Book Review – Fearless Fair Isle Knitting

Congratulations to Nancy!

I saw a few people on last week’s giveaway, when I asked for knitting resolutions or skills they wanted to learn in the new year, who said Fair Isle or colorwork knitting, so this seemed like an appropriate followup.

Fearless Fair Isle Knitting by Kathleen Taylor aims to take the scary bits out of colorwork by explaining the basics and providing little collections of patterns that use the same designs in different ways.

The stripes, checks and curlicues section, for instance, includes a hoodie vest (it’s on the cover), a pair of socks and a felted bag, all of which use the same designs.

There are garments for men, women and children as well as plenty of hat, mitts, bags, socks and gloves. I love the Nordic Snowflake dress and the Prairie Earth and Sky women’s cardigan to name just a couple (in all there are 30 patterns, which you can check out most of on Ravelry).

Some of these patterns are sure to be intimidating to new stranded colorwork users, but there are enough small projects, or those that use colorwork on only a portion of the project, that I think a newer colorwork knitter could find some fun stuff to try, and of course those with more experience would find some things they’d like to tackle, too (if you’re a Fair Isle expert, check out the stunning Dragon Ride Shawl at the back of the book).

If you’d like a chance to win this one, leave a comment on this post before the end of the day Sunday, Jan. 1. Can you believe that? Since I asked for craft-related resolutions last week, I’d love to know if you have any other resolutions or goals for the new year. Or if you do One Little Word, I’d love to hear your word. (I think mine is energetic.)

Thanks for visiting, commenting and sharing, and good luck!

Looking for more knitting patterns for knitted Cardigans? Check out these Knitting patterns we found on Etsy.

Specific to knitters, you can join our Knitting Patterns Only group to get, well, knitting patterns, ask questions and gain inspiration for what to knit next.

Looking for Yarn online? Check out Lionbrand our preferred source for purchasing yarn online.

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For the past few years I’ve taken part in a Christmas in July blog hop that encourages people to get a jump on their making for holiday gifts.

I love to use yarn I already have for these projects in the hope that people will consider what they already have that they can use to make projects for themselves or to give as gifts.

This year it was a couple of knit baskets made using partial balls of yarn left in my stash from other projects.

They use the same basic pattern but the first one is made with two colors of bulky yarn, and the second used two strands of worsted weight yarn held together, which made the gauge about the same, but I cast on fewer stitches to make a smaller version.

The bottom of the basket is square, though you can make them rectangular if you’d rather. Then I just knit up the sides in rounds until I was about to run out of yarn. This gave both baskets rather short sides — maybe more like a tray than a basket — but you can keep knitting as long as you like to make the sides of your basket as tall as you want.

They’re worked in seed stitch, which keeps the edges from curling and adds a nice texture to the baskets.

Of course this also allows you to use even more odd balls from your stash. I’d love to make a big one someday combining lots of different yarn. I mean, I’d probably use it to store more yarn, but that’s a fine thing to do.

As it is, these little trays are great for sitting on your desk or bedside table to hold little things that always seem to appear there. I like to use one to hold the supplies for whatever project I’m working on, things like little scissors, my tape measure, a crochet hook, etc.

And they would make good gifts on their own or as a container to hold some other goodies if you like.

You can find the free pattern for these stash busting baskets over at Our Daily Craft.

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