Fairly Easy Fair Isle knitalong

This knitalong is OVA!

2006-11-03T08:04:00.000-08:00

Well, no one's updated since April, and I don't know of anyone who's planning on starting this soon, so I think it's time to take this pony to the glue shop. I'll leave this up for archival purposes, and thanks for your participation!

Joining In

2006-04-20T12:12:00.000-07:00

Hi - I started kniting this a couple of weeks ago, and I'm through the first sleeve and it seems to be way too big in the wrist. I am knitting the XL size, and the body came out fine.

Can someone who's finished tell me if it's supposed to be huge in the wrist? Does it wear funny or does it seem normal? I did the increases after the pattern, but it seems like there's waaay too much of a bell at the sleeve end. I will post pictures when I get home.

thanks!!

Wah, it came out too small.

2006-04-05T09:52:00.000-07:00

*sigh* I was really happy with how it came out, until I tried it on.

I can't even BUTTON it on myself. Not even CLOSE. (Hence why I am not posting a photo of myself here.) I borrowed a dummy and shrunk the top of it as far as I could go, and it STILL barely buttons, with much strain.

Waaaaaah. I'm not sure if I can get away with wearing it unbuttoned or not, even.

I am debating ordering more yarn and trying to make another one, but BIGGER. Damn D-cups fit into NOTHING!

Not doing too badly so far...

2006-03-10T08:57:00.000-08:00

Hi, I'm Jennifer, and I just started this uh, last week or so. I'm using Knit Picks Sierra yarn because my LYS was out of Lamb's Pride. (Why?! They used to have a whole wall of it!) However, I'm really liking it, it feels a little softer than LP. Plus I'm liking the colors I picked, even though everyone around me keeps bitching, "OMG PINK SUCKS! How dare you wear a GIRL color!" So sue me, I like raspberry. :P
Anyway, so far things are going fine, I've got the body, one arm, and part of another arm done. I'm pretty nervous about getting to the part where they get attached and I start the yoke, though.

Yarn Equirments?

2006-03-10T08:36:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, I was hoping to order the yarn while I was at work today (pay day!). I want to make tbe black one, in a size medium. I can't seem to find any kits online. I do have the book at home.

Finished!

2006-02-22T09:56:00.000-08:00

I loved making this sweater and love how it looks. The buttonhole band was a hassle, but it was my first one ever, so there's that. I pretty much followed the pattern, just adjusted a little for sizing between the small and extra-small. Here it is.

Finished!

2006-02-16T09:52:00.000-08:00

Above are pics of my cardigan.

As you can see I changed the fair isle design. I did this partly because I'm difficult and never follow patterns :) but also because I was using sale/stash wool with a different colour combination. I tried the book's design, but it only really looks right with some colours, I think it was partly that I had two CC's rather than three, but also the particular shades, black on green does very different things to light than pink on black.

The results are a bit too busy maybe, but having looked at the thing fresh after being away from home for a few days I do like it - its always too easy to be critical when you've been working on something solid for a while!

Some advice to anyone who also wants to change the design - remember the decreases have been placed on particular rows, I spaced the decreases in different places, I did this evenly and in terms of shaping it turned out fine. However, I often did this after the blue crosses, which warped them slightly. It adds to the snowflake effect in the end, so its ok for me, but might be an issue for other colours, designs, etc.

Need help with the buttonhole band

2006-02-11T07:48:00.001-08:00

I've never made anything with buttonholes before, so I may be a little thick here. But I've knitted and frogged the buttonhold band about three times at this point. Time to ask for help!

The directions say (for small):

Row 2: K4, BO2, *k8, BO2; rep from * 5 times, k4

So, does this mean (in the rep) that you knit 8 and knit one more, bind that off, knit one more, bind that off, and so on?

Then:

Row 3: K4, CO2, *k8, CO2; rep from * 5 times, k4

Knit 4, then Cast On 2??? I don't get it. I've looked in my books. I've even Cast off but the numbers don't work out.

I'd appreciate anyone's help.

Thanks in advance.

Barbara

arms!

2006-02-06T14:04:00.000-08:00

Seeing as I'm only doing two colours, and those colours aren't anywhere near the ones in the pattern it turns out the fair isle design just doesn't fit. So after much swatching delight on friday night I came up with the above. Despite a weekend lacking in knitting its going along pretty quickly - I'll probably finish the second sleeve before I go to bed tonight. Which is good because I really want to get this done before the start of the olympics.

