This adorable collection of items arrived all the way from Cordova, Alaska, sent by the lovely Dotty Widmann from The Net Loft. Earlier this year in June/July 2016 The Net Loft hosted a fibre festival called "Fisher Folk".
I designed a fair isle style fish pattern for use with yarn made from the one Shetland sheep they have in the town. Dotty produced a knitting kit to go with the pattern and these were given to each of the 100 participants at the festival. As there was a very limited supply of the yarn I was delighted to receive a sample kit (and lots of other goodies) in the post recently.
Inspiration for the fish motif came from patterns used on fishermen sweaters. In particular those from the Moray Firth Gansey Project in Scotland. There was to be exhibition of these sweaters on loan to the festival in Cordova and I thought it would be appropriate to include a net style motif from the Scottish Ganseys. The fish knitting pattern is called Catch of the Day and is available now on Ravelry.
I was not able to attend the event, but if you'd like to read more about it, there are two very interesting blog posts by The Net Loft and the Fringe Association which include images from the festival and interviews with participants.
