Rani: where was home then, and where is home now?
Looking through childhood photographs triggered an examination of what the word home means.
I am a knitwear designer living in the Shetland Islands, but my life began in Canada in a multicultural neighbourhood—with two immigrant parents.
Using my own deconstructed version of Fair Isle pattern, my family history is knitted together with my life now; the Rani collection brings the past into the present via knitwear.
Nielanell
Shetland Islands, Scotland
Old family photographs, and with them my family history and first home, have been knitted into contemporary Shetland knitwear using my deconstructed Fair Isle patterning.
The name of this collection, Rani, was the name of our first dog and is the Hindi word for Queen. It represents the migrants shifting view of home—my father was Indian and his family were caught up in the migration and bloodshed caused by Indian Partition.
The Rani pieces are knitted in Shetland by the skilled artisans for which the islands are world-renowned.
Different pieces in the collection use different areas of the overall design—which also uses sections of Shetland lace as a further layer of motif.
Working with some of my old photographs, I began to arrange the dots that make up a photo into knit stitches. Two colours make up the Rani pattern of knit to form a contemporary, deconstructed Fair Isle pattern.
This photo shows a wee me, growing up in Canada as the daughter of two immigrants—a Scottish mother and an Indian father. A photograph is made up of dots, in this case the dots are black and white. In Fair Isle knitting (one of the styles of knitting for which Shetland is world-famous) each row of the distinctive patterning is made up of dots (stitches) in two colours.