Fair Isle February, Part 2!

Hello Everyone! Part 2 of Fair Isle February is on! I thoroughly enjoyed knitting our beginning and advanced hats and cowl kit. The cowl kit is a perfect project if you are new to colorwork. The pattern only has a four stitch change and uses only two colors. The chevron design is classic and trendy at the same time.  The Patons Chevron Cowl pattern is from Yarnspirations.com and has three versions for different weight yarns. I knitted Version C with chunky yarn, using Cascade Yarns Pacific Chunky and Tivoli. Since I live in New England, the chunky yarn version works well with the winter season. Of course, New England is known for its ever-changing weather, so I look forward to working up the other two versions with lighter weight yarns since we went from over three feet of snow to temps in the high 60s in a matter of a week’s time. The cowl kit is great for getting down the Scandinavian knitting technique. A great tutorial can be found at one of my favorite websites, knit purlhunter.com at Two Handed Two Color Knitting, http://knitpurlhunter.com/blog/?p=212. So now that you are using two yarns, how do you keep yarn so you don’t get a tangled mess? There are various ways to avoid tangles. You can separate the yarn on either side of the project or leave one skein/ball out with one in your knitting bag. Find what works for you and don’t get frustrated if there is a tangle or two. It does happen, even with the best of planning. I use the tried and true (for me) plastic food storage bags method. Linda’s Dad (my patient Husband) thinks I must have stock in Ziploc! The cowl kit gets you in the mindset for stranded knitting and prepares you for out beginning and advanced hat projects. And, as a bonus, the cowl kit knits up quickly so you can experiment with other yarn weights. Linda told me that one of our Knitters used a solid and a variegated yarn for her cowl. The versatility is endless!

Here is my warm and thick dark charcoal and red tweed cowl.

Onto the Quick Ombré Hat, pattern by Emily Dormier.

This is a fantastic project for advancing your colorwork skills. This hat can be from light to dark or dark to light. It’s really up to you. I chose to do light to dark. My colors are a beautiful camel with a grey tweed. Not only does this hat live up to its billing, it does knit up quickly, it also has the added benefit of teaching you how to position your yarn so one of the colors is dominant. I changed the positioning to have the dark color be dominant in the bottom lighter part of the hat and the lighter color dominant in the darker part of the hat. Again, knitpurlhunter .com has a very good video that explains how to position your yarn for the desired effect. Check out Stranded Knitting – Positioning the Yarns, http://knitpurlhunter.com/blog/?p=1675. One of my Sisters (I have four!) fell in love with my finished Ombré hat. So, of course, I gave it to her. And that’s another thing about knitting. It gives you a certain degree of satisfaction when someone, especially someone you love, appreciates your creation. Here’s my Quick Ombré Hat. I do love this color combination. I wonder if I can get it back from my Sister??? Did I tell you that this Sister is a Twin? Well, when my other Sister saw her Twin's hat, she had to have one. It had to be a the same, but different (a Twin thing, I'm told). So, I quickly knit a second hat using the original pattern with a definite yarn departure by using stash Noro and alpaca. 

Here they are!

And now, onto the advanced hat, the incredible Norwegian Snowflake Hat by JackFrost on Ravelry. This hat is based on traditional snowflake design, inspired by a holiday there. The hat is worked in the round, carrying unused yarn behind. There are not long floats, but you will have to catch your floats so your hat looks as break taking on the inside as it does on the outside. Although the pattern calls for double point needles, I always use my circular needles and Magic Loop. I knit with interchangeable circular needles and I change my cord to accommodate the decreases in the crown. It works very well for me and it may for you, too. There are multiple colors for this hat, four in all, dark grey for the body, white for the snowflake, and dark red and dark blue for the border. Your kit contains the four colors and you will have the opportunity to keep the yarns separated, position your yarns and carrying unused yarn up the side, and capturing floats. If you don't want to carry the border yarns up the side, you may cut the yarn and join again when you reach the crown of the hat. When I knit this hat, I broke out my stitch markers. Of course, any excuse to use my stitch markers is always welcomed. I also use a Post-It to keep track of what line of the chart I am on. In this pattern's case, I put a Post-It above and below the line I am working. I use this method after many mistakes when I first learned colorwork.  Use whatever works for you in keeping track of your rows. This is especially important when following a pattern with a motif. 

Carrying your yarn up the side of your hat can be tricky. There is another great video fro knitpurlhunter.com where you can see how to carry your yarn without tugging or bulk. It is suggested the carry is done every four rows.  

