TRADITIONAL knitting is alive and well on Fair Isle, the most remote inhabited spot in the UK.
Thanks to Mati Ventrillion, the intricate patterns made famous by the Prince of Wales in the 1920s are still being produced on the island.
Her name is a clue that Mati is not a Fair Islander born and bred. She grew up in Venezuela with French parents and was an architect in London before giving it all up to move north.
“I didn’t even know Fair Isle existed,” Mati recalled. It was 2006 and she was at home with a new baby when her partner came home from work in a lather. The National Trust for Scotland were advertising for a family to come and live on the island and he was all set to sign up.
The first time they saw Fair Isle was in December, when they arrived by ferry on a dark rainy night. Mati said: “We reckoned that if we survived that and still liked it, we could make it.”
They were camping on another speck on the map, Gavdos on the southern tip of Greece, when word finally came through that they had a flat on Fair Isle. No one was more surprised than Mati.
She said: “We were completing the application form. Do you have any links to the island? No. Any family there? No. Have you ever visited? No. Any experience in crofting? No. We thought, ‘This is hopeless.’”
Now, 10 years on, Mati is as much a part of Fair Isle as the shaggy Shetland cows and treeless vistas.
She’s one of the islanders featured in a two-part BBC documentary, Fair Isle: Living on the Edge. It shows her as a crofter and firefighter as well as the creator of amazing jumpers.
When there are just 55 people living on a rocky outcrop, having one job is not an option. Mati keeps 50-odd sheep, six hens and grows her own broccoli, carrots, cabbage and onions.
She trains once a week with the other reserve firefighters to make sure the island can keep this lifeline service.
In what’s left of her time, she makes such beautiful jumpers that Karl Lagerfeld used some of her designs for a recent Chanel runway show.
Mati sold Chanel researchers some of her work for “research”, on the understanding they would not copy the patterns. When knits almost identical to hers appeared in a Chanel show, Mati called Lagerfeld out on Twitter.
They have now made up and the sweaters are credited as Mati’s designs.
She sees no contradictions between the different elements of her life.
Mati said: “In a small community, things that need to be done. We need a minimum of six people at the fire station and four to attend an incident.
When you have small numbers that can drop very quickly. Then we don’t have a fire station, we don’t have a fire truck, we risk not having planes landing on the island or having a way to attend an incident.”
She has learned all the skills for her new life on the island.
Mati added: “When we arrived on the croft, I had never grown food. The people here taught me – use this, plant that etc.”
She had never used a knitting machine or cast on anything more complicated than a baby’s hat before the move north. But over the years, the island’s expert knitters passed on everything she needed to know.
She joined the island’s knitting co-operative and spent the first year “finishing” – putting the different pieces together. Next, she began training on the machines.
Mati said: “I wasn’t being creative, just learning techniques, understanding the patterns and the colours. I researched the island, the lifestyle, the history of the knitting, questioned social
historians and looked at Shetland archives. I got so immersed in the history of the island, how people lived in the 19th century and how this garment became so popular.
“I looked at museum pieces, garments that were knitted on the island, how the colours were put together, how the patterns worked. I fell completely in love.”
When the co-operative folded in 2011, Mati decided to carry on alone.
She said: “I had six little patterns and had to borrow a colour combination from one of the knitters as I didn’t have enough of my own. Within a week, I had a few orders. That’s when I realised I really wanted to do this.”
Mati’s 12-year-old son is at high school in Lerwick and travels back to Fair Isle once every three weeks.
Her eight-year-old daughter shares the primary school with three other girls. There is a sole tot in the island’s nursery.
Mati added: “It’s a beautiful place to live, so safeguarded. Our children are free. They are looked after by the community and have the freedom to pick up their bikes and go round to see their friends and spend whole afternoons outdoors. It’s a beautiful way of growing up.
“My daughter had no idea about shops or shopping malls until she was four. If someone gave her a gift, she’d ask, ‘Who made this for me?’”
The island has given Mati a sense of belonging she never had before.
She explained: “I never felt at home in Venezuela. I’ve lived other places and worked in London. I love travelling and adapt really easily but I never had the feeling of home.
“Here in Fair Isle, with my family and my second child, it felt like home and it still does. I enjoy going back to London and seeing friends and I visit my brothers in Canada but I love my little island and want to stay there.
“After a week or so away, I need home. It’s something I never experienced before, being homesick. I want my quietness back, the peaceful environment of the island, the animals. It is something really special.”
- The first episode of Fair Isle: Living on the Edge will be on BBC One on Monday night at 9pm.
