.5 62.5 62.5 62.5 cm
21¾ 21¾ 21¾ 21¾ 21¾ 23½ 23½ 24½ 24½ 24½ in
depth of yoke front
15.5 16.5 18 18 19 19 20 20.5 21 23.5 cm
6¼ 6½ 7 7 7½ 7½ 8 8¼ 8¼ 9¼ in
depth of yoke back
16.5 18 19.5 19.5 21 21 22.5 23 23.5 26 cm
6½ 7 7¾ 7¾ 8¼ 8¼ 8¾ 9 9¼ 10¼ in

97
FROST AT MIDNIGHT
YARN & BEADS INSTRUCTIONS 

Fyberspates Scrumptious Lace (Laceweight; 45% silk, 55%
1
merino; 1000m / 1093yds per 100g skein) cast on, work picot hem
SIZE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 With 60-80cm / 24-32in gauge-size circular

MC: SLATE (506) 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 needle and waste yarn, using your preferred
BEADS: size 8 1680 1680 1760 1840 1920 2000 2000 2080 2160 2160 method, provisionally cast on 216 (228, 244,
256, 276, 288, 300, 316, 328, 340) sts. Join in
NEEDLES & NOTIONS MC and starting with a RS knit row, work 12
60-80cm / 24-32in gauge-size circular needle for body rows in stockinette, ending with a WS row.
Gauge-size needle of your preferred type for working small Next row (picot): K1, (yo, k2tog) to last st, k1.
circumferences for sleeves Beginning and ending with a WS purl row, work
80-100cm / 32-40in gauge-size circular needle for yoke and 13 rows in stockinette.
front openings Unzip provisional cast on, place these sts on
Your preferred tool for bead threading / placement (small spare circular needle and fold up along picot row
crochet hook, dental floss, etc)  to the WS, so these sts sit parallel to, and behind
Waste yarn in a similar weight for provisional cast on and the working sts. Taking 1 st from front needle
holding sts at underarms together with 1 st from back needle, k2tog along
Stitch markers  the row, joining the hem facing. 216 (228, 244,
Tapestry needle 256, 276, 288, 300, 316, 328, 340) sts.
3-4 clear snap fasteners (optional)
2
work body
GAUGE
28 sts and 36 rows to 10cm / 4in over stockinette worked in Beginning with a WS purl row, work back and
rows on 3.25mm (UK 10 / US 3) needles. forth in stockinette as est until body measures 39.5
25 sts and 32 rows to 10cm / 4in over beaded section. (39.5, 39.5, 39.5, 39.5, 40.5, 40.5, 40.5, 40.5,
Because the recommended yarn has a high silk content 40.5)cm / 15½ (15½, 15½, 15½, 15½, 16, 16, 16,
it can expand considerably after blocking. Follow the 16, 16)in from picot edge, ending with a WS row.
swatching instructions below and block and measure your
3
swatch carefully before knitting. You may also wish to check set underarm and body sts aside
your small-circumference gauge (as the sleeves are worked
in the round). Moving sts around needle without knitting, slip 49
(52, 55, 58, 63, 65, 68, 71, 74, 77) of right front
SWATCHING from LH to RH needle then slip 10 (10, 12, 12, 12,
Cast on 33 sts and work 2 rows in garter st, followed by 30 14, 14, 16, 16, 16) underarm sts to waste yarn.
rows in stockinette and 2 more rows in garter st. Now work Slip 98 (104, 110, 116, 126, 130, 136, 142, 148,
across all 33 sts of bead chart for 26 rows. Work 2 rows in 154) sts of back from LH to RH needle then slip
garter st and bind off. Wet block and dry swatch, then check 10 (10, 12, 12, 12, 14, 14, 16, 16, 16) underarm
gauge in both the plain stockinette and beaded sections. sts to waste yarn. Finally, slip 49 (52, 55, 58, 63,
Gauge of beaded section is likely to be larger, but should 65, 68, 71, 74, 77) sts of left front from LH to RH
not be any larger than 25 sts and 30 rows to 10cm / 4in.  needle. 10 (10, 12, 12, 12, 14, 14, 16, 16, 16) sts on
Bead requirements shown in the table include the beads hold for each underarm; 196 (208, 220, 232, 252,
needed to work your swatch. 260, 272, 284, 296, 308) sts remain.
Set body sts aside.
SPECIAL TECHNIQUES
4
See Special Techniques section for information on sleeves
working from charts, provisional cast on, beading, short
rows and grafting. With gauge-size needles of your preferred type
for working small circumferences and waste
ABBREVIATIONS yarn, using your preferred method, provisionally
See full list of abbreviations on the inside back cover. cast on 56 (60, 60, 64, 68, 68, 72, 72, 76, 80)
sts, pm, and join for working in the round. Join in
MC and knit 12 rounds.
98
FROST AT MIDNIGHT
Next round (picot): K1, (yo, k2tog) to last st, k1.

Knit 13 rounds.
Next round: Unzip provisional cast on, place
these sts on spare circular needle and fold up
along picot round to the inside, so these sts sit
parallel to and behind the working sts. Taking 1
st from front needle together with 1 st from back
needle, k2tog along the row, joining the cuff
facing. 56 (60, 60, 64, 68, 68, 72, 72, 76, 80) sts.
Commence sleeve shaping on next round as

follows: 
Step A: Slm, k1, m1, k to 1 st before marker, m1,
k1. 2 sts inc.
Step B: Knit 9 (10, 8, 8, 9, 7, 7, 6, 6, 6) rounds. 
Rep steps A and B a further 9 (8, 10, 10, 10, 12,
13, 16, 16, 16) times followed by step A only
once more. 22 (20, 24, 24, 24, 28, 30, 36, 36,
36) sts inc; 78 (80, 84, 88, 92, 96, 102, 108, 112,
116) sts.
Knit every round until sleeve measures 40.5
(40.5, 40.5, 40.5, 40.5, 42, 42, 42, 42, 43)cm /
16 (16, 16, 16, 16, 16½, 16½, 16½, 16½, 17)in
from picot edge.
5
set underarm and sleeve sts aside

