Tag Archives: fair isle

Fair Isle elves

Whale sweater progress

DSC_2498_A

DSC_2495_A

Whale sweater progress

Whale sweater progress
ravelry page // pattern: Sweet and Seamless Sweater // yarn: LB fisherman’s wool & Knit Picks WotA 

One of the biggest lessons I learned when I started knitting bigger projects was that if I catch a mistake, even if it’s on row 3 and I’m all the way at row 57, I should always rip and fix it. Unless you can fix without ripping, of course. Some people can tell themselves that they love it for its imperfections, or that they won’t notice the error. I can’t do that; I always notice.

The thing with fair isle knitting is that even if you’re doing it totally right, it looks absolutely awful. The entire time I’ve worked on this sweater, I’ve had this ongoing argument with myself over whether or not I need to rip and start over. Maybe I’m pulling too hard. This part’s uneven. Why are these stitches leaning that way? It’s not even comforting to watch Youtube videos of the experts or to look at other people’s progress photos because I always seem to be able to convince myself that they’re knitting gods and I suck.

And yet inevitably I bind off, toss it in some warm water for a soak, and when it dries it’s lovely and even and I feel silly for ever doubting myself.

The moral of the story is that I need to photograph all my fair isle projects while they’re in progress so that when I start a new one, I can look back and see that the gorgeous sweater I finished and blocked used to look like crap too.

Or that wet yarn attracts small magical fair isle elves that unravel and re-knit the whole thing evenly whilst I sleep.

4 Comments knitting - - - - -

Finished Project: Hermione’s Fair Isle sweater

Hermione Fair Isle

Pattern: Of Hallows and Horcruxes by Megan Murray
Yarn: Knit Picks Wool of the Andes worsted weight in Lake Ice Heather, Arctic Pool Heather, White, and Mist
Started: February 22, 2011
Finished: March 4, 2011

Ravelry page

I know I’ve been promising to post pictures of this for ages, anddd here it is, finally!

I’m still so glad I decided to redo this sweater. The first version was definitely a learning experience but thinking back, I really had no idea what I was doing. I contemplating lining the hood on this one like the other one, but I really like it better as a thicker cardigan than as a fluffy heavy knitted coat, which is more of the effect I got with the lining.

Hermione Fair Isle

I am also contemplating redoing the sleeves, at least several inches up the arm. Right now they’re really wide and kind of shorter than I would like. For some reason I feel awkward about my wrists so I like being able to hide my hands up to where the fingers start. Plus, from looking at a lot of the movie stills, I noticed that in most of the scenes she has the sleeves folded down to normal sleeve length so I think they’re supposed to be ridiculously long.

Hermione Fair Isle

Not gonna lie, these are waist-up photos because I’m wearing tiny little running shorts. What can I say, it’s laundry day. 🙂

*edit* Yeah, I went back and did some ripping and made the sleeves extra long. Now it’s super cuddly.

I’ve been getting some questions about commissions. If you’re interested in knitting this sweater yourself, Megan Murray on Ravelry is selling a lovely multi-sized pattern on Ravelry for $5. Just follow the link on the top of the page.

If you’d like one knitted for you based on my set of haphazardly scribbled notes that can barely be called a pattern and therefore is not for sale, send me an email at wbkpd1@gmail.com with your chest size for a quote. Just remember that this is a full on sweater with a hood, which means it can get quite time consuming and therefore on the expensive side.

24 Comments finished knit - - - - - - -

Button shopping at 11:36pm presents a problem.

I really want to go button shopping right now. Why don’t 24 hour craft stores exist??

In other news, my Hermione Fair Isle cardigan is done!

Hermione Fair Isle sweater

Well, except for the buttons.

I also started my other re-do project while I was working on this one just to have something to switch to when the eighty million rows of reverse stockinette became too tedious. This photo was actually taken about twenty rows ago, but it’s Hermione’s cable/eyelet lace hat from the Half-blood Prince.

Hermione's cabled hat

In yet more news, I’m moving into my new place this weekend! I’m moving to my very own ginormous studio with a kitchen and my own bathroom but I think what I’m most excited about is the huge squishy armchair that I’m going to curl up on to knit for hours when I have spare time. Squee!

I have a desire to learn to spin my own yarn that is bordering on obsessive. I bought a drop spindle a few years ago but either I didn’t give it enough time to learn the proper technique or I just bought a crappy spindle because nothing really came of it and I have a bunch of roving sitting in a box looking fluffily sad. I might have to bust that out when I finally unpack all of my boxes. What would make me die of squee’s is an actual spinning wheel, but I don’t exactly have $400 burning a hole in my pocket. I am considering building my own though.

Hmm.

No, really. I need more hands.

I don’t seem to be capable of sticking to only one project at a time anymore.

First there’s the pink dress. I got this far all well and good but then when I sewed the pieces together, it just kind of refused to behave, so we’re officially on a break. Then there’s the Gryffindor scarf. I’m on the ninth repeat of the big scarlet stripe and when it’s finished I’ll have to decide if it’s long enough. I think it should be, but it’s a really wide scarf and it might look funny if it’s not extra long as well.

Hermione christmas party dress Gryffindor scarf

I would have finished this already by now if I hadn’t gotten bored with the endless knit/purl repetition and started Hermione’s Fair Isle scarf, which I have been drooling over since I found a lovely pattern for it. The yarn I’m using is too thick, but the colors are exactly what I was looking for. I guess we’ll see how it turns out.

Hermione's Fair Isle scarf

But then even Fair Isle got boring, so I pored through my folder of saved pattern PDFs and decided to make a pair of mittens. These are so adorable they make me want to weep a little. I’m not crazy about the color, since I’m using the leftover marigold yarn from Gryffindor scarf, but I think the owl makes up for it, especially if I can find some really cute buttons to use for the eyes. Plus it’s knitting up so fast that I can easily go out and get a nicer shade to remake them without feeling like I’ve wasted much time. Or maybe I’ll send them to my sister, as orange is totally her color 😉

2011-02-20_14-34-22_164 Owl mitten (back)

I wrote all of this three days ago and then had to save it as a draft because I could not for the life of me get my photos to upload to Flickr. I ended up having to put them on my phone and upload it from there. No idea why. And in the meantime, I started a new project with the leftover gray yarn from my gray stripey Hermione sweater. Meet my first attempt at something resembling lace.

Springtime bandit scarf

So basically the moral of the story is that I can’t wait for my yarns to get here tomorrow. -_-