Blending Colors In Fair Isle With Tracey Doxey | Fiberchats, Episode: 254

Tracey Doxey – Fiberchats – 4th October 2023

Hi, my name is Tracey Doxey and knitting and designing Fair Isle designs in the round inspired by true stories of Shetland, as well as travel and writing are my passions. I grew up in the 1960’s to a British working-class family, in Derbyshire and was encouraged to get to work as soon as possible, so I never went to college after leaving school, at 16.

As a child, I always made things with paper or fabric or tinfoil and taught myself to knit from the age of about 10, building up self-taught skills until I bought a 2nd hand knitmaster knitting machine when I was 16 with my wages and started creating crazy mis matched pullovers in the 1980’s using Woolworths nylon wool. In the mid 1980’s, I found Patricia Roberts’ designs and began to knit extremely intricate patterns using her own brand of Shetland wool. I had kids in my early 20’s and knitted for them and for family for many years, then I went back to education in my 30’s to do a Fine Art Degree from 1995 -1998 after doing a BTEC in Fine Art.

Much later, in 2016, I went back to uni again, to do an MA in Knitting at NTU where I followed my passion to develop computer aided Shetland lace patterns which I knitted into large panels and took them back to Shetland and placed them in the abandoned derelict croft house windows or doorways to create site specific art, as a testament to the long-gone knitters.

I went back and forth to Shetland for 5 years from my first visit to wool week in 2015, then Up Helly Aa Fire festival in Lerwick, in 2016, before a 1 month residency in Scalloway, 2017, then more trips until a 2 month internship on Fair Isle with Mati Ventrillon in 2019.

In march 2020, I saw the most astonishing croft house for sale in Levenwick on the east side of Shetland and bought it. I moved 1,000 miles, lock stock and two cats across land and sea to move into that fabulous old house, but, for a number of reasons, I left 14 months later. Whilst in Shetland, I wrote a book about my Shetland life, the natural elements and my knitting. I had an agent but no publisher, so now, my book, is being released in instalments on Patreon here   / tracey_doxey  



I knit, cycle and swim every day – not all at the same time but I do walk and knit. I absolutely love colour work knitting in Fair Isle designs.

For the past 4 years, I have designed Fair Isle / Shetland knitting patterns – they are here.

https://www.ravelry.com/designers/tra...

I am giving away 20% discount on all knitting patterns on ravelry for the next 48 hours after the fiberchat– here https://www.ravelry.com/designers/tra... with the code Fiberchats



If you want to find out about my knitting life, please go to my website at https://traceydoxey.com

where you will also find new dates and information on up and coming two-hour, zoom colour blending workshops for Stranded knitting.



mostly, I post on Instagram @traceydoxey