Knitters and crafters had been anticipating Channel 4’s new craft show Game of Wool for some time. Knitting, so long the poor relation of the textile crafts, was finally to take centre stage on primetime television.
Hosted by former Olympic diver and knitting convert Tom Daley, the show draws on the creative and technical skills of Di Gilpin and Shelia Greenwell – two of Scotland’s most high-profile hand-knitting specialists as judges. Game of Wool was set to join the BBC’s Great British Sewing Bee as a window onto the skills of amateur makers.
Yet, shortly after the first episode aired, the show found itself at the centre of a right old stooshie (a good Scottish word for a row). Advocates of Fair Isle knitting – the two-coloured stranded knitting technique and style with its origins in the eponymous island in Shetland – made their feelings known about the competitors’ first task: to knit a Fair Isle tank top in just 12 hours.