5 (5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8) sts each side of marker
to waste yarn. 10 (10, 12, 12, 12, 14, 14, 16, 16,
16) sts on hold; 68 (70, 72, 76, 80, 82, 88, 92, 96,
100) sts remain. 
Set aside.
7
Make second sleeve in the same way. work preparatory yoke shaping
6
join body and sleeves into yoke Step A (RS): *K to 3 sts before marker, ssk, k1,
slm, k1, k2tog*, rep from * to * a further 3 times,
With 100cm / 40in gauge-size circular needle k to end of row. 8 sts dec.
and MC, beginning with a RS row, join body and Step B (WS): Purl 1 row.
sleeves into yoke and place markers for shaping Rep steps A and B a further 2 (4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 9, 9,
and increase 1 st as follows:  10, 12) times. 24 (40, 40, 48, 56, 56, 80, 80, 88,
K49 (52, 55, 58, 63, 65, 68, 71, 74, 77) sts of 104) sts dec; 309 (309, 325, 337, 357, 369, 369,
right front, pm, k68 (70, 72, 76, 80, 82, 88, 92, 389, 401, 405) sts remain.
96, 100) sleeve sts, pm, k98 (104, 110, 116, 126,
130, 136, 142, 148, 154) back sts, pm, k68 (70, Sizes 4, 6, 7 and 9: Move to step 8.
72, 76, 80, 82, 88, 92, 96, 100) sleeve sts, pm,
M1, k49 (52, 55, 58, 63, 65, 68, 71, 74, 77) sts Sizes 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and 10
of left front. 333 (349, 365, 385, 413, 425, 449, Continue as follows:
469, 489, 509) sts. Step C: K to marker, slm, *k to 3 sts before next
marker, ssk, k1, slm, k1, k2tog*, rep from * to *
Beginning with a WS row, and working back and once more, k to marker, slm, k to end. 4 sts dec.
forth in stockinette, work 3 (3, 5, 5, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, Step D: Purl 1 row.
9) rows, slipping markers as you encounter them. 305 (305, 321, -, 353, -, -, 385, -, 401) sts remain.
99
Short row 7: K - (-, -, -, 198, 208, 208, 218, 228,
228) sts, turn.
Short row 8: P - (-, -, -, 196, 206, 206, 216, 226,
226) sts, turn.
ALL sizes again: Knit to end of row, then work 1

further purl row, closing gaps of all short rows.
10
final decreases
Next row (RS): *K3, k2tog*, rep from * to *

across row. 38 (38, 40, 42, 44, 46, 46, 48, 50, 50)
sts dec; 152 (152, 160, 168, 176, 184, 184, 192,
200, 200) sts remain. 
Next row: Purl 1 row.
Sizes 1 and 2: Place neck sts on spare circular
needle and move to step 11.
8
work yoke, work chart Sizes 3-10: Continue for your size as follows:
Size 3: *K18, k2tog*, rep from * to * across row.
ALL sizes again: Working back and forth as est, Size 4: K4, (k2tog, k9) 4 times, (k2tog, k8) 7
and removing markers as you encounter them, times, (k2tog, k9) 4 times, k2tog, k4.
work 4 (4, 4, 4, 2, 4, 2, 2, 4, 4) rows. Size 5: K3, (k2tog, k6) 4 times, (k2tog, k5) 15
Next row: Commence chart as follows: times, (k2tog, k6) 4 times, k2tog, k2.
Working back and forth as est, commence chart, Sizes 6 and 7: K4, (k2tog, k8) twice, (k2tog, k7)
reading RS rows from right to left and WS rows 15 times, (k2tog, k8) twice, k2tog, k3.
from left to right, and rep marked section 18 Size 8: K4, (k2tog, k8) 6 times, (k2tog, k7) 7
(18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 22, 23, 24, 24) times across times, (k2tog, k8) 6 times, k2tog, k3.
each row to last 17 sts before working final rep Sizes 9 and 10: K3, (k2tog, k6) twice, (k2tog, k5)
as shown, placing beads and working decreases 23 times, (k2tog, k6) twice, k2tog, k2.
where indicated. Be sure to spot the single decrease - (-, 8, 16, 24, 20, 20, 20, 28, 28) sts dec; 152 (152,
on the final rep of row 25! 152, 152, 152, 164, 164, 172, 172, 172) sts remain.
Work all 26 rows of chart. 190 (190, 200, 210, 220, Sizes 3-10: Purl 1 row and place neck sts on
230, 230, 240, 250, 250) sts remain. spare circular needle.
9 11
work short rows to shape neckline work front edges
Using your preferred short row method shape With RS facing, puk 120 (120, 124, 124, 128, 130,
neckline as follows: 132, 138, 138, 140) sts along right front edge
Note: When there is no number for your size you opening. If you have added / removed length to
have completed the short rows and should move to / from the body you may need to pick up extra /
the closure instruction at the end of this step. fewer sts accordingly.
Short row 1 (RS): K186 (186, 196, 206, 216, Purl 1 row, then work 6 further rows in stockinette.
226, 226, 236, 246, 246) sts, turn.
Short row 2 (WS): P182 (182, 192, 202, 212, Next row (picot): K1, (yo, k2tog) to last st, k1.
222, 222, 232, 242, 242) sts, turn. Beginning with a WS row, work 7 rows in
Short row 3: K178 (178, 188, 198, 208, 218, stockinette, ending with a WS row. Break yarn,
218, 228, 238, 238) sts, turn. leaving a long tail.
Short row 4: P174 (174, 184, 194, 204, 214, 214, Fold hem to WS, and keeping sts live on needle,
224, 234, 234) sts, turn. paying careful attention to the tension of the fabric,
Short row 5: K - (-, 182, 192, 202, 212, 212, stitch down each st in turn to WS of the work,
222, 232, 232) sts, turn. creating the picot-hemmed facing – you may find
Short row 6: P - (-, 180, 190, 200, 210, 210, it useful to use pins to establish the position of the
220, 230, 230) sts, turn. hem. Rep for the left front edge opening.
100
FROST AT MIDNIGHT
Next row (picot): K1, (yo, k2tog) to last st, k1.

