Peerie band knitting chart

About this design

Peerie means small in Shetland dialect, and peerie bands are the narrow patterns that sit between the larger motifs on traditional Fair Isle garments. This one is a chain of very small diamonds in Y35 Navy, each with a single cream stitch at its centre, on a ground of Y02 Cream. With only three patterned rounds between two plain ones, it is the band most knitters learn stranded colourwork on, and it is just as useful later for dividing up bigger charts.

Knitting the band

The floats are as short as stranded knitting gets: no colour is ever carried past more than two stitches, so you will not need to trap anything and the fabric stays flexible. That makes it ideal for getting used to holding two colours, one in each hand or both over one finger. The motif repeats every 3 stitches, which is also why the chart is so easy to memorise: after the first few stitches of each round you will be reading your knitting rather than the chart. Keep the navy as the dominant colour, held consistently below the cream, so the diamonds look crisp.

Sizing and uses

At 20 stitches and 28 rows per 10 cm, the 48-stitch chart is 24 cm wide and the five rows are about 1.8 cm tall. Because the repeat is so small, almost any stitch count that is a multiple of 3 works: 45 stitches (about 22 cm) for an adult mitten, 90 or 96 for an adult hat, 120 or more for a yoke. Knit it above a hat brim, around a sock cuff, or between two larger bands as a spacer.

Colour plan

Cream does the most work, 73% of the 240 stitches, followed by Navy at 27%. Every colour is used at least 64 times, so there are no tiny one-off details to hunt for. Every square of the grid is filled.

Working notes

The longest float is 2 stitches, so no float needs catching. Every row uses at most two colours, so it can all be worked as stranded colourwork.