Saturday, March 15, 2008

So Unfair, an Update on My Fair Isle Vest

Greetings from the lily pad! I'm frogging today. I had grand hopes of finishing my KCAL project by today, which was the first deadline. Thankfully, the end date was extended to April 15.

The good news is I completed the ribbing for front and back, for a total of 27" inches of straight k2p2. Yikes. I won't even tell you how I misread the directions and actual knit 17 inches and had to rip out 3.5. Yes it did hurt. Today is my second round of frogging with this vest. I'm ripping out 4 inches of the fair isle. It's uneven. I did check my blocked swatch to see how forgiving the yarn will be and frankly, I'd be asking for a miracle if I kept building on the current stitches. In addition to the uneven stitches, my floats in the back are also a little crazy. On the purl side, I'm having challenges catching the yarn from the left hand to float with the right stitches. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I'm knitting with both hands, Continental and English. Therefore, I expected my tension to be even. Now I see the importance of picking a fair isle that is knit in the round. You need a whole 'nother gift to be able to keep the purl side even. But, I guess if I had knit in the round, I'd be faced with steeking.

Another option could be knitting backwards, which I learned from an old Vogue magazine, but I don't know how to do so with both hands. I can only do it English. Oh well, so..........Let 'em rip! RIP my totally unfair fair isle. I'll do better next time.

fairIsle_front

fairIsle_back

4 comments:

Sheila said...

You are too good - 27" inches of straight k2p2, I would been insane after 10 rows...lol. Hoping everything works out with the project.

Virtuous said...

LOL @ from the Lilypad!

But it looks soooo pretty!!

I never thought about that @ why fair isle s/b done in the round.

Steeking may not be so bad in order to get the results you want!

Funny thing is I know how to knit backwards Continental since that is how I truly knit, but have no idea English style.

Hopefully, you can get everything worked out soon!
At least you listened to your little voice and stopped now to reset yourself!

You will get it!!

Scheherazaad said...

Blocking might fix the uneveness. You might also try knitting the English stitches in the back instead of the front. One way or another you will have to experiment.

BrownBerry said...

Will it help at all if I tell you that I'm totally drooling over that color combo??

No?

Yeah, frogging sucks.
You'll be back to this point in no time though!