Beginning with a WS row, work 5 rows in
stockinette, ending with a WS row. Break yarn,
leaving a long tail.
Fold hem to WS, and keeping sts live on needle,
paying careful attention to the tension of the
fabric, carefully stitch down each st in turn to WS
of the work, creating a picot-hemmed facing –
you may find it useful to use pins to establish the
position of the hem.
13
finishing
Weave in all ends. Graft together the 2 sets of

sts at underarms. Soak garment in cool water
and wool wash for 20-30 minutes. Rinse and
remove excess water. Shape and pin flat to
12
work top picot hem dimensions given on sizing table, paying close
attention to yoke and picot hems, which should
With RS facing, puk 6 sts along top of right front lie completely flat.
facing, k152 (152, 152, 152, 152, 164, 164, 172,
172, 172) neck sts, puk 6 sts along top of left Optional: Stitch 3-5 small, clear snap-fasteners
front facing. 164 (164, 164, 164, 164, 176, 176, into place along front edge openings at top
184, 184, 184) sts. of yoke.
Purl 1 row, then work a further 4 rows in
stockinette. Enjoy your Frost at Midnight!
KEY CHART: YOKE
k on RS; p on WS 26
25
ssk 24
23
k2tog 22
21
place bead 20
19
repeat marked section 18
17
single decrease 16
on row 25 15
14
13
12
11
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
17 10 5 1 16 10 5 1
101
102
WESTERING HOME
WESTERING HOME
I live in the west of Scotland and developed the idea for If you’d like to hear the song and melody of Westering
this design across on the ferry to Islay, one of my favourite Home, I recommend watching this short video from
Hebridean locations. On my frequent trips there, I often www.islayinfo.com, which is accompanied by a
find that Westering Home – Hugh Roberton’s famous lovely rendition by Norma Munro: www.tinyurl.com/
1920s song – pops into in my head, and it seemed an westeringhome
appropriate name for this cosy cabled garment. Where are the folk like the folk of the west?
Canty and couthy and kindly, the best
The photographs were taken on a ‘westering’ journey, out There I would hie me and there I would rest
through Argyll toward Inveraray, on to Kennacraig and At hame with my ain folk in Islay
the Islay Ferry, and finally at Kildalton on the island of warning: Watching this video may create an instant
Islay itself. earworm and / or a desire to visit the Hebrides.
103
WESTERING HOME
more than the top, lends this design some swing, allowing
the cable and rib panels to fall in a slightly pleated manner.
The fronts can be worn open or doubled across the body
and, depending on the amount of ease preferred, can be
adjusted and buttoned to suit.
YARN
Artesano Aran (Aran weight; 50% superfine alpaca; 50%
Peruvian Highland wool; 132m / 144yds per 100g skein)
SIZE 1 2 3
MC: SHADE 6807

nightfall 12 14 15
NEEDLES & NOTIONS

Two sets of 100cm / 40in gauge-size circular needles
Gauge-size needles of your preferred type for working small
circumferences for the sleeves
Cable needle 
SIZES Stitch markers
1 (2, 3) – see sizing table Waste yarn in a similar weight 
Sizing guidance: Select the size recommended for your bust Tapestry needle
measurement in the sizing table. 3 x 5cm / 2in buttons
two safety pins (for marking buttonhole placement)
SIZING TABLE
1 2 3 GAUGE
to fit bust This pattern has three size-dependent gauges and it is
essential to swatch carefully.
76-91.5 96.5-106.5 111.5-122 cm
Size 1: 20 sts and 24 rows to 10cm / 4in over reverse
30-36 38-42 44-48 in
stockinette on 4.5mm (UK 7 / US 7) needles. 24 sts of cable
body length to underarm panel to 9cm / 3½in.
48.5 48.5 48.5 cm Size 2: 17 sts and 22 rows to 10cm / 4in over reverse
19 19 19 in stockinette on 5mm (UK 6 / US 8) needles. 24 sts of cable
panel to 10cm / 4in.
Size 3: 15 sts and 19 rows to 10cm / 4in over reverse
45.5 45.5 45.5 cm
stockinette on 5.5mm (UK 5 / US 9) needles. 24 sts of cable
18 18 18 in
panel to 11.5cm / 4½in.
To measure gauge:
34.5 40 45.5 cm
Cast on 54 sts.
13½ 15¾ 17¾ in Row 1 (RS): P25, work row 1 of cable panel across next 24
width at neck (unbuttoned) sts, P5.
63 69.5 73 cm Row 2 (WS): K5, work next row of cable panel, K25.
24¾ 27¼ 28¾ in Work as est in reverse stockinette and cable panel, until cable
panel has been completed 3 times (30 rows). Block swatch,
yoke depth
dry and measure carefully. Go up or down needle sizes to
20.5 22.5 26 cm
achieve the correct gauge for your size. Ensure that you achieve
8¼ 9 10¼ in the same gauge when working in the round for sleeves.
DESIGN NOTES
SPECIAL TECHNIQUES
Westering Home is a large, loose, coat-like garment worn
See main Special Techniques section for information on
with positive ease. To create the wrapped opening, each
working from charts, provisional cast on, lld (left leaning
front is doubled to the same width as the back, and the yoke
decrease), plain i-cord, i-cord bind off and i-cord buttonhole.
shaping is accomplished by working decreases between the
cable panels. Carefully blocking the bottom of the garment
104
WESTERING HOME
cables
C9B: Sl 5 sts to cable needle and hold to back, k4,
sl p st from cable needle to LH needle, p1, k4 from
cable needle. 
C9F: Sl 5 sts to cable needle and hold to front, k4,
sl p st from cable needle to LH needle, p1, k4 from
cable needle.
cable panel
Worked over 24 sts and 10 rows/rounds
Work from chart or written instructions.
Written instructions for body cable panel
Row 1 (RS): (K4, p1) 4 times, k4. 
Row 2 (WS): (P4, k1) 4 times, p4. 
Row 3: K4, (p1, C9F) twice.
Row 4: (P4, k1) 4 times, p4. 
Row 5: (K4, p1) 4 times, k4.
Row 6: (P4, k1) 4 times, p4.
Row 7: (C9B, p1) twice, k4.
Row 8: (P4, k1) 4 times, p4. 
Row 9: (K4, p1) 4 times, k4. 
Row 10: (P4, k1) 4 times, p4.  
Written instructions for sleeve cable panel
Rounds 1 and 2: (K4, p1) 4 times, k4.
Round 3: K4, (p1, C9F) twice. 
Rounds 4-6: (K4, p1) 4 times, k4. 
Round 7: (C9B, p1) twice, k4.
Rounds 8-10: (K4, p1) 4 times, k4. 
ABBREVIATIONS
INSTRUCTIONS
1
cast on, establish fronts and back, and
commence chart
KEY Knit on RS, Purl on WS
Purl on RS, Knit on WS With waste yarn and 100cm / 40in gauge-size
circular needle, provisionally cast on 286 sts.
C9F Change to MC and work in garter st (k every
row) for 6 rows. 
C9B
Set reverse stockinette and cable panel
placement as follows:
CHART: CABLE PANEL Row 1 (RS): P3, *(k4, p5, work row 1 of cable
panel across next 24 sts, p5) twice, k4, p10,
10 pm, p10*, rep from * to * once more, (k4, p5,
9 work row 1 of cable panel across next 24 sts, p5)
8
7 twice, k4, p3.  
6 Row 2 (WS): K3, *(p4, k5, work row 2 of cable
5 panel across next 24 sts, k5) twice, p4, k10, slm,
4 k10*, rep from * to * once more, p4, (k5, work
3
2 row 2 of cable panel across next 24 sts, k5, p4)
1 twice, k3.
24 20 15 10 5 1 Markers set positions of underarms, dividing fronts
from back. 93 sts for each front; 100 sts for back.
Read chart from right to left on RS rows and left to
right on WS rows
105
2
work body Round 2: P5, k4, p5, work row 2 of cable panel
across next 24 sts, p5, k4, p5.
Working back and forth in pattern rows as est, Work a further 8 rounds in pattern as est.
continue working from cable panel, always
reading charts from right to left on RS rows and Keeping pattern correct as est and increasing all
left to right on WS rows. sts in reverse stockinette, work as follows:
Work until body measures 48.5cm / 19in from Step A: P1, m1p, work pattern as est to 1 st
cast-on edge, ending on chart row 4, 8 or 10. before end of round, m1p, p1. 2 sts inc.
Step B: Work 6 (6, 5) rounds in pattern. 
3
set aside sts at underarms Rep steps A and B a further 9 times then step A
only once more. 22 sts inc; 74 sts.
Moving sts around needle without knitting, slip 5 Work straight in pattern until sleeve measures
sts each side of each marker to waste yarn. 45.5cm / 18in from cast-on, or desired length,
266 sts. ending on chart round 4, 8 or 10 to match body.
Set body sts aside.
4
make sleeves 5 sts each side of marker to waste yarn. 10 sts on
hold for underarm; 64 sts remain for sleeve.
With waste yarn, and gauge-size needle of your Set aside.
preferred type for working small circumferences, Make second sleeve to match.
provisionally cast on 52 sts, pm, and join for
5
working in the round. join body and sleeves into yoke
Change to MC.
Purl 1 round. Knit 1 round. With 100cm / 40in gauge-size circular needle
and MC, beginning on the correct RS chart row,
Set chart placement as follows reading every row keeping pattern correct as est, join body and
of the chart from right to left: sleeves into yoke as follows:
Round 1: P5, k4, p5, work row 1 of cable panel Work 88 front sts, pm, work 64 sleeve sts, pm,
across next 24 sts, p5, k4, p5.  work 90 back sts, pm, work 64 sleeve sts, pm,
work 88 front sts. 394 sts.
Work 1 row.
106
WESTERING HOME
6
begin preparatory yoke shaping
Working in pattern as est, and decreasing all sts

