Fair Isle for All

As I work at getting the Trellis Vest pattern up and running, it's dawned on me that it might be useful to set out my intentions regarding this project. My goal, apart from creating a vest that Isabel would love to wear, was to design a fair isle pattern that would be accessible to a wider range of knitters than would normally attempt such a project. I should really have used the term "stranded knitting" since "fair isle" is technically a sub-species of that broader genre. I know that many knitters are intimidated by stranded knitting patterns, especially when they involve many shades of lightweight shetland yarn and scary terms like "steek". Many years ago, Philosopher's Wool, here in Ontario, made good efforts to take the fear out fair isle knitting. I actually have a kit of theirs, the Kilim jacket (see below), sitting in my stash, awaiting the perfect moment. With their heavier weight wools in beautiful colours, their videos, and instruction books, Ann and Eugene convinced many knitters to give stranded knitting a try.

 

So, what have I done to make my own stranded knitting pattern user-friendly?
1. Rather than selecting a dozen or more shades of Scottish shetland, I've decided to go with Kauni, a shetland-type yarn with long colour gradations. The yarn does the work. There are fewer ends to deal with, fewer balls to wind, and the colours are impressive. In other words, you get a lot of bang for your effort (and your buck--Isabel's vest took only 2 balls!)
2. In designing the pattern chart, I've purposely stuck with pattern repeats that are easily memorized. While you might not want to work on this project at a stitch and bitch session, neither will you have to be wedded to the chart for every single stitch.
3. The Trellis Vest is a vest, i.e. it has no sleeves. For knitters new to fair isle, that means just enough stranded work not to be overwhelming.
4. This is a steeked project. Yes, that word seems to strike fear into the hearts of lots of knitters, but in fact steeks make stranded knitting easy and pleasant to work. Try knitting and purling a stranded garment back and forth in pieces and then sewing it together if you don't believe me that steeks make life so much simpler. The right side of the knitting is always facing so any little errors (and they happen, believe me) are caught quickly and there's no need to purl, except for the ribbing.

So, while I'm waiting for a sunny day to take some quality photos of Isabel in her vest, think about all the reasons you should give the right fair isle pattern a try.

Late afternoon sun on Wolfe Island's wind turbines.