A guild friend mentioned knitting a Faroese Shawl as a knit along, which inspired me to begin to knit one, too. I had taken 2 classes in the past on knitting a Faroese doll-sized shawl, but never had the time to knit a full-sized shawl.
Faroese Shawl Traditional Characteristics
The Faroese shawl has a number of traditional characteristics. It is knit from the bottom up--in other words, there are hundreds of stitches cast on to begin the shawl. The shawl is decreased bit by bit until there are few remaining stitches to cast off or to graft together. The shawl is traditionally knit in garter stitch. This makes the shawl reversible. Some shawls are lined. Many are fringed. Some shawls are more than one color.
The shawl has a Center Gusset. This helps provide the wonderful support of the shawl to help it stay on the shoulders. The center gusset is a rectangular shape which is wider at the lower edge. On each right side row, a decrease is knit next to each edge of the gusset, and in addition, some rows have decreases inside the gusset for additional shaping.
Shoulder decreases rows toward the upper part of the shawl also provide shaping to help keep the shawl on the shoulders.
The shawl has a garter stitch border. Decreases are worked on right side rows next to the border on each side of the shawl.
Faroese shawls often have a lovely lace border. Some shawls continue the lace pattern into the center gusset. The Faroese lace pattern graphs show only the Yarn Overs, which they call Eyelets. Each eyelet is marked with an X. You have to decide which decreases to use in the lace graph.
The shawl I'll be knitting is from the book, "215 Shawl Designs," by Olivia Joensen. This book was originally published in 1980 and has recently been republished. It includes an English translation. It is available from The Island Wool Company online.
This book contains 250 lace charts and also a shawl graph and instructions for knitting a basic Faroese Shawl.
There are many good sources for Faroese Shawl patterns. Marilyn Van Keppel wrote a translation of a book of Faroese Shawls into English, available at Schoolhouse Press online. They call it the Faroe Shawl book because the name isn't easy to pronounce. The first class I took about Faroe Island shawls was taught by Marilyn Van Keppel around 2001 in Columbia, MO. It was a wonderfully informative class.
Cheryl Oberle has some beautiful Faroese shawls in her wonderful shawl book, "Folk Shawls: 25 Knitting Patterns and Tales from Around the World." The 2nd class I took on Faroese shawls was taught by Cheryl Oberle at the Wis. Sheep and Wool Festival, which was also a wonderful class.
A beautiful Faroese shawl pattern is available in the book, "Nordic Knitting: 31 Patterns in the Scandinavian Tradition," by Susanne Pagoldh. It is a traditional Faroe Island shawl from the Faroe Islands, and the instructions are a bit sparse. There are some beautiful Faroese shawl patterns in the books, "A Gathering of Lace" and "Shawls and Scarves: The Best of Knitter's Magazine." There are also lots of other Faroese Shawls and patterns that you can find on Ravelry.com.
This is a beautiful traditional shawl, and I'm sure it will be fun to knit.