in reverse stockinette, begin preparatory yoke
shaping as follows:
Step A (RS): *Work to 3 sts before marker, lld,
p1, slm, p1, p2tog*, rep from * to * a further 3
times, work to end of row. 8 sts dec.
Step B (WS): Work 1 row in pattern.
Rep steps A and B twice more. 24 sts dec; 370
sts remain.
Step C: *Work to marker, slm, p1, p2tog, work to

3 sts before marker, lld, p1, slm* rep from * to *
once more, work to end. 4 sts dec.
Step D: Work 1 row in pattern.
Rep steps C and D a further 5 times. 24 sts dec;
346 sts remain.
Removing markers as you encounter them, work
in pattern for 2 rows.
7
yoke decreases
Keeping cable panel correct as est, work first

yoke decrease row as follows:
Next row (RS): (P3, k4, lld, p3, panel 24, lld)
twice, (p3, k4, p4, k4, lld, p3, panel 24, lld) twice,
p3, k4, lld, p3, panel 24, lld, (p3, k4, p4, k4, lld,
p3, panel 24, lld) twice, p3, k4, lld, p3, panel 24,
lld, p3, k4, p3. 16 sts dec; 330 sts remain.
Work in pattern for 3 rows, ending with a WS row.
Work second yoke decrease row as follows:

Next row (RS): P3, (k4, lld, p2, panel 24, lld,
p2) twice, (k4, p4, k4, lld, p2, panel 24, lld, p2)
twice, (k4, lld, p2, panel 24, lld, p2, k4, p4)
twice, k4, lld, p2, panel 24, lld, p2, k4, lld, p2,
panel 24, lld, p2, k4, p3. 16 sts dec; 314 sts remain.
Work third yoke decrease row as follows:

Next row (RS): P3, (k4, lld, p1, panel 24, lld, p1)
twice, (k4, p4, k4, lld, p1, panel 24, lld, p1) twice,
(k4, lld, p1, panel 24, lld, p1, k4, p4) twice, (k4,
lld, p1, panel 24, lld, p1) twice, k4, p3. 16 sts dec;
298 sts remain.
Work in pattern for 3 rows ending with a WS row.
Work fourth yoke decrease row as follows:

