Yeah, ok. It’s a cheap joke – “stranded” as I’m “stranded in a sea of fair isle stitches”. It could be worse. I could have said something about being stranded and clutching at anything that “floats”.
Lucky I can knit hey?
So I’m having a real fair isle binge at the moment which is doing nothing for the giant, brown, man-jumper (henceforth known as GBMJ).
I finished the orange Holgate Beanie and it’s very – orange. I wasn’t concentrating when I bought the yarn because I envisaged the carrot orange being the main colour which would mean the centre section would be the two orange colours together.
I’m still happy with it but I’m not sure if its going to sell any patterns at the LYS. I’m worried it might scare people rather than entice them.
I’ve also got a new fair isle hat on the needles and it’s just too cute to put down. I don’t know if it’s the colours that I randomly grabbed out of the stash (not orange), or the little hearts sprinkled amongst the lines of a tartan – but I think I’m in love with this little hat.
It’s weird that as I write a new pattern, I fall in love with it and any pattern I’ve written before doesn’t seem anywhere near as good. Maybe I’ve just got a very short attention span (again, not good for the GBMJ).
My new hat is going to be available in adult and child sizes and it’s definitely not unisex this time. Very girly indeed. I’m currently trying to get a pattern that works across the decreases rather than in line with them – and then I’ll write it up and do another test knit from my written up pattern.
I learned the hard way that I really do need to do a test from the formatted “final” PDF before I release it. Two people who bought the Holgate Beanie ended up getting three updates because I found three stuff-ups. I wasn’t smart enough to find all three mistakes at once and just issue one update. I felt so bad about messing around the two people who downloaded the patterns full of mistakes that I refunded their money.
While the new fair isle hat is going well, I also created a fair isle design that scares the crap out of me. I looks great, is clever and I’d love to have a vest made with this design but it’s a 24 stitch by 24 row repeating pattern and there are no repetitive patterns in any of the 24 rows. Geoff complains it gives him a headache even when he’s not looking at it.
If I knit this design, instead of looking at a chart and saying “Ok, this row is 1,3, 1, 3, 1, 4 repeated” I’d have to be reading the chart for EVERY stitch. I just don’t think I’m prepared to do that right now – especially with garment shaping.
Maybe one day it will be a cushion.
Great to finally meet you at M&S yesterday after all the Knit Camp discussions on RAV ; )
This is a very beautiful design- roses?! I hope you do knit it sometime- or put it into a design for us! I’d love to see it in yarn and to have a go at it myself.
Can I ask what program you use to create your charts? I am keen to chart out some ideas but am not really a techie so need an easy program.
Have a lovely Sunday xx
Hi Jules, Great to hear from you – and yes – I do want to put that chart of roses (I’m calling it Clockwork Roses at the moment) into something – probably some fingerless mittens with a full mitten option. Ohh… that sounds fun, might be a good project for today.
I use good old Excel for my charts and Publisher for the overall pattern layout. I’d like to upgrade my 7 year old PC and get Illustrator but until I stop spending all my money on yarn I can’t see that happening.
Oh well….
cheers x Jen
But it’s so PRETTY!
out of interest, how DO you design fair isle? I’m wanting to design a nice pattern for two colours only that i can use to make my handspun go a bit further across a vest or short sleeved top. I haven’t found anything i like as an all over pattern yet…
any advice?
Hi Jen (great name by the way),
For designing a fair isle pattern I generally use Microsoft Excel – which is handy because you can copy your design and keep pasting it into a grid – this avoids any weird looking patterns arising where the blocks line up. It’s surprisingly easy to end up a a swastika appear in the design once you put a couple of repeats together. So always check how the design will look repeated.
If I’m on the train on don’t feel like sitting at the computer, then I use graph paper and a pencil. This can be handy for smaller repeats because you don’t get as sick of re-drawing the design to see how it all lines up.
Hope this helps and I’d love to see you handspun – do you have any pics?
-Jen
orange is one of my favorite colors, plus in the gray cold winter it is such a welcoming splash!