Fair Isle knitting for the 21st Centuary

A new sweater for the new season! I'm rather pleased with the way this has turned out. I wanted to knit a traditional Fair Isle with a contemporary look. A short, shaped sweater with no ribs  or seams and pearl beads knitted into the yoke pattern.

Using  "Knitting in the Old Way"  as my guide (again!) I planned a seamless garment. As always, the workflow begins with tension swatches for both the plain and patterned areas, using  traditional Shetland 2ply jumper yarns from Jameson and Smith. They still produce a large range of dyed and natural colours, which have been in use for decades.  The main colour is such a lovely peachy pink and so reminiscent of the 1950's. It is also just the right colour to match a skirt I want to wear this jumper with.

There were lots of calculations for the size and shaping all worked out and written in my notebook. I also needed to make sure that the Fair Isle patterns would line up in the centre of the front and repeat on the number of stitches I was using, so as not to have a funny line at the join of the round. This involved making a long strip of squared paper and marking out some of the pattern starting at the centre front stitch and working towards the edge. Then I could go back the the chart I'd drawn and be sure that the round would line up correctly, which it did!

The beading was a bit of a challenge. Getting the beads onto the knitting yarn involved threading them onto beading wire and then making a loop, like a giant needle threader, and threading them onto the knitting wool. As the bead holes were tiny this process frayed the knitting yarn quite a bit, so I used two balls of the same colour for the beaded rows. One ball for stitches with beads and the other for the plain pattern in that colour. This meant I had three strands of wool to manage, but it also means that if the yarn frays too much and breaks I shall only have to repair the beading and not the main fabric of the garment.

It was worth the effort …