Fair Isle – Page 5 – New England's Narrow Road

Fair Isle With Multiple Colors, How to Choose Yarn

Tips for deciding on yarn colors when knitting a project that calls for multiple strands of color.

One of my favorite types of knitting is stranded knitting using two or more colors. Fair Isle is the best, where only two colors are used at a time on any one row. When more than two are used in a row, it is not technically Fair Isle. It’s more difficult to manage three strands of yarn also. I avoid that, but using two colors, one in each hand, is quite fun.

I’ve seen a lot of knitters complain that they are not good at choosing colors for this type of knitting. When five or more colors are needed in a project, like the hat below, combining the perfect colors can be daunting. It is tough to envision them blending throughout the work. But, there are ways to choose colors that will work.

Katie's Kep hand knit hat in stranded colorwork using Rauma Finull yarn — Katie’s Kep knit in darker colors

First I Choose a Background, or Main Color Yarn

I enjoy picking out the colors for a colorwork project myself. By day, I do design work for my job and create graphic designs which have to do a lot with color matching. Maybe this is why I enjoy choosing my own yarn colors for projects.

My tip is to find the base, or background color first. I could change it later, but finding the base color gives me something to work from. Usually it will be something neutral which goes with a lot of colors, such as white, tan, gray, or black. Basically any color that you will NOT be using in the design and makes a good contrast for the remaining yarn.

Decide on a Bright or Muted Combination

Before knitting, get a good idea of how the end product should appear. Do you want it to match a coat or sweater you own? Will it be brightly colored, or have muted colors to match everything? Is the design something that should pop, or blend? And most important is to choose colors you will love to wear.

For the first Katie’s Kep hat I knit I decided on dark blue as the background color. From there I decided that I wanted brighter colors which would stand out a bit. Even though I messed up on the pattern (a little) overall I am happy with the colors.

When I knit my second Katie’s Kep, I chose tan as my base color and I wanted a more muted overall design with earthy tones. The colors I chose were not bright, but were meant to blend nicely. See both hats in the slide show below.

Cute free pattern, Katie’s Kep, done in Rauma Finull yarn
Katie’s Kep Fair Isle hat begins with a corrugated rib around the brim.
Crown star
Tan version of Kep

Choose Which Design Elements Should Stand Out

In the Keps I knit, the important design elements were the floral sections. After deciding on tan for the base, next I thought about flower color. The orange was perfect. Once the larger parts of the pattern were chosen, I needed colors for the smaller rows which separate the floral images.

For the tan Kep, I chose colors that are not “true” and have somewhat of a “gray” tone to them. For instance, in place of a real blue I would choose a gray-blue and in place of orange I would choose a rust orange. When adding row that will contrast a bit more, I chose something totally different like dark purple. Fortunately a lot of nice wool yarn, like Rauma, J&S, and Shetland is dyed in these neutral colors to make it easier to combine them.

Then there is always the copy option. The designers themselves are usually quite good at choosing colors. Here is where it is okay to copy someone online…!! Knitwear designers will usually list their yarn and colors used which takes all the guesswork out. For instance, when I knit Katie’s Kep, there were four different yarn color combinations included in the FREE pattern. I did not use them, because I like to come up with my own. But for anyone needing that help, it was right there to use.

Knitting Books That Help With Colorwork

If you like the idea of DIY, begin learning by simply studying Fair Isle colorwork knits you find online. Or buy books that have Fair Isle patterns and color selection ideas. I have Alice Starmore’s Book of Fair Isle Knitting (affiliate link to Amazon) and wow, is it ever full of inspiration! Mostly it’s over my head at this point, but I love to skim through and see the beautiful colorwork designs. It’s a fabulous book for any knitter’s library.

I also have A Shetlander’s Fair Isle Graph Book and began knitting a hat using the “green diamond” design shown on this page. It turned out that my yarn stash included colors that closely matched the colors in the book!

colorwork green diamond hat — Same colors!

And Then There’s Black and White

Just as easy, is the option to buy a kit to knit a stranded colorwork project. The yarn colors are pre-selected for you and you pay for everything at once and are ready to knit. A lot of times yarn stores will create kits for popular patterns.

Last but not least. Have you ever heard to turn your yarn image into black and white to check the contrasts? If you are wondering how that works, check out this blog post that explains it.

The Katie’s Kep is meant to use five colors, but that is up to the knitter really. Colorwork patterns are perfect for using up scrap bits of wool.