Carrying Yarn Up the Side http://knitpurlhunter.com/blog/?p=1306.

Another great tip on this website is how to carry floats. And yes, it depends on the direction of the yarn. I found this video particularly helpful and I hope you do as well.

Stranded Knitting – Catching Long Floats http://knitpurlhunter.com/blog/?p=1678.

I loved working on this hat and it felt like I was creating a piece of art. Explore other color work motif designs. You will find endless enjoyment to challenge your new advanced skills! 

Here is my Norwegian Snowflake Hat. 

Inside view

I hope you enjoyed Fair Isle February as much as I did. Please check our Facebook and Twitter Pages for our March projects. See you next month for our own version of March Madness!!

Knit on! Lisa

Fair Isle February!

Hello Everyone! It’s Fair Isle February! Please see our newsletter for beginning and advanced hats and cowl kit.  The projects will take your knitting skills to new levels as you learn how to master Colorwork. When I first learned Colorwork, I was introduced to its history prior to picking up needles and yarn. The history is very rich and detailed and the following information provides an interesting background for this wonderful knitting techniques.  So what is Fair Isle Knitting? According to Wikipedia, Fair Isle is a traditional knitting technique used to create patterns with multiple colors. It is named after Fair Isle, a tiny island in the north of Scotland, that forms part of the Shetland Islands. Fair Isle knitting gained a considerable popularity when the Prince of Wales (later to become Edward VIII) wore Fair Isle tank tops in public in 1921. Traditional Fair Isle patterns have a limited palette of five or so colors, use only two colors per row, are worked in the round, and limit the length of a run of any particular color.

HRH Edward, Prince of Wales in a Fair Isle pullover

According to Wikipedia, Norwegian knitting has a long history starting from about the 1600s, where it has been speculated that it was adopted by knitters traveling there from Denmark. Knitted garments found in Norway have been dated as far back as the 1500s. The heritage of Norwegian knitting has been preserved, documented and translated into English language history and pattern books that are available to modern knitters, mostly notably by Annemor Sundbo. Some of the most well known sweater patterns attributed to Norwegian colorwork knitting are the setesdal lusekofte and fana cardigan sweater patterns. The region is also well known for their "Selbu" mittens, which first appeared as a vertical column of two snowflakes on the front side of the mittens, and which remains the pattern motif (selburose) most closely associated with the region. The origin of these mittens is attributed to a young girl named Marit Emstad who in 1857 attended church wearing what we now know as Selbu mittens, effectively sparking the imagination of knitters at the time who had never seen anything like it before. Today there are over 300 "registered" mitten patterns attributed to the Selbu region of Norway.

The selburose design.

^{An excellent resource is the following book from the Dummies website at http://www.dummies.com/crafts/knitting/designs-patterns/knitting-stranded-colorwork-explained/}

KNITTING: STRANDED COLORWORK EXPLAINED

Teach Yourself VISUALLY Color Knitting

By Mary Scott Huff:

"The secret behind knitting the beautiful designs in stranded colorwork is in the stranding. Using two strands of yarn at a time enables the knitter to create designs, or motifs, in the knitted fabric. It also creates fabrics that are warmer and more durable than single-color knitting. The vast majority of stranded colorwork uses only two colors in each row, and only one strand is used at a time. Here are some examples:

Fair Isle: Made famous by knitwear from Fair Isle, one of the islands of Scotland, the Fair Isle technique is one form of stranded colorwork. Fair Isle is typified by its use of symmetrical geometric motifs, two-ply Shetland yarn, and muted, sophisticated colors.

Scandinavian: Stranded colorwork originating in Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland) is very different from Fair Isle, though the knitting techniques are similar. Scandinavian colorwork is distinctive in its large, often asymmetrical motifs, three-ply yarn construction, and bright, clear colors."

Another detailed source of the history of the related knitting styles can be found at Beth Brown-Reinsel Knitting Traditions. For Fair Isle see http://www.knittingtraditions.com/knitting-resources/knitting-traditions/scottish-fair-isle/ and for Norwegian see http://www.knittingtraditions.com/knitting-resources/knitting-traditions/norwegian/.

Our projects for Fair Isle February bring together the different styles to progressively increase your colorwork skills.  Linda will be teaching the Scandinavian method of knitting colorwork. This is where we will knit using both hands, one Continental and the other English. In my next blogpost, I will share knitting of our three projects. I found some great videos and knitting hacks that will reinforce our newly acquired skills. Knit on! Lisa