Fair Isle knitting

[Graye]

Is there anyone here who is particularly "au fait" with this style of knitting? If so I would like the chance to pick a few brains on something called steaking and a few other intricacies. I've taken on a rather mammoth project - a fair isle jumper for OH which involves adapting a regular pieced pattern into seamless, working from my own fair isle design plus a few other tweaks. All OK so far and I think I understand steaking in principle but I need to know what shaping to do at the tops of the sleeves. Straight across? A small amount of shaping at the underarm? I suspect if there is anyone there with a copy of Alice Starmore's Fair Isle Handbook it might give us the info but they are a little like hens' teeth...

[mrsflibble]

fair isle I can barely perl!!!!

sorry I can't help but I didn't want to read and run. have you tried www.craftster.org for info? they have a big knitting section.

[ina]

I tried Fair Isle, and gave up after a few rows... I think I'll stick to ordinary Guernseys! But I do have a handbook at home - have to check whether there's anything in it about that.

[Millymollymandy]

I have done Fair Isle in the dim and distant past and all sorts of intricate things but I've never heard of steaking! What is it?

[Graye]

Thanks for the help so far! As far as I can see steaking is the method of insetting sleeves when you are knitting the body on one needle. If you can imagine knitting a tube you need somewhere to put the sleeves. I suppose you could just cast off at the same place each lap but this method is used with fairisle, presumably to strengthen the stitching when you are running lots of colours and saving you having to have lots of loose wool hanging around. There is basically a panel of stitches done without the patterning (I think a rib stich is used) which is cut open later to insert the sleeves. I´m doing a two coloured twisted rib so a panel of that by the sleeve opening will probably look nice anyway. That´s what I´ve gleaned so far but I can't find a blow by blow account.
I´ll put a picture up of what I´ve done so far, presumably I use something like Photobucket on here? I think I prefer the idea of steaking as I am making the actual pattern up from a piece of graph paper and counting stitches and rows as I go as well as doing various alterations to the basic jumper pattern I´m cannibalising so trying to incorporate casting off as well would be a logistical nightmare with so many stitches.

[ina]

I have the book you are looking for - didn't know they were so rare! I got it in a charity shop in Lerwick, for £3.50...

Anyway: there's 5 pages of it, and I think you really ought to have the pictures with it. PM me your address, and I'll copy the pages and send them to you! (Btw, it's steeking - I thought that steak sounded a bit too bloody to be included in a jumper... )

[Graye]

I've sent a pm, thanks very much for the offer! My camera battery is flat and the only picture I have available at the moment is from when I had managed to complete one pattern repeat on the sleeve. So I'm posting that. Straightforward at the moment as I'm on two needles. The fun starts with the circular needle for the body!

If anyone has a copy of Alice Starmore's Fairisle Handbook they would like to sell for a reasonable price I would be more than interested...

[Graye]

Thanks for the spelling correction, no wonder I couldn't find it on google!

[Millymollymandy]

Thanks for the info! Now how can you cut knitting to incorporate the sleeves without the wool unravelling? I agree Fair Isle and similar patterns means a lot of wool to sow into the seams at the end which is a real pain, so knitting the body on a circular needle sounds like a good idea, but I'd have thought that casting off would be more sensible for the sleeves. Personally I would not do raglan sleeves with this way of knitting but just a straight up tube, change to regular needles when you get to the armholes though you'd have 2 on the go at once, and it's all starting to sound even more complicated than knitting each side separately! Maybe this is why I stopped knitting!

[Millymollymandy]

Aha I have googled steeking and it makes more sense now!

The last thing I knitted was a jumper with the design on the cover of this book. It took ages to sow in all the ends of the wool! Then I started on a long leopard skin cardigan by the same designer (Kaffe Fasset) but got bored of knitting soon after, never to pick up knitting needes ever again........



...........until Self Sufficientish Day, August 13th, when I will get my knitting out of the cupboard and see if I can get in the mood again. It would make a lot of sense!

[ina]

Thanks for the info! Now how can you cut knitting to incorporate the sleeves without the wool unravelling? I agree Fair Isle and similar patterns means a lot of wool to sow into the seams at the end which is a real pain, so knitting the body on a circular needle sounds like a good idea, but I'd have thought that casting off would be more sensible for the sleeves.

According to the handbook, Fair Isle is ALWAYS knitted in the round. So if you knit a cardigan, you still knit in the round and then cut open the front bit... It does make for more even stranding; the tension would always be a bit different between knitting in the round and backwards and forwards.

Personally I would not do raglan sleeves with this way of knitting but just a straight up tube, change to regular needles when you get to the armholes though you'd have 2 on the go at once, and it's all starting to sound even more complicated than knitting each side separately! Maybe this is why I stopped knitting!

I'm absolutely in love with the original Guernsey pattern. Knitted in one piece - no seams to make up, hardly any ends to sow in! A bit like you describe up there. I made on a couple of years ago and have hardly been out of it. Especially if you use the original yarn as well - 5-ply, very thin and tightly plied; knitted with 2mm needles, it's almost water and wind proof. Had to be back when it was worn by fishermen!

I also used to knit a lot of raglan jumpers in one piece, starting from the top. Particularly useful for kids' jumpers, as you can easily make them longer when they've grown out of them (provided they've only grown lengthwise, not in circumference!).

[snapdragon]

I have the book you are looking for - didn't know they were so rare! I got it in a charity shop in Lerwick, ...............

woooo look after it Ina - I have seen some of the prices being asked on amazon and ebay - mindboggling !!!!

[Millymollymandy]

How do you do sleeves at the same time as the body without any seams? How could it be raglan sleeves if it was knitted in one piece though, you'd have knitting going off in different directions all on the same needles, which isn't possible.

[Chriso]

I'm absolutely in love with the original Guernsey pattern. Knitted in one piece - no seams to make up, hardly any ends to sow in! A bit like you describe up there. I made on a couple of years ago and have hardly been out of it. Especially if you use the original yarn as well - 5-ply, very thin and tightly plied; knitted with 2mm needles, it's almost water and wind proof. Had to be back when it was worn by fishermen!

Please tell me where I can get a pattern for the traditional Guernsey ... I am a long way from the UK and I haven't been able to find one on the web. I knitted one way back in the dark ages when I was a kid in England and would love to have one again.

Thank you