I decided to dust off my fairisle knitting skills and knit the Ninilchik Swoncho by Caitlin Hunter. It’s a lovely design with terrific charts, and you know I love a chart or three.
My daughter liked this pattern. Do you think looking outside affected her colour choices?
The first couple of inches were a bit painful. I was very rusty. After working 8 inches, with a colour in each hand, it felt like my hands were beginning to know what to do.
I did learn a couple things about myself:
- I need to work on knitting with my right hand. It needs a lot of work. I’m a continental knitter (yarn in my left hand) even though I am right-handed. Knitting with the right hand looks so easy when I see other people doing it but they probably – OK they do – say the same about me.
- Long floats cause great anxiety. Are the floats loose enough? Is it going to pucker? Should I catch a stitch? Ooops, too late, next time?
- I like to make quick colour changes. So I dropped a few extra stitches into the last pattern. It changes the pattern but who’s the boss of this knitting anyway!
The colourwork is beautiful but now that I’m done, I must admit, I’m a little relieved.
It turns out that I’m not a fairisle knitter after all.
Now I can enjoy all those beautiful colourwork sweaters I’m seeing everywhere and know that I am not going to knit them. Phew, good to know.
Hope you’re knitting something you love.
Cheers, Deb
Gauge-Free and Any Gauge patterns by Deb, dive into your stash and cast on.
Deb Gemmell: Top Down, Gauge Free and more 
Ha, ha. I recently did the same thing and decided colourwork is not for me either. I’ll stick with lacework and cables!!
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I’m with you. I also love slip stitch patterns for colour.
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Wow that is beautiful Deb. I haven’t done any colour work like that in a long time. I think I need to check what I have in my stash 😃
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You go for it.
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This turned out great. You can’t be too sorry for working this pattern, now.
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I’m not sorry. I just don’t know of I want to do another one even though they look so great.
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Wonderful colour choices! I’m with you, Deb. Not for me. I keep looking but resisting the pull of how stunning Fairisle can be. But I do have a stranded hat from decades ago that always gets more compliments than any of my others.
Hmmm….
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I know. They are stunning, hats or sweaters. I’m just going to enjoy looking at them for a while.
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Deb,
I took a class with Sylvia Olsen a few years ago on Salish knitting . She taught us to lift our two colours every stitch so that there are no floats on the back at all. Not only is one’s tension better with no too short floats, but the fabric is also very elastic and holds its shape very well. It is now the only way I do any colour work or fair isle knitting now.
Heather
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I wish I had been able to take that class. It must have been great.
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I love it!! But, like you, I will never ever do it again. I’ve tried it with long floats, short ones, short bobbins of color & tearing off pieces to knit in place. Someone else can do it for me. I’ll stick to stripes, cables & simple lace. Garter is making my poor heart sing at the moment . . . .
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Yup I keep looking at garter stitch too. That might be next for me too.
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I love your daughters colour choice, it turned out beautifully! It is good to stretch your talents, then you really appreciate the simple knitting more.
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You’re right. I enjoyed the colourwork and now I’m happy to be knitting in the round in one colour. Variety is good.
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