Tips for Fair-Isle on Other In-The-Round Projects

You can now go on to try other Fair-Isle projects that are knitted in the round, like hats, mittens, legwarmers, and, of course, Fair-Isle sweaters.

All these projects use the same concepts and skills that you learned on the felted bag.

As you move forward and apply what you’ve learned to other projects, keep these tips in mind:

1. Tension is even more important if you are not going to felt the finished project, so make sure to switch colors consistently and leave long-enough floats.
2. You can use a self-striping yarn like Noro as one of your “colors,” to make a very simple 2-color Fair-Isle project look impressive, like Brittany did in this hat at right from “A Family of Hats” by Catherine Shields. The yarn changes colors for you and does all the work.
3. Choose yarn colors from the same line. To be safe, choose two of the same yarn in different colors, instead of trying to pair two different yarns. Yarn colors in the same line look good together.
4. 100% wool is a good bet for your first few Fair-Isle projects. Some of the washable merinos out there like Debbie Bliss or Malabrigo machine-washable yarns are almost too springy and are therefore easy to pull too tight. I would stick with straight-up 3- or 4-ply non-washable wool yarns, until you feel comfortable with your tension.
   

More Fair-Isle In-The-Round Projects for You to Try

While almost any Fair-Isle project is now within your reach, I can suggest a few patterns for you to try:

• “A Family of Hats” by Catherine Shields, available in the Interweave Store
• Any of the beautiful Fair-Isle berets on Ravelry
• The “Fair-Isle Yoke Pullover” by Elizabeth Zimmerman (here’s my version)
• The “Adelaide Yoke Pullover” (so beautiful) from Vintage Modern Knits
• “Norwegian Snail Mittens” by Adrian Bizilia, in The Knitter’s Book of Yarn

Remember – you know how to catch and fix your own mistakes in Fair-Isle now, so don’t be afraid. Try anything you want. If you want to try a Fair-Isle mitten pattern but you don’t know how to knit mittens yet, you can learn here.

You can practice on some other projects now and then come back to this course, or you can read to the end now, but make sure to watch the last few videos in this book so that your Fair-Isle knowledge is truly complete. We’ll start with…

Knitting With More Than Two Colors

Many Fair-Isle patterns will call for you to use anywhere up to five or six colors in one design, like this five-color Adelaide Yoke Pullover.

While these patterns still call for you to use only two colors in one row, you’ll be switching between colors A, B, C, D, and E as you follow the different rows of the chart.

This isn’t too difficult, especially if you write down on your chart which color is which.

All that remains is to switch between the yarns at the ends of the rounds.

When you come to the beginning of the round, just drop the yarn that you are done with and pick up the color that you’ll need for the next row.

You’ll have little vertical floats running up the inside of the garment at the beginning of the round, so make sure to tension them loosely and evenly, just like your regular horizontal floats.