Fair Isle: continued

Here is the progress I have made on my Fair Isle class from my class.

I showed it with the chart which depicts an aspen leaf.

The two color ribbing was challenging, however, I think, it gives that part of the hat a little more oomph.

The real challenge was the two-color long tail cast on which I have since practiced on another sample piece just to keep it fresh in my mind. I find that is where I lose momentum is when I learn a new cast on, knit a project and move onto something else, then come back a month or so later and want to do that cast on again. Sometimes the written instruction no longer makes any sense and I have to fumble around with it or go for help.

The things I learned about Fair Isle from the class at Knitter's Kove are as follows:

1. Two-color long tail cast on must be done slowly, methodically and practiced often to retain its intracies.

2. To avoid an optical illusion, hold the MC (main color) in your right hand if you knit English, left if you knit Continental and your CC (contrasting color) in the opposite hand.

3. If you ever use a provisional cast on, use a strand of thin satin ribbon to hold the stitches. It makes it easy to rethread them onto the knitting needles.

4. Start and read each line of the chart from where the number is.

5. Fair Isle is mainly knit in the round. They say the reason for this is because no one really wants to purl back in pattern.

6. Do not stack the woven stitches, do the weaving in different spots each row. Besides hiding it from the front of the work it also adds elasticity to the piece overall.

7. And, I found that I personally knit tighter doing Fair Isle. So, if you are going to do a piece, knit a gauge swatch in Fair Isle to check your tension. I thought I would eventually loosen up as it got more familiar and comfortable, but not so. For this hat I may try the next on a size up larger needle.

8. Use stitch markers between each pattern section. It makes counting if you find a mistake so much easier.

My next hat from this pattern will be done in spring green for the MC and gold for the CC (leaf motif) for obvious reasons. I like the one I am doing now because purple with gray is one of my favorite color combinations.

I hope to be done with this hat by the weekend and will try to get it modeled for a picture. Happy pursuits of your passions!