Get the Katie’s Kep free hat pattern here. Join the multitude of knitters who have already knit this wonderful pattern.

Yarn Color Combination Inspiration

Find some great ideas to inspire your newfound confidence in combining yarn colors at the places listed below.

Wirsit Inspo / J&S Blog – yarn color is matched up with photography on this beautiful page.

Knitwear Designers Who Create Stranded / Fair Isle Patterns

Are you a Fair Isle designer? Let me know and I’ll add your link here.

A Few of My Previous Colorwork Projects

Clicking the title beneath the photo will take you to the project blog post page. I don’t have a link for the light blue hat, but it’s the Fana Cap pattern which is in the “Hat’s On!” book.

Blue and white colorwork hat handknit — Oulu Mitts

Creating My Own Mitts Fair Isle Pattern

When I recently traveled to New Hampshire, one thing I wish I’d taken along was a good pair of fingerless mitts. My emerging plan was to go home (to Florida) and begin creating my own mitts Fair Isle pattern.

I’m not a pattern writer, I am a pattern follower. I have no idea how to go about setting up a knitting pattern but, why can’t I learn? I’ve already learned so many things in the past decade which I ever would have imagined would be necessary for life after 50. My brain is working well, and I’ve taught myself numerous new tasks. The best way to do something new and challenging is to jump in!

The Yarn

My favorite yarn for colorwork, or Fair Isle, is pure wool, like Jamieson and Smith, Rauma, and the likes. I’ve used it for knitting Katie’s Kep (twice), Tettegouche hat, and the Keramos Cowl.

Jamieson & Smith jumper weight yarn comes in many colors and in affordable, little skeins, so I can gather lots of colors without spending a ton of money. (Fairlight Fibers has this yarn at a great price.) I also have a few skeins of Rauma Finull, and Tuku wool.

Knitting in stranded colorwork means using a little of each color, with more used for the main color. Mitts, mittens, socks and hats will use very little yarn compared to bigger projects like shawls and sweaters. I plan to focus on these smaller projects for a while.

wool, Jamieson and smith, 2ply jumper weight, — Jamieson & Smith 2ply jumper weight / Rauma

Ideas For Getting Started With My Mitts Pattern

The best way to figure how many stitches I will use, is to have a mitt or mitten that is already knit. If I know the count, and that mitten fits me, I can begin my own pattern (for my own personal use) with that number of stitches. This works as my gauge.

The Hedgerow Fingerless Mittens (Ravelry page) is a FREE pattern offered by Mary Ann Stephens. I considered knitting this one first. Knitting up a free pattern would be a good place to start when creating my own mitts.

Although I like the Hedgerow mitts, I chose to knit a free pattern called Fair Isle Mitts. I was happy with the outcome and loosely based my own mitts pattern after that one.

Planning the Cuff

What I like about these mitts patterns is that they have a fairly short cuff. I don’t like a long cuff going up my arm for something like this. These mitts will be used for in the house when mornings are chilly, or when the weather is not quite bad enough for mittens. No long cuff is needed.

I can begin with a Latvian Braid, as I did in the Glissade mittens. Or I could begin with a corrugated rib as with the Oulu Mitts. A simple K1, P1 rib would work too.

I chose a simple long-tail cast on, then 2×2 rib. I changed color after five rows. I cast-on only 52 stitches, because my daughter has skinny wrists, and then increased to 56 for the colorwork on the hand.

Planning the Colorwork

After knitting the Fair Isle Mitts, I can follow the thumb increases suggested. I needed to find colorwork patterns to follow for the top of the hand and the palm.

My knitting book library consists of some nice examples of Fair Isle graphs. These mitts will be for my daughter, so I’ll look for motifs that would be cute or pretty to appeal to her.

It really helped me to see the design by drawing it out and using colored pencils.

drawing of mitts pattern with flowers in colorwork — Mitt colorwork plans drawn out

I’d like the palm of the mitt to have a small, repeating pattern, and the top of hand to have a larger design. The thumbs could be stripes. It helps to have books on hand which offer lots of little patterns to choose from.

Colors will be purple and green, with possibly another overall base color which is lighter in color.

knitting books fair isle graphs colorwork stranded — Knitting books with Fair Isle graphs

The Mitts Design I Chose to Knit

After deciding on the flower pattern and finding yarn colors I liked, I jumped in and began knitting!

The first mitt I knit was for the left hand. I followed a flower pattern, for the top of hand, came from a book of hats I own. I also did a repeating pattern from another book. I changed that on the Right Hand mitt and gave the palm a pattern of rows with alternating colors.