Next row (RS): P3, (k4, lld, panel 24, lld) twice,
(k4, p4, k4, lld, panel 24, lld) twice, (k4, lld,
panel 24, lld, k4, p4) twice, (k4, lld, panel 24, lld)
twice, k4, p3. 16 sts dec; 282 sts remain.
107
WESTERING HOME
Work fifth yoke decrease row as follows: up right front, k124 (116, 108) neck sts, puk 3 sts
Next row (RS): P3, (k3, k2tog, panel 23, ssk) out of every 4 rows sts down left front, k143 sts
twice, (k4, p4, k3, k2tog, panel 23, ssk) twice, across left front and back to start of round.
(k3, k2tog, panel 23, ssk, k4, p4) twice, (k3,
k2tog, panel 23, ssk) twice, k4, p3. 16 sts dec; Using safety pins, mark out location of 2
266 sts remain. button loops on corners of right and left
Work in pattern for 1 row, ending with a WS row. front edges. From the RS, work i-cord bind-off
across sts of back and right front. At corner
Work sixth yoke decrease row as follows: between hem and right front edge, work plain
Next row (RS): P3, (k2, k2tog, panel 24) twice, i-cord for 2 rows. Work i-cord bind-off across
(k2, k2tog, p2, lld, k2, k2tog, panel 24) twice, sts of right front, inserting an i-cord buttonhole
(k2, k2tog, panel 24, k2, k2tog, p2, lld) twice, when you reach the marker. At corner between
(k2, k2tog, panel 24) twice, k2, k2tog, p3. 17 sts right front and neck edge, work plain i-cord
dec; 249 sts remain. for two rows. Work i-cord bind-off across neck
Work in pattern for 1 row, ending with a WS row. and at corner between neck and left front edge
work plain i-cord for two rows, and then work
Work seventh yoke decrease row as follows: i-cord buttonhole when you reach marker. Work
Next row (RS): P3, (k1, k2tog, panel 24) twice, i-cord bind-off down left front edge and at
(k1, k2tog, p1, lld, k1, k2tog, panel 24) twice, corner between left front and hem edge work
(k1, k2tog, panel 24, k1, k2tog, p1, lld) twice, plain i-cord for two rows. Work i-cord bind-off
(k1, k2tog, panel 24) twice, k1, k2tog, p3. 17 sts across remaining sts of left front and back.
dec; 232 sts remain. When only 3 sts remain on RH needle, work
Work in pattern for 1 row, ending with a WS row. plain i-cord for 3 rows, fasten off, and join
neatly to start of bound-off edge. Unzip
Work eighth yoke decrease row as follows: provisional cast-on edge at cuff, and carefully slip
Next row (RS): P3, (k2tog, panel 24) twice, 52 sts to gauge-size needle. Work i-cord bind-off
(k2tog, lld, k2tog, panel 24) twice, (k2tog, panel across these sts. Rep for second sleeve.
24, k2tog, lld) twice, (k2tog, panel 24) twice,
10
k2tog, p3. 17 sts dec; 215 sts remain. finishing
Work in pattern for 1 row, ending with a WS row.
Graft together 2 sets of sts at underarms. With
8
final decreases and garter st edging steamer, or iron on wool setting, and without
touching the fabric, carefully steam the i-cord
Next row (RS): K2, (k2tog, k1) 71 times. 71 sts edges easing out the cables and stretching
dec; 144 sts. and smoothing the hems and edges to shape.
Knit 3 rows. Now carefully steam the rest of the garment. To
achieve an A-line look, allowing the garment
Size 1: (K5, k2tog) 20 times, k4. 20 sts dec; 124 sts. to swing, steam and stretch the bottom of the
Size 2: K4, (k2tog, k3) 28 times. 28 sts dec; 116 sts. garment more than the top – this will allow the
Size 3: K1, (k2tog, k2) 35 times, k2tog, k1. 36 sts cables at the bottom to relax, while those around
dec; 108 sts remain. the torso sit more tightly.
ALL sizes: Knit 1 row. 
Break yarn retaining 124 (116, 108) neck sts live Try on garment, wrapping it around the
on needle. body, and mark button placement with 2
safety pins. Stitch a button into place on exterior
9
i-cord bind off and buttonholes of left front shoulder. Stitch a button into place
on right front, adjacent to front i-cord loop.
Unzip provisional cast-on edge at hem and Stitch a button into place on interior of right
carefully slip 286 sts to spare 100cm / 40in gauge- front shoulder. Fronts can cross over and fasten
size needle. With RS facing and moving sts around to the inside, or be worn open, fastening on
needle without knitting slip 143 sts from LH to the outside.
RH needle, pm for start of round. K143 sts across
back and right front, puk 3 sts out of every 4 rows Enjoy your Westering Home!
108
EXPLORATION
SPECIAL
TECHNIQUES
SWATCHING balance the pattern. On these charts, the UNITS OF MEASUREMENT
Producing a swatch (or two) may seem last few stitches of the row / round are I work in inches when designing and
time-consuming, but it is a crucial stage numbered separately, to highlight the grading. Measurements have then been
of knitting the designs in this book. stitch count of the partial repeat. converted to centimetres using a factor
Achieving the correct gauge is absolutely of 1in = 2.54cm. Inch measurements
essential and for your yoke to have the REPEATING INSTRUCTIONS have been rounded to the nearest ¼in
best fit, you need to ensure that you are Where a pattern tells you to repeat and centimetre measurements to the
knitting at the correct number of stitches from * to * a certain number more nearest 0.5cm.
to the inch or cm. Row or round gauge times, it means that you should work
(which determines the depth of the yoke the instruction once and then work it a PROVISIONAL CAST ON
and armscye) is as important as stitch further number of times as directed. There are many ways to cast on
gauge (which determines the width For example, this instruction:   provisionally. A straightforward method
of your knitting) so please check your *k4, k2tog* repeat from * to * a is to crochet a chain for the required
swatch particularly carefully and rework, further 3 times number of sts in a strong sock yarn, and
adjusting needle sizes as necessary. could also be written as:   then simply use the main yarn to pick up
When a pattern includes flat and k4, k2tog, k4, k2tog, k4, k2tog, k4, and knit the required number of stitches
circular knitting, is also important to k2tog. in the bumps on the back of the chain.
check that you match gauge between Some patterns have instructions given This method allows you to unzip and
both methods (otherwise you risk an ill- within round brackets and, following pick up the ‘live’ stitches at a garment’s
fitting sleeve). Where a pattern includes the brackets, will tell you the number of edge in order to finish it neatly after
stranded colourwork, it is important that times to work that instruction in total. knitting is complete.
it is worked at the same gauge as the For example, this instruction: But there are many excellent
plain stockinette sections. Some knitters (k3, k2tog) 3 times alternatives, such Åsa’s Winding Cast On
may need to use different needle sizes could also be written as: (also known as a Turkish cast on): http://
for the plain and colourwork sections k3, k2tog, k3, k2tog, k3, k2tog. asatricosa.com/winding-provisional-
of their garment in order to maintain Very occasionally, an instruction will cast-on/
the same gauge throughout. Detailed include brackets within brackets. When Other good provisional cast-on
swatching instructions are a feature of this occurs, repeat all instructions within methods are described in Elizabeth
several of these designs, and following the inner brackets first. Zimmermann’s Knitting Without Tears
these instructions will also allow you to For example, this instruction: (1995 edn) (Invisible Cast-on, p.20)
familiarise yourself with the techniques [p1, p2tog (p2, p2tog) 3 times] 4 times and June Hemmons-Hiatt’s Principles
and stitches the pattern involves. could also be written as: of Knitting (2012 edn) (Alternating
(p1, p2tog, p2, p2tog, p2, p2tog, p2, Provisional Cast-on, p.59-61). Feel free to
CHARTS p2tog) 4 times. use whichever method you prefer.
All charts are read from right to left on
RS rows / rounds, and left to right on YARN QUANTITIES STRANDED COLOURWORK
WS rows. Knit every stitch unless Yarn quantities have been calculated to Strand the yarn not in use loosely along
otherwise indicated. Some cardigans include an additional 10% for each size. the back of the work. If you are working
(Cockatoo Brae, Epistrophy, Foxglove, This 10% cushion allows for the creation two-handed, the ‘foreground’ yarn
Frost at Midnight) have yokes that end of a swatch or two, as well as for small will usually be in your left hand or, if
the row / round with a partial repeat to differences in gauge and skein length. you are working one-handed, be taken
109
SPECIAL TECHNIQUES
from below. If your tension is even, Turn, following instructions above. off), finish as follows: K1, k2tog tbl, slip 2
there should be no need to ‘catch’ or On purl side: sts to left needle, k2tog, pull yarn through.
‘weave’ your stitches, as is sometimes 1 Work up to the turning point or gap.
recommended. If you are having trouble 2 Slip the next stitch purlwise onto beading
maintaining an even tension, try turning your right needle. There are two general techniques
the work inside out. The knit side will 3 Insert your left needle into the loop for adding beads to knitted fabric –
still be facing you (allowing you to work of yarn that has the contrasting pre-stringing, or using a tiny crochet
from the right side as usual), but the thread running through it, lifting it hook. The crochet-hook technique
floats will be stretched around the work, up from the bottom. was used to add the beads to Frost at
easing up the tension. 4 Return slipped stitch to left needle. Midnight, but you should use whichever
5 Purl slipped stitch together with loop method you prefer.
CORRUGATED RIB (p2tog). If you are unfamiliar with beading, I
Also known as two-colour rib, this Turn, following instructions above. recommend watching these two tutorial
edging features on the Jökkul and videos in which both methods are
Buchanan designs. Work as for stranded PICK UP AND KNIT (PUK) outlined.
colourwork, purling the indicated sts With working yarn, pick up the required Pre-stringing
and stranding the yarn not in use loosely number of new stitches through the https://www.youtube.com/
along the back of the work. knitted fabric. That is, push needle watch?v=izVWM2QA75Q
through to the back of the work, pick up Crochet hook
SHORT ROWS a loop from the wrong side of the fabric, https://www.youtube.com/
I find that Carol Sunday’s short row and draw through to the right side to watch?v=3Nrgyqwg2Lw
method – described below – gives a neat create a new stitch.
and invisible finish, but of course use FINISHING YOUR KNITTING
a standard Wrap and Turn or another STRETCHY BIND-OFF grafting
method if you prefer it. A stretchy bind-off method should be These instructions are for grafting
used where a flexible edge is desirable, in stockinette (needed to close the
carol sunday’s short rows for example around ribbed necklines. underarms of all patterns).
To turn on both knit and purl sides: Instructions are given here for the sewn First, thread a tapestry needle with
1 Work to the turning point. bind-off, but do use the decrease bind- 60cm/24in length of working yarn.
2 Turn the work. off or any other method if you prefer. 1 Hold knitting needle tips parallel
3 Return working yarn to the front (knit to one another, with RS of work
side) or back (purl side) as if to work sewn bind-off outermost.
next stitch. 1 Break yarn, leaving a tail at least 3 2 Insert tapestry needle purlwise into
4 Place one piece of contrasting yarn times as long as the bound-off edge. first st on front needle. Pull yarn
across the working yarn, marking the Thread the tail of the yarn onto a through.
turning point. tapestry needle. 3 Insert tapestry needle knitwise into
5 Work the next stitch. 2 *Pass the tapestry needle purlwise the first st on back needle. Pull yarn
Continue to work along the row as through first two sts on left-hand through.
usual. The contrasting yarn will remain needle. Pass needle knitwise through 4 Insert tapestry needle knitwise into
as a placeholder. first st on left hand needle, pull to an first st on front needle, slipping st off
even tension and slip this stitch off needle.
To take in the next stitch, and add the knitting needle.* Repeat from * to 5 Insert tapestry needle purlwise into
another short row: * until all sts have been bound off. next st on front needle. Pull yarn
On knit side: through.
1 Work up to the turning point (you i-cord bind-off (also known 6 Insert tapestry needle purlwise into
will see a gap, and the contrasting as applied i-cord) first st on back needle, slipping st off
thread of yarn running through the Cast on 3 stitches using the cable cast on needle.
fabric underneath) method. *K2, k2tog tbl (the second of 7 Insert tapestry needle knitwise into
2 Insert left needle into the loop of these stitches will be a garment stitch). next st on back needle. Pull yarn
yarn that has the contrasting thread Slip 3 stitches from right needle to left through.
running through it. needle. Pull the working yarn across the Repeat steps 4-7 until all stitches have
3 Knit this loop together with the next back.* Repeat from * to *. At final 3 sts been grafted, ending with step 4 then
stitch (k2tog). (when all garment stitches have been cast step 6 only.
110
SPECIAL TECHNIQUES
steeks 1 Mark out the placing of your facings and fasteners

