Knit Sweater Fashion Knit Fair Isle Fashion

Off-white Isle (/fɛəraɪ̯l/) is a traditional knitting technique used to create patterns with multiple colours. It is named after Fair Isle, i of the Shetland Islands. Fair Isle knitting gained considerable popularity when the Prince of Wales (subsequently Edward Eight) wore Off-white Isle jumpers in public in 1921. Traditional Fair Island patterns accept a limited palette of five or so colours, use only two colours per row, are worked in the round, and limit the length of a run of any particular color.^[1]

Some people use the term "Fair Isle" to refer to any colourwork knitting where stitches are knitted alternately in diverse colours, with the unused colours stranded beyond the dorsum of the work. Others utilise the term "stranded colourwork" for the generic technique, and reserve the term "Fair Isle" for the characteristic patterns of the Shetland Islands.^[2]

Other techniques for knitting in colour include intarsia, skid-stitch colour (also known as mosaic knitting).

Technique [edit]

Basic 2-colour Fair Isle requires no new techniques beyond the basic knit stitch: the purl run up is not used if circular knitting needles or 3 or more double-pointed needles are used. At each knit stitch, there are 2 bachelor "active" colours of yarn; one is fatigued through to brand the knit sew, and the other is simply held behind the piece, carried equally a loose strand of yarn behind the only-fabricated stitch. To avoid "loose" strands larger than 3-five stitches, the yarn not in use can exist "caught" by the yarn in use without this being seen on the front of the work - see below. Knitters who are comfortable with both English mode and Continental style knitting tin carry one colour with their right hand and one with their left, although it is likewise possible to merely utilize two different fingers for the two colours of yarn and knit both using the same style.^[1]

The simplest Off-white Isle pattern uses round or double pointed needles, cast on any number of stitches. Knitting then continues round and round, with the colours alternated every stitch. If the design is started with an even number of stitches, a vertically striped tube of textile volition be formed, while an odd number volition create a diagonal grid that appears to mix the ii colours.

Traditional Fair Isle patterns commonly had no more than than two or three consecutive stitches of whatsoever given colour, because they were stranded, and as well many sequent stitches of one colour means a very long strand of the other, quite easy to take hold of with a finger or button. A more modernistic variation is woven Fair Isle, where the unused strand is held in slightly different positions relative to the needles and thereby woven into the material, still invisible from the front, just trapped closely against the back of the slice. This permits a about limitless variety of patterns with considerably larger blocks of color.^[2]

Traditionally, Fair Isle jumper construction involves knitting the body of the jumper completely in the round. Steeks (from the Scottish word meaning 'sew together', 'to close shut', and comprising several stitches) are worked across the armhole openings assuasive the body to exist completed in the circular without interruption. Once the main body of the jumper is complete, the armhole steeks are cut open (sometimes these are secured before cutting). Stitches are and then picked up around the armhole opening and the sleeve is knitted down toward the cuff in the round.

Since the 1990s, the term "Off-white Isle" has been practical very generally and loosely to any stranded colour knitting regardless of its relation to the knitting of Fair Island or any of the other Shetland Islands.

Run into as well [edit]

Gumbys

References [edit]

^ ^a ^b McGregor, Sheila (1981). The Consummate Volume of Traditional Fair Island Knitting. London: Batsford. ISBN978-0-7134-1432-five. OCLC 8064374.
^ ^a ^b Starmore, Alice (1990). The Fair Isle Knitting Handbook. London: Blandford. ISBN978-0-7137-2206-2. OCLC 60047818.

Feitelson, Ann (1996). The Fine art of Fair Island Knitting: History, Technique, Color and Pattern. Loveland, CO: Interweave Press. ISBN978-1-883010-20-1. OCLC 34590877.
Starmore, Alice (1988). Alice Starmore's Book of Fair Isle Knitting. Newtown, CT: Taunton Press. ISBN978-0-918804-97-half dozen. OCLC 18788969.
Mountford, Debra, ed. (1995). The Harmony Guide to Aran and Off-white Isle Knitting: Patterns, Techniques, and Stitches (1st ed.). New York: Crown Trade Paperbacks. ISBN978-0-517-88405-8. OCLC 32845724.
Bourgeois, Ann; Bourgeois, Eugene (2000). Fair Island Sweaters Simplified . Bothell, WA: Martingale & Co. ISBN978-i-56477-311-1. OCLC 43555235.