Alice Starmore

Alice Starmore (née Matheson) was raised in a traditional, Gaelic-speaking Scottish fishing village. She began knitting as a child, studying the folk knitting traditions of her native Scotland. Starmore later expanded her textile studies, traveling in Scandinavia in the late 1970s on a Winston Churchill Fellowship.

Broadly recognized as one of the world's authorities on Fair Isle and other folk knitting traditions, Starmore founded Windfall Press in 1991. Windfall produces knitting patterns and instructional manuals as well as a large number of Scottish Gaelic titles.

Starmore expanded her career beyond knitting in the 1990s, focusing on fine art and photography. She held her first major solo exhibition in 2008 on the Isle of Lewis.