‘Steek’ is simply a Shetland word for buttonholes evenly on the band, I like to use ribbon or tape to strengthen
‘stitch’. In modern commercial knitting placing a pin in the first st of the the interiors of cardigan button bands.
patterns, (namely, those that have been buttonhole. Work rib in pattern as Such trims not only give a secure finish
produced over the past thirty years or est. to the garment, but can neatly cover
so) the word has changed its meaning, 2 When you reach the first marked st, raw steek edges. Select a ribbon a little
coming to to refer to the small bridge of Slip 2 sts from LH to RH needle; pass narrower in width than your button
‘waste’ stitches that are often included the first st over the second without band, trim back your steek edges (if
in a design to allow the garment to be working. required) and carefully pin the ribbon
cut open after knitting (comparable to a 3 Slip another st from LH to RH needle into place, turning in the ends. Use
seam allowance in sewing). and pass the first st over the second a very sharp sewing needle and fine,
In the Epistrophy, Foxglove, and 4 Repeat step 3. strong sewing thread in a matching
Cockatoo Brae designs, the steek bridge 5 Return st from RH to LH needle colour. The edges of ribbon or lining
enables you to knit the majority of 6 Cast on 2 sts over buttonhole gap trim are usually reinforced with a tiny
the garment swiftly and seamlessly in using backwards loop cast on hem or binding – use this binding as
the round. After knitting is complete, 7 Work in pattern to next marked st. a guide to place your stitches. After
the bridges are reinforced and simply 8 On the return row, when you pinning out the trim, secure the thread
cut down the centre, to create front encounter the 2 cast-on sts over each at one end. *Pass the needle through
openings onto which buttonbands buttonhole gap, work the first st in the binding for 2mm then, when it
are applied. pattern, then work into the front and emerges, catch a a thread or two of the
You can cut the bridge freehand back of the next st. 3 sts are now in knitted fabric just underneath the trim.*
if you like, but for peace of mind I place over buttonhole. Repeat from * to *. To finish, mark out
recommend reinforcing before cutting 9 Work in pattern for required number the position of your buttons and snap
using the crocheted method which you of rows before binding off. fasteners, and stitch neatly into place.
will find outlined in detail in my series of Feel free to use another method of
steek tutorials. Follow the links from making buttonholes, or omit the 3-needle bind off
www.katedaviesdesigns.com/tutorials buttonholes entirely and use the ribbon / For 3-needle bind off, follow this simple
fastener method instead. illustrated tutorial: http://www.knitty.
picking up stitches com/ISSUEfall06/FEATfall06TT.html
beside a steek bridge i-cord buttonhole
When picking up stitches for a button Stop working i-cord bind-off when you for general technical
band where a steek bridge has been arrive at marked buttonhole point (ie, reference
worked, you should ensure that none of retain 3 sts on RH needle) June Hemmons-Hiatt, Principles of
the bridge shows through on the right 1 Work plain i-cord on the 3 sts on RH Knitting (2012 edn).
side. To do this, simply pick up your needle for 3 rows (ie, k3, *slide sts to Margaret Radcliffe, The Knitting Answer
stitches in the space between the final end of needle, pull working yarn across Book (2006).
main pattern stitch and the first stitch of back, k3*, rep from * to * once more). Montse Stanley, The Knitters Handbook
the bridge. Your picked up stitches will 2 Retaining these 3 sts on RH needle, (2001 edn).
lie flush against the main pattern, and slip 2 sts from LH to RH needle. Elizabeth Zimmermann, Knitting Without
those of your bridge will be hidden away 3 Pass first st over second (bind off Tears (1995 edn).
at the back of the work. stitch 1).
4 Slip next stitch from LH to RH needle. GLOSSARY
buttonholes 5 Pass first over second (bind off stitch 2). Bind off UK: cast off
Buttonholes are an optional feature 6 Repeat steps 4 and 5 thus binding off Gauge UK: tension
on three cardigan designs (Epistrophy, st 3. Grafting UK: Kitchener stitch
Foxglove, Cockatoo Brae). All use a 7 Return remaining st, plus your 3 Stockinette UK: stocking stitch
buttonhole inserted over two or three sts i-cord sts, from RH to LH needle. Moss stitch US: seed stitch
on the rib of the right front band. 8 Continue to work i-cord bind off as est.
These instructions are for the 3-st Your 3 rows of i-cord will fit neatly and
buttonhole used in Epistrophy; simply bind seamlessly over the buttonhole ‘gap’
off / cast on 1 st less for the 2-st buttonhole created by the three bound-off stitches.
used in Foxglove and Cockatoo Brae.
111
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
research for style, an impressive eye for detail and, when faced with a
More than any other project I’ve worked on, this book has particularly tricksy element of pattern writing, always has an
benefitted from generous collaboration. From Kerstin Olsson, elegant solution to hand. Jen, meanwhile, is the mechanism
who shared her time and thoughts with me in Göteborg, to behind the clock-face of this project: her precise and accurate
Dianna Walla, whose translations allowed me to unlock a vital actions ensure everything works just as it should.
piece of my yoke puzzle. I am indebted to the many people
Felicity Ford: Illustration
who have supported my research.
The multi-talented Felix is responsible for the joyous pencil
At the Shetland Museum Carol Christiansen, Jenny Murray,
illustrations that preface each design.
Laurie Goodlad
At the Röhsska Museum Love Jöhnsson and Susanna Ella Gordon: Knitter and design consultant
Stenbäcken Ella is a fount of knowledge about Shetland knitting in general
At the Bohusläns Museum Anna-Lena Sengstrom Macfie and and yokes in particular; she assisted me in the archives; shared
Ann-Marie Brockman items from her collection; and helped at every stage of creating
Conversations Ragnheiður Eiríksdóttir, Julia Farwell-Clay, Ella the Cockatoo Brae design.
Gordon, Elaine Henry, Elizabeth Johnston, Hélène Magnússon, Bruce: Canine companion
Sandra Manson, Kerstin Olsson, Louise Scollay, Judy Selfe, Whether happily photobombing a garment shoot, or joining me
Donna Smith, Meg Swansen, Hazel Tindall and Dianna Walla. on my daily head-clearing walks, Bruce is indispensable.
Photographs and permissions: Julia Farwell-Clay, Ella Gordon,
Hulda Hákonardóttir, Malik Milfeldt, Kerstin Olsson, Louise where to find me
Scollay, Anna-Lena Sengstrom Macfie and Meg Swansen. If you’d like to see what I’m up to, you can read my blog
Thanks to the many other knitters who took the time to write at www.katedaviesdesigns.com or find me on twitter
to me of their experiences and feelings about yokes, who left a (@KDaviesdesigns) or instagram (@katedaviesdesigns). If you
comment on my blog and whose words are quoted here. You have a question about my patterns, you may wish to check my
have often lent this project reflection and direction. Ravelry group www.ravelry.com/groups/kate-davies-love,
where you will find informed discussions and helpful knitting
yarn support comrades, happy to share their expertise. If you find an error in
Thanks to the following lovely companies for yarn support for
this book, or have a pattern query to which you cannot find an
the designs in this book: Artesano, Fyberspates, Jamieson &
answer, please contact me at yokes@katedaviesdesigns.com
Smith, Old Maiden Aunt, Rowan, TOFT.
YOKE FOLK YOKES