I just carried the colors as stripes on the thumbs.

little flowers fingerless mitts pattern — Little flowers on the top of hand

For the second mitt, I also added a neutral line of white up the edge to separate the top from the palm. I did not do a line of alternating color after the braid either. In other words, I changed what I didn’t like about the first mitt.

fingerless mitts palm knitting patterns — Palm patterns are different

Final Words on Knitting My Own Mitts Pattern

The size is good on these mitts and I’m fairly happy with the colors. I learned a few things which I can carry over to the next pair of mitts I knit.

This design is for my own personal use and not a pattern you will find anywhere. The flowers are part of the Peerie Flooers hat in the Milarrochy Heids pattern book. I may have to knit the hat now to go with these mitts.

Lots of ends to weave in

Knitting the Free Fair Isle Mitts Pattern

This page contains notes on knitting figerless mitts using stranded colorwork. I will be using Jamieson & Smith wool in five colors (added one, so six).

This is a free pattern download at Ravelry for the Fair Isle Mitts. The pattern has charts and written instructions with two hand / palm motifs to choose from. I put one on the top and the other on the palm.

Keep it Comfy, Knit the Keramos Lined Wool Cowl

Knitting with wool, using two colors, is such fun. This is called Fair Isle, or stranded colorwork knitting. I was hooked after knitting two of the Katie’s Kep hats, and some mittens for a KAL (knit-along) last winter. Now I am knitting the Keramos lined wool cowl using two colors. What I really like about this pattern is that the wool is lined with a softer yarn.

Designers offer sales during the first weeks of TWTCOLORKAL2021 (a knit-along hosted by The Woolly Thistle), so it’s a great time to find patterns with discount codes! It’s how I found a new favorite designer named “Bunnymuff” and used the discount code to buy two of her patterns.

lined wool cowl Keramos knitting — Lined wool cowl

The one I will be knitting first is the Keramos Cowl, which is a Fair Isle pattern with a lining and optional embroidery. I’m entering this one as a project for the KAL, which began February 19th. The other pattern I purchased is a colorwork hat with chickens! My daughter plans to raise chickens soon, and I will knit the hat for her at a later date.

Jamieson & Smith purple yarn and Rauma navy blue — Pretty wool yarn by J&S and Rauma

My stash of wool includes Rauma Finull and Jamieson & Smith Shetland, which are both fingering yarns and are perfect for any stranded colorwork project. I’m not sure yet which stash yarn I will choose for the lining of this cowl.

Colors I am using: Jamieson & Smith shade FC9MIX (lavender) and it is so pretty. I’m using it for the background color. Rauma is the dark navy blue yarn, #0449. The embroidery will be done on the foreground color and it needed to be dark.

Cast on for the Keramos Cowl Fair Isle pattern — Keramos cowl, cast on to 16 inch needles.

Needle Length and Size

The pattern says to cast onto a 24 inch circular needle but all I had was a 16 inch. It worked okay, but the stitches were a bit bunched. I ended up buying a 24 inch needle so I could see the stitches more clearly. I also went up in size, and cast-on using a size 3 then changed to a size 4. This is quite a bit larger than what the pattern calls for, but I was afraid the cowl might be too tight if I didn’t.

The cowl begins with a provisional cast-on. Once the front pattern is knit, a lining is created and attached to the bottom, or beginning of the cowl using a 3-needle bind-off. I’ve never done that, *but it was fairly easy. Before the lining is attached by casting off, a little embroidery can be added. Another new thing for me.

Keramos cowl Fair Isle pattern — Pattern beginning to show on the Keramos Cowl

Notes on Knitting The Pattern Using Knit Companion

The Knit Companion app was a big help when it came to reading and knitting this pattern. If your eyesight is not good this app is invaluable when doing colorwork knitting. At first I had some difficulty getting it all organized as the colorwork pattern spans five pages which must be knit in sequence. As I am still learning all the ins and outs of this knitting app.

Eventually what I did was place silver stitch markers to separate my stitches to show each page of colorwork. To make things easier, and to catch mistakes quicker, I also divided each page chart in half. I used plastic stitch markers for that. This way I could easily see if I was on a new page, or in the middle of one.

I used the numbers section on Knit Companion to mark pages and rows. I used the “notes” section at the bottom to remind myself how I was tracking this pattern. Every time I finished an entire 5-page row, I went back to the first page number and changed my highlighter to the next row on every page before I began knitting. That way, once I went to the next page, the row was ready for me to knit.

