A quest for Fair Isle - the beginning

So my challenge for this year is to teach myself how to knit fair isle.  I picked the book I'm going to start with, The Art of Fair Isle Knitting by Ann Feitelson.  I chose this book partly because of the gorgeous cover.  I mean, who doesn't love the colours right?!  More importantly it seems to be very in depth, comprehensive and have fabulous patterns in.  It talks about history, working with colour, pattern and technique.  What's really nice is I understand what the author is talking about, which bodes well for teaching myself.


 So I started reading, taking little bits at a time.  I like the history and the stories, but I really want to get knitting, so I will catch up with those nits as I go.  I picked this pattern, Hilltop Slipover, partly because it seems to be one of the more simple and easy to read, and partly because I like the colours (you're probably seeing a theme here, yes, it's nearly always about colour for me, although fibre matters too).  I can see myself wearing this.  I know it's for a man but I've never really followed the rules on what I can and can't wear.  Besides if I hate it when it's done it will look good on my bloke.  Of course I had no wool in the shop suitable for this project (something I am going to rectify shortly) so I sat down with my book and the laptop and went onto Jamieson and Smith's website to order wool.  I decided to stick to the colours called for in the pattern, after all the author has very helpfully listed colour numbers.  Of course life is never that easy is it.  Two thirds of the colours were where they were supposed to be.  One third were not.  This meant lots of backwards and forwards with the computer to make sure I was getting colours which would match each other and match the pattern.  Half an hour later I was done, mentally and physically exhausted, but happy.


And today all my lovely colours arrived.  Which I thought was very quick service I have to say.  Now I have to liberate my 3mm Knitpro points from my Fyberspates t-shirt and I'm good to go.  I'll hope to post the next installment in the quest for Fair Isle soon.


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