First published in 2014 by Kate Davies Designs, Ltd,
Kate Davies: Author and designer 17-19 East London Street, Edinburgh, EH7 4BN, UK.
That’s me. I am also the model for eight of these designs. © Copyright Kate Davies Designs Ltd 2014
Tom Barr: Photographer
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Tom is my amazing partner, sharing all aspects of my life,
The entire contents of this book and the patterns therein are
including my deep love of the Scottish landscape. He is
subject to copyright. The purchase of this book allows you to
responsible for the beautiful garment photography in this book.
use it for personal, non-commercial purposes. Items produced
Melanie Ireland: Design consultant and test knitter using the directions in this book are not licensed to be sold for
Mel is a wonderful friend who always helps me keep my focus profit.
and at every stage of this project her advice and input has been No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
invaluable. She is also the model for three designs: Fintry, Frost system or transmitted in any form or by any means without
at Midnight and Jökkul. prior written permission from the publisher.
Nic Blackmore: Book design and production Printed by Williams Press, Berkshire, UK
Nic’s talent is what brings this book to life. She has an incredible
knack for knowing exactly how things should look and feel and, British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:
though she thinks she’s indecisive, she is, in fact, always right. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library. ISBN-978-0-9574666-1-6
Jen Arnall-Culliford and Rachel Atkinson: Editors
This is a large project, which has really benefitted from the
distinctive skills of its two editors. Rachel has a genuine feel
112
ABBREVIATIONS
CC(1, 2, 3) contrast colour (1, 2, 3)
cdd centred double decrease: slip 2 sts
together as if to knit, k1, pass 2 slipped
sts over (2 sts decreased)
cm centimetres
dec decrease(d)/decreasing
edn edition
est established
g grams
in inches
inc increase(d)/increasing
incl including
k knit
k1(2)tbl knit 1 (2) st(s) through the back loop(s)
(to twist)
k2CC(1, 2, 3) knit 2 sts using contrast colour (1, 2, 3)
k2tog knit next 2 sts together (1 st decreased)
LH left-hand
lld left-leaning decrease: slip 2 sts knitwise
and insert LH needle as if to ssk. Remove
RH needle and p2togtbl
m metres
m1 lift bar between sts from front to back
and knit through the back of this loop (1
stitch increased)
ABOUT KATE m1p increase as m1, purling through the
I grew up in Rochdale, in the north west of England, and back loop
was a historian and writer before I was a designer. I have a MC main colour
doctorate in Eighteenth Century studies, and have written mm millimetres
books and articles on a wide variety of subjects from the p purl
American Revolution to the history of lace.
p2MC purl 2 sts using main colour
It was my research that brought me to knitting and design
while working with a group of women’s letters in a library in p2CC purl 2 sts using contrast colour
Philadelphia. Needlework is sometimes regarded as an agent pm(x)(y) place marker (x) (y)
of women’s oppression, but I was very struck by how textiles puk pick up and knit
enriched these women’s lives, bringing them together as a rep repeat
group of friends. I remembered that I could knit, popped out
RH right hand
to Rosie’s Yarn Cellar, purchased materials, and discovered
that I couldn’t stop. From the moment I took up my needles, RS right side
I found it immensely enabling to design garments and sl slip a stitch purlwise (unless otherwise
accessories that didn’t exist in the world of mainstream noted)
fashion, and I particularly liked making things that connected slm(x)(y) slip marker (x) (y)
me to the places and landscapes that I loved. ssk slip 2 sts consecutively knitwise, knit 2
Like those eighteenth-century women whose letters I was slipped sts together tbl
reading, creating textiles enriched my life tremendously, st(s) stitch(es)
opening paths of inspiration and connections with people,
tbl through the back loop
that I would never have otherwise discovered. Today I live
in the best of both worlds, on the edge of the Scottish WS wrong side
Highlands, combining research and writing with hand- yds yards
knitting and design. yo yarn over (1 st increased)
EXPLORATION
In this exciting new book, writer and
designer Kate Davies unravels the tale of one
of the Twentieth Century’s most distinctive
sweater styles – the circular yoke.
From Shetland and Iceland, to Canada and
Sweden, Kate’s essays and conversations
take you on a journey around the North
Atlantic, exploring the yoke’s intriguing
and often surprising regional narratives.
A garment with unexpected national
and political resonances; an important
marker of personal and cultural identity;
a fashionable barometer of trends and
technical transformations from the 1920s to
today, yokes have connected the lives and
livelihoods of many different women. In this
book you’ll hear the voices of those women,
from designers to artists, from knitters to
entrepreneurs. You will read about Elizabeth
Zimmermann’s seamless innovations, learn
more of Kerstin Olsson’s knitterly aesthetics
and discover the fascinating influence of the
Greenlandic nuilarmiut.
The essays and conversations are
accompanied by a collection of eleven
signature yoke patterns. Featuring a wide
range of design elements from colourwork
and cables to beads and texture, Kate has
created a yoke for every knitter.
So take up your needles, open up this book
and discover the story of the sweater that
changed the shape of modern knitting.
rrp uk £19.99