Using the knit companion app on my iPad to keep track of rows of colorwork while knitting the Keramos Cowl

The image above is of my Knit Companion app on the iPad. The inverted highlighter shows my row as 19, and I have also kept track using the blue number on the right. The red number 4 is the page I will begin knitting on (Rows 4-8 hold the pattern). As I move through the next pages, I will change that number until after page 8 when I will go back to page 4 and change the row to 20.

For help using your KC see the Knit Companion Reference Guide PDF

What is The Best Way to Find Cowl Gauge?

Finding gauge for a colorwork cowl is not easy. Basically you need to knit the whole thing and then see how it turns out! Or, if you have colorwork swatches, or more likely whole projects knit up, find your gauge on those. It is not easy to count such small stitches.

Because cowls aren’t as important for fit, I didn’t count anything. I simply chose a larger needle size, because I tend to knit tightly. The cowl could not end up too tight for my neck, and it turned out I was right to do this. Once I had knit a couple of colorwork sections, I measured width and estimate the height.

It turns out that my width around is spot on and matches the sizing in the pattern (21 inches around). My two finished rows of colorwork sections measure about 5.5 inches and the pattern calls for 5 “rows”. But the finished cowl should measure 10 inches high! This means my horizontal gauge is good, but my height gauge is off. All I can do to fix this is shorten the project. This is easy to do on the Keramos because I will knit two more row sections and leave off the 5th row entirely.

Knitting a colorwork cowl and finding the right size — Finding the size on a colorwork cowl

In the photo above, I am comparing my Namu cowl size, which I knit a while ago for size. The Keramos is wider, but will not have the “give” of the cabled Namu, so that should be fine. Colorwork is not very stretchy.

Choosing a Lining Color, and Learning Embroidery

The turquoise blue yarn is a ball I’ve had sitting around. It’s some kind of single ply sock yarn, but that is all I know. The yarn is brightly colored and soft and silky which is perfect for the inside of this wool cowl. Now it’s just knitting along until the liner length is right.

Turquoise yarn for knitting lining of Keramos Cowl — I chose turquoise blue sock yarn, from my stash, for the lining

I stopped knitting after four colorwork “rows”, or sections. My cowl measures 9.5 inches tall. Now the lining will be knit and folded inside to be attached at that provisional cast-on along the bottom. I’m dreading that. It’s a 3-needle bind-off which I’ve never done. (Turned out to be pretty easy!)

Knitting a blue lining and doing embroidery on Keramos Cowl — Began my blue lining for the Keramos Cowl

The Keramos Cowl designer, “Bunnymuff” aka Mona Zillah (link goes to her Ravelry Store page), includes cute embroidery on her knitting projects. My first try at embroidery is not exactly cute, but it was fun learning. I did a lot of flower removal over and over just to get these little sewing designs finished! Then, I did a little bee, which I love. I got the idea for this bumblebee from a YouTube image.

My Embroidery Skills Are Lacking, But it Was Fun Trying

My bee!
A little purple flower – can you tell?
A simple flower embroidered over my knitting.
Blanket stitch and French knot

YouTube Videos on Embroidery Stitches

After searching through a bunch of embroidery stitch videos on YouTube, I found a couple that were pretty nice so I’ll list them here. Using wool yarn, on a knit surface, is a bit more challenging than embroidery thread on drawn patterns, but you will get the general idea.

Blanket / Buttonhole Stitch – I used this to make the yellow flower with French Knot center
Stitches For Small Flowers
Slow Embroidery –12 Embroidery Flowers – My personal favorite.

Finished cowl photos to come.

Finishing Up Knitting the Keramos Cowl

Finally I finished up knitting this cowl. It seemed to take a while, but it was on hold for two months when I took my trip to New Hampshire. I brought the Wild Angelica socks to knit and left this cowl behind.

The worst part of this pattern, for me, was picking up those stitches on hold. It was a tedious chore. The three needle bind-off went well, and ended up looking nice. I used the lighter purple color to do it and watched a YouTube video to figure it out.

Fair isle wool knitting mitts and cowl drying on boards — Drying my knitting projects – Keramos and Fair Isle Mitt

I did try the cowl on before washing, and it is big and thick. Once it’s dry I’ll get photos wearing it (below). This one will definitely keep a neck toasty warm! It feels so good to finish up a knitting project.