My sweater is underway

2006-02-06T12:48:00.000-08:00

Here you'll see my cardigan, underway (amidst the clutter of my dining room table). Sleeves attached to the body, and the first row of the yoke pattern. I kinda messed up in that I did the XS size for the body and the S size for the arms, but that gave me 152 stitches on the needles when I joined the sleeves and the body. So, I increased 10 stitches so I could just follow the S without having to figure out how to adjust. Hopefully it will work out. So far, so good!

Another newbie

2006-02-02T12:01:00.000-08:00

So I just HAD to get the amazing deep green merino chunky when it was on sale after xmas. But darnit if I had no idea what I'd do with it. My friend Kirsty had just made the fairly-easy and suggested I used the excess of colours she had with my green. Plus I need a cardi and want to use this yarn now as it's bleeding cold out there right now (brrr) so the speediness of the pattern appealed.

Kirsty had black, purple, hot pink and pale blue, so we weren't sure what to mix with the green. I ADORE mixing pink and green but much as I tried it just didn't work for this, so I'm being all somber (in a "minty" way) and going for the pale blue and black.

Yes I know I'm deviating by only doing two CC colours... I was thinking of making up my own fair isle pattern too, but at this gage I think the simplicity of the one in the pattern is worth sticking to. I'm not there yet anyway, only cast on at the weekend and its my knitting-at-home project (I mainly knit on the bus to work) so I'm only a few inches up.

Wish me luck!

New here

2006-01-29T09:44:00.000-08:00

Greetings,
I've started my FEFI. I've got about 13" of the body in black and how I'm ready to put the stitches on scrap yarn (once I figure out what that is). I'm new to sweaters--I've made an hourglass and a To Dye For.

Yarn's FINALLY here

2006-01-27T12:36:00.000-08:00

That took forever but it is here now!

The reddish one is going to be the main color. It is all in LB Jiffy--really nice feeling stuff I must say.

Can't wait to get started!

Getting there...

2006-01-27T09:57:00.000-08:00

Here's my FEFI in all its unfinished and oddly proportioned splendor. All that remains is to add the button/buttonhole bands, sew up seams, weave in ends, and block it into a hopefully wearable shape!

Finished!

2006-01-22T13:13:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone,
Just wanted to let you all know I finally posted a picture of me wearing my Fairly Easy Fair Isle. I love this sweater:) (hate the picture though!)

If you want to take a look, my blog is Words & Wool.
Can't wait to see everyone else's finished knits.

Fixing the XS

2006-01-21T08:19:00.000-08:00

OK I looked on Craftster and found this:

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=55768.0

And it's right. The pattern needs to go over 5 stitches(so you have to have a multiple of 5), and it will in all the decrease rows. So just add 5 to the number the book says for the rest of the pattern and that's how many you're supposed to have on your needle after each decrease row.

Remember 2 stitches arent part of the pattern but 147-2 = 145 so you're good.

I guess another solution would be to put those 5 stitches on the holders (2 on 1, 3 on the other) and turn it into the sleeve but that sounds like a pain in the ass.

I made the XS and it fits just fine. So did Erika, I wouldn't worry about the fit.

I'm hoping my new FEFI yarn comes today!

Bad math

2006-01-21T06:13:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I've gotten to the point where I'm supposed to join the sleeves to the body, and I'm puzzled. I discovered what many have discovered before me: the numbers don't add up for the XS, and you end up with 5 extra stitches in the body. No problem, I thought, I'll just evenly spread out those 5 stitches as I do the join. But it's an odd number, and I don't want to make the sweater asymmetrical. All the other sizes start out with an even number of stitches, but for some reason the XS starts out with an odd number.

Also, I'd like to have 142 stitches after the join, not 147, because otherwise it looks like things will get complicated if I want to end up with 82 stitches after the fourth decrease row in the yoke. Or would it not be a big deal if I end up with 87 stitches? Since 5 stitches = almost 2 inches, that sounds like a noticeable difference.

I've done some searching online, and I find lots of people struggling and asking for help with this, but no solutions posted. I can think of several ways to deal with those extra stitches, but none of them seems particularly elegant, and I'm not a very experienced knitter so it's hard for me to envision the effect these changes would have.

How have other people dealt with this issue with the XS size? Thanks in advance!

Sleeves and hard-earned lessons

2006-01-19T07:30:00.000-08:00

So the body is all knit up and the sleeves are about halfway done. The green and purple are pretty subtle against the dark gray, but I'm hoping with all the Fair Isle on the yoke, the colors will come forward more.