14 Yokes

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

14 Yokes

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

14 Yokes

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

What is the book about?

What is the book about?

What does the author explore in the book?

What does the author explore in the book?

kate davies knits

kate davies knits

first published in 2014 by

16 Kerstin Olsson and the Bohus yoke

28 Perspectives on the Lopapeysa

34 AMegconversation with Meg Swansen

43 Before you begin

109 Special techniques

112 Acknowledgments and biography

60 Fintry 78 Foxglove 96 Frost at Midnight

66 Buchanan 85 Cockatoo Brae 102 Westering Home

KEITH MOON FROST AT MIDNIGHT

countless pattern books and magazines, the yoke has always

an economy of yokes photos and credits

beaded collar. The collar is relatively short and at this point

long-established Norwegian methods of circular knitting and

newly-acquired kamik and nuilarmiut Dale’s Eskimo genser, like several of

notes photos and credits

All aspects of the process of creating Bohus hand-knits involve

the blå skimmer

In these endeavours Emma had some success. For example,

World War.2 Such motifs might be vertically incorporated into

“My Gran hand-knitted yokes onto machine-knit bodies to

By the mid-1960s, when the local press reported that knitting

1 wires = needles; cloos = small balls of wool; loops = stitches

author’s note image list and credits

colours seemed reminiscent to many Icelanders of the past

KD I’m interested in your first ‘encounter’ with the lopi yoked

contemporary fabrics. It is warm, breathable, light, water-

KD Can you tell me about this shift in popularity in Iceland? Was

KD Iceland has witnessed many changes, both economic and

After the financial crisis, knitting generally became

KD …so what role does the lopapeysa play in Icelandic

KD In your book, Icelandic Handknits you describe the

Affection are certainly recognisable as ‘Icelandic’ yokes, they author’s note

One of the very first yoke sweaters I knitted during

KD The ‘translation’ of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s 1956 iconic

KD By the late 1950s, Elizabeth Zimmermann was developing

KD I know that the Bohus designs were especially admired by

KD The thing I probably enjoy most about a bottom-up seamless

As for my mum’s impact on ‘knitters around the world’

photos and credits

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

SIZES SIZING TABLE

With 80-100cm / 32-40in gauge-size circular

CC1: SHADE 9736 1 1 1

NEEDLES & NOTIONS Working back and forth in rows, continue

Right hand opening: With gauge-size needle

Left hand opening: Work as for right hand opening,

Unzip provisional cast on, remove waste yarn,

Epistrophy is the title of a Be Bop ‘standard’ composed DESIGN NOTES

MC: silver/light grey 4 4 5 5 5 6 6 6 7 7

CC: steel/dark grey 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

NEEDLES & NOTIONS

With 60-80cm / 24-30in below-gauge-size needle

ALL sizes: Knit 1 round, removing y markers as

SIZES  SIZING TABLE

DESIGN NOTES SIZES 

ALL sizes: Work final set of short rows as follows: 

YARN SPECIAL TECHNIQUES 

preparatory yoke shaping 

k1, k2tog, rep from to * a further 3 times, k to