My mother, also known as Granny to her grandchildren and GG to her great-grandchildren, had a school friend whose mum was from Shetland. Many years ago, Granny’s friend gave her a pair of fairisle fingerless mitts of unknown provenance, which are now wearing out. We think they were knitted in Shetland by a contract knitter working without a pattern. There are some interesting mistakes in one of the gloves and they are not quite identical in shape, although they are perfectly lovely.
I have tried to reproduce these mitts without the mistakes, using Uradale organic pure Shetland wool in six natural colours.
I could not exactly reproduce the colours of my mother’s mitts, but this was not far off.
You don’t have to stick to my colours; essentially I have used 3 pale shades and 3 dark shades but you could use just two shades or make a colourful version. As a cheat, you could use a variegated yarn for the pattern with a solid colour for the background. Just ensure that all the colours in the variegated yarn will contrast with the background yarn.

The mitts are knitted in the round from the bottom up, with a ribbed cuff and an afterthought thumb. The palm and back of the hand are knitted in stranded colourwork making a cosy glove for gardening or winter camping. You could also knit as you walk along like the knitters did of old, as your fingers are still available.
However, if you really don’t want your fingers to be available, I have also included instructions for full-fingered gloves.

Techniques include casting on, binding off, simple increases and decreases, stranded colourwork on small circumferences, picking up stitches from an afterthought marker. Gloves can be fiddly but are a good introduction to stranded colourwork as they don’t use much yarn and are quite quick to make, and as long as your gauge is not massively inaccurate they can fit a variety of hands.