10-02-2020

I googled a few tutorials and watched this video (https://verypink.com/2018/01/31/favorite-fair-isle-techni...) for some tips on stranded colourwork, and it ended up being much easier than I expected. Since I learned to double-knit basically as I was re-learning to knit last summer, carrying two strands wasn’t hard to manage. I was tooling along my first few colour changes like a boss, thinking “wow, this is easy!” -- right until I ran out of yarn. Oh yes I did, my favourite trick of picking up the tail instead of the live yarn and knitting with it. Sigh, tink, try again.

My main challenge with carrying the floats was on the rows where there was no secondary colour, and I experimented with different ways of catching the float every four or five stitches until I remembered (practically like a thunderbolt) that you can just leave the secondary colour and pick it up the NEXT round when you need it, rather than carrying it along for an entire round. Boom!

Currently half way through and have just made the mid-point switch from predominantly colour A to predominantly colour B. Playing a bit of a game of yarn chicken with my depleting ball of cranberry, but I think I’ll be good. I hope.

12-02-2020

This was so quick, easy and satisfying to make. I got a little sloppy counting in the second half and ended up with the contrasting stitches in a row instead of offset in a couple of rounds, but it still looks okay. The stranded colourwork was easy - far easier than I had expected. Yay for hours of double-knitting to practice managing two yarn balls!

Love the combination of these two yarns - the final product is soft and cozy, and I love the cranberry and grey together.

When (not if) I make this again, might consider the second-largest size (I made the largest 108 stitch cast on) and only do one or two rows of solid colour B before beginning the decreases.

12-02-2020

PS quantities on the grey wool are off, I think. I think I mis-weighed the previous project. The cranberry yarn amounts are correct though, so it would have been about 75m / 80 yards of each for size XL. Will be less if I scale down one size next time.

24-05-2020

Given to Annie, Feb 2020.