3 Brilliant Fair Isles to Try

There is a colorwork revolution right now. Designers are thinking about color in new ways that I admire, envy, and covet.

Mary Jane Mucklestone, for one. Her playful color sense shines in her book Fair Isle Style. She writes about her new Weston beanie here, a perfect pattern for practicing your first Fair Isle.

Ann Weaver’s Station North mitts are cool, just like Ann. Neighborhood Fiber Co. has kits for these stranded mitts. These would be a great second project—and you’d finish with the triumphant thought, I just used six colors of yarn.

These birds would have seemed far out of reach for me, back in the day. But I know now that an intermediate knitter with a fever on could make this sweet hat, Passerine, from Erica Heusser:

It’s a grand total of 25 rounds of stranded knitting. We can do anything for 25 rounds, right? It’s just not that much knitting to get such a glorious result.

(Being a bird freak, I had to find out what Passerine means. Here you go. And Erica’s bird paintings are so lovely.)

Here endeth the sermonette for the day. I hope you’ll try Fair Isle.