Go Ahead and Color Your Fair Isle Chart

When I’d made it through the first 44-row repeat of Jade Starmore’s Glenesk pullover, aka My Constant Companion, I started to look forward to a conference call with uncommon enthusiasm. Keep talking, everybody! I’m busting on this thing.

After that first repeat, my chart arrived at its optimum level of usefulness. It looked like a coloring book for knitters.

The colors look plenty distinct when seen up close. It’s from a distance that they start to play tricks.

Jade Starmore created this stitch pattern after seeing a half-sunk shipwreck along the coast of the Isle of Lewis. She writes, “On Gress Beach there is an intriguing remnant of a small ship that shows the unusual beauty of something man-made being claimed by nature over a long period of time. All that remains of the good ship Glenesk are the boiler and the ribs of the hull, which protrude through the sand to a greater or lesser extent, according to wind and tide. The boiler is obviously made of stern stuff, and is now home to limpets and barnacles, while the sand worms like to make their homes in its shade.”

So: the ribs of a ship, and seaweed, and stormy skies. I get it. Anchors and waves and all sorts of stuff.