Lessons learned so far:

Brown Sheep wraps both ends around the outside of the skein for easy access and tucks them under the label. This is probably the first place most people would look, but I managed to make a huge mess of my first skein by pulling out the innards in search of the end!

There's a good reason why you're not supposed to put two decreases right next to each other: gaping holes! Fortunately I was able to go back and fix those, even though I had already done all the decreases for the waist shaping by the time I noticed.

As I do the Fair Isle stuff, I'm also learning how to knit English style, which is proving to be a bit of a challenge. I've frogged and reworked the beginnings of the sleeves a couple times, so I'm getting lots of practice. Though sometimes I get lazy and drop one color until I need it again, and just do everything Continental style.

At the same time I'm working through some tension and gauge issues. I started out as a ridiculously tight knitter, and now that I'm deliberately loosening my tension, I've swung too far in the opposite direction and am having trouble with consistency.

This sweater may turn out a bit strange, but it's all a learning experience!

Ready to go

2006-01-09T09:16:00.000-08:00

Last night I finished knitting my last belated Hanukkah gift, so I'm ready to start my Fairly Easy Fair Isle sweater! It will be XS, and I'm planning to try some waist shaping. I've been looking at the pictures of the other knitalongers' sweaters, and they're very inspiring!

Here's the yarn I'll be using:

This will be my first sweater as well as my first foray into Fair Isle. Can't wait to get started!

I Started!

2006-01-06T13:15:00.000-08:00

I started on my Fairly Easy Fair Isle last night. No pictures yet, but I'll be sure to get some posted as soon as it resembles something other than black blobbiness. I'm using the exact colors and yarn the pattern calls for (daring aren't I?) so hopefully mine will look like the picture:) I love the ones you all already made and I hope to join you in the realm of finished FEFI soon.

Fairly Easy!

2005-12-07T21:17:00.000-08:00

Ahh, self portraits. This took less than a week to knit up (took longer to get up off my lazy butt to sew the damn buttons on). Yes, I should of added shaping, but well, its pretty damn big anyway, so it would be shaping on a big sweater.

Lionbrand Jiffy. I'm thinking of keeping this at work, since its either super hot or super cold. I have a pretty lame sweater there right now. Oh, and notice the big puffy skirt underneath. This would look WAY better with jeans, but I wasn't about to change for photos. Sheesh.

This is honestly a super easy peasy sweater. Anyone who wants to venture into colourwork will find this fun. I just thought it would be nice mindless fun for my trip!

OMFG FEFI

2005-11-20T01:11:00.000-08:00

Its 1 in the morning, and I am now completely finished with my very first, full sweater! Let alone, a FEFI!
Here are some bad mirror pictures.

The modifications I did were:
-adding in some waist shaping
-making the button bands larger (6 rows instead of 4)
-getting rid of this odd little row that the pattern had. The main stripe with the green and red has one row of purling on the WS that results in this bump that I thought was wierd and unattractive. So I just left it out.
-adding a few more rows of garter at the bottom.
All in all, a very fun pattern, and it was great to do as my first sweater... talk about instant gratification!

Almost there!

2005-11-17T12:51:00.000-08:00

I finally picked up the fair isle last night. With our first snowfall of the year, it just felt right to turn on the christmas lights and cozy up and knit. I wanted to keep knitting until I finished the entire body, but my fingers said "no no". Sometimes they just cramp up and I have to quit.
Here is the much awaited progress shot. I'm loving the colors together.

That darker color is green (old sage by brown sheep). I wasn't sure if I should go with a flash, it just drowned out all the other colors!

Done!

2005-11-15T20:11:00.000-08:00

Oh yeah!

I LOVE it except for the gap! I don't know why it's doing that--the sweater fits across the chest fine. I am going to try and block it tonight to get rid of it. I blocked the hem last night to help it from curling up, and it worked like a charm. Any other tips for how to prevent buttons from gapping??

2005-11-09T21:41:00.000-08:00

Tada! There's my Fair Isle sleeve.

Initially I was going to use cream where the grey stripe is, and green where the burgundy is. What do y'all think? I've got the yarn--I'm going to think about it before I knit any more. I think I am going to keep it this way but I want to make sure I like these colors before I finish the sweater. Any input would rock!

Progress

2005-11-08T22:16:00.000-08:00

It's going very well as of late. I am very happy with how quickly the pattern is knitting up. Here's what I got so far.

Sleeves. Got red, orange and green as my contrast colors, and oatmeal is the main one.

Here's the body knitted up.
A whole lotta stockinette stitch with some waist shaping and a garter stitch border.

2005-11-08T10:06:00.000-08:00

There's the body of my FEFI...patiently waiting for two contrasting colors to arrive in the mail.

XS size help

2005-11-02T08:08:00.000-08:00

Here's the explanation that people had with the XS, that I found on Craftster. Someone posted a problem with the patter repeats in the yoke:

"when you get to the yoke chart, there are seven charted stitches shown, but the pattern repeat is only five stitches! look at the bottom of the yoke chart: it'll say "5 st rep" with a bracket marking the five stitches that repeat. the extra two stitches are only knit once each row, at the very beginning. let's look at it this way:

you're starting the yoke chart. knit the first two stitches, which AREN'T part of the pattern repeat. then, knit the five st pattern repeat. knit those five stitches again. continue to knit those bracketed five stitches till you reach the end of the row. on the next row, knit the first two stitches again, then follow the five st pattern repeat.

subtract 2 sts from your 147 body sts. 147 - 2 = 145. the five st repeat goes into 145 an even number of time. don't worry about reconfiguring the pattern, you've got it right there! the decreases are worked so that the number of body sts always works out to a number that's divisible by five, after subtracting the two beginning stitches. "

Hope that helps!

I knit a lot on the body of my FEFI last night as I watched LOTR:Return of the King last night. It's a LONG movie so I didn't have time to post pics before bed, but I am about 6-7 inches in on the body now!

I am doing the shaping and it's working out fine. For the XS you put stitch markers after 26 stitches in and then 53 stitches in so that you've got 26 stitches for both front panels and 53 for the back. If anyone is going to try doing this and has questions let me know!

Waist shaping

2005-11-01T10:32:00.000-08:00

I took my notes for waist shaping last night, using the SNBN guidelines. Took me all of 10 minutes, I'd say. I hope it looks cute when I actually execute it!

I will post some pictures this evening. It's not much now but it's something!

2005-10-31T07:27:00.000-08:00

I just started my sweater this weekend. I am about 1.5 inches into the back. I am still waiting for two contrast colors to arrive in the mail so I can't get too much done on this sweater yet! I will post a pic after work. I am doing the MC in Tiger Lily Lambs Pride. It's a light orange color.

I got gauge on size 11's and I am afraid it will grow and grow like Mariah did. Any problems with it stretching, anyone who's farther along than I am?

An Idea

2005-10-30T18:15:00.000-08:00

I was thinking to add some waist shaping to my FEFI when I get around to it.. but I've never done that before on my own. I looked last night and saw there was a great tutorial in SnB Nation, but if anyone else is interested in it, let me know!

Yarns

2005-10-29T13:15:00.000-07:00

Hello all. I hope to be finishing up my current project and moving on to the fair isle soon! FYI, I'll be doing the XS size, in Brown Sheep Company yarns. I have heard there is some pattern errata, but no corrections as of yet. Hopefully, we can resolve that! Here are my color selections:

The cream color is the main color. Hope to see some progress on these puppies soon!

skeins amount for size s

2005-10-27T18:53:00.000-07:00

I'm making the 38" sweater, or size S I believe. Has anybody finished this size? I've used 2 full skeins for the body alone, and each sleeve will probably take approximately a skein (I'm about 1/2 way through the arms) and that leaves only 1 skein for the color work at the top. Is my gauge really off or will it work out???

10"

2005-10-26T03:02:00.000-07:00

Hi I'm Beth, I"m working on my Fair Isle, it's going to be in Creme. I'm using Brown Sheep Bulky for the body and will be combining it (once the order comes in) with Knitpicks Sierra in blue, green and pink. My brown sheep I ordered off of Ebay and thus have 5 skeins of different dye lots, but luckily it's not too noticeable. Only if you catch it in the right light and are really looking for it. I'm about 10" into the body but will be stymied once I hit 14" for the body until my Knitpicks order comes in. So what yarn is everybody using or planning to use?

Coming soon...

2005-10-25T14:36:00.000-07:00

So if you haven't done a blog KAL before, if you join that means you can make entries too, not just me (and Erika at this point!) Anyone who's already mid-progress with their sweater can join too or if you just want to post a pic of your finished one that works too.

Soon I'll have a sidebar button up for linking, and once we get pics I'd like to create a FO gallery.

Welcome!

2005-10-25T09:06:00.000-07:00

Are you currently working on SNBN's Fairly Easy Fair Isle sweater? If so come join us!