Adventures in Fair Isle Knitting

will this be a cardigan I actually finish?

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Hello you lovely people,

Well, once upon a time — by which I mean almost exactly a year ago — I had 52 tadpoles sitting in the Pool of Life. All of them have now grown up and become adults. Many have flown the nest and left me to travel to pastures new. A few remain, some still needing stories. But this has left me with an empty egg box pond and a pondering of what to do. Much as I adored making the Knitted Ones it came at the cost of actually not making for myself, not pursuing projects I fancied doing because I was always making, making, making.

So now the pond is empty I have started revisiting colour work, especially for me to wear. There is no way I could make these for anyone else they take far too long and the yarn I am using is far too expensive for anyone to ever buy for themselves, and fair isle etc just doesn’t work well with cheap wool (it’s too slippy and doesn’t strand well or catch etc.) So, in the way of someone with AuDHD, I have deep dived and set myself up with MANY pattern books, decided on at least 5 projects for the year (and bought most of the yarn already cos SALES), worked out how to make more Knitted Ones as well, and already taught myself some new skills.

Many years ago, and we are talking decades here, I discovered Kaffe Fassett and I did make two of his patterns despite never having been successful in knitting at all. But I had gradually acquired a largish collection of yarns I’d scavenged from oddments and sales bin. All different textures, make up, colours, and weights. Perfect for beginning colour work. I didn’t swatch I just went for it. The cardigan was started twice as I made it way too big the first time, but I managed it. The second was this one, which I actually made for some one else, my mum. That one had so many different colours and yarns in it. It was very forgiving if you made a mistake too.

Then I did nothing for years until I made this for my middle child. Other than the crocheted arms it was incredibly boring to make. Just going round and round all in the same colour. I did end up lengthening it on request with extra crochet but I didn’t take a photo of that.

And so now after over 60 froglets I am attempting some fair isle. For some reason I thought this one would be a good one to start on as it only had two colours and I fancied a bit of cabling too, so lots of variety.

The first mistake was ordering the wrong colours. I was expecting light pink and dark red. Not what I ended up ordering. Blame too many tabs open at once to compare colours. I did make up a swatch this time, only the 2nd or third I’ve even done. So far I’ve read the pattern wrong for the starting stitches and had to redo the whole back waistband.

Then I somehow was incapable of reading a pattern chart correctly and did and redid the first 10 rows a few times. Before I got completely frustrated I know I had to get a grip of I was going to put it down and not pick it up again for weeks, maybe even months. I may be old and decrepit but I do understand how I work. All this was undone. Then I started again. Printing out the chart didn’t help, I made 3 copies still got it wrong, 10 rows done and undone at least 3 times.

My saviour has been an app AND some very carefully placed stitch markers. For some reason I thought I was clever enough to not need them — I am not. So now I have an app knitCompanion and markers placed every 10 stitches to coincide with the blocks on the chart. KnitCompanion helps me keep track of the stitches and rows and as the repeat is large, 56 stitches over 23 rows I’ve not tied to memorise it but trust in the app to keep me straight. And it has worked. And my stands at the back are much neater after looking at a few YouTube videos. I’ve learnt to knit with a colour in each hand and stop my yarns twisting together and I’ve actually begun to enjoy it. The joy at actually seeing the pattern emerge rather than just a jumble of blotches has been great.

I have now finished the first pattern repeat, a whole 46 rows

!

I need to do this another 3 times (ish) to get to the right length and then will be attempting the cabling section on the yoke. And that’s when I will post again. I’ve done very little cable work - and the cable work I have done has literally been very little — on the frogs jumpers!

I’m bound to make a lot of mistakes. See you in a … … … while.

Till next time, T x

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