[tallieu]

I do a lot of Fair Isle and last night got to thinking that maybe I have a couple of techniques that would help others. This morning I got a private message asking how to keep the strands from getting tangled and I answered her but decided to copy that answer into a new topic. I'm sure others out there will have wonderful techniques to add to the topic. I'm always looking for the easy way out, so here it is:

If you are using more than two colors on a row of fair isle, the best thing is to keep your yarn cut short - no more than 2 yards long - and don't wind it into a ball or holder, just let it hang. That way when the yarn gets tangled it is easy to pull out the strands and untangle them.

Also, when working with just two colors, I hold one strand in my left hand and one in my right. (I'm right handed) If I'm working in the round on something small like a hat, instead of twisting the yarn to wrap it (which I do every two stitches) I wrap the yarn down to the right of the hat, wrap it under the hat to the left, then bring it back into place for knitting. Then I just knit with the color that comes next whether it is the color on the right or left hand. Hope this makes sense to you. Doing this my yarn doesn't tangle at all. This only works when using two colors on a small project.

I've recently learned something new called Portugese knitting where you wrap the strand around your neck. I use this for purling when doing fair isle. On the purl rows I wrap one color from right to left around my neck so that the yarn on the left is attached to the project. I can keep a little tension on the yarn by holding my neck in a certain way and I don't know how to explain that. The other color is on my right hand. It is very easy to pick the yarn from the neck strand with the needle, then throw the yarn from the right hand. You can watch videos about Portugese knitting on YouTube.

Hope this helps. Just keep working at it. The twisted yarn is annoying but the beautiful patterns you can make with fair isle are worth it.

 

[e.ridenh]

((((((( Hi, Tallieu and good day!! Your pic makes me sure you're just as sweet in person as this post! TY for that! Hubby stole my flash drive thingy and I'm not able to down load at this time, so my pics are on pc andd e-mail.

As I don't do fair Isle, I read it, didn't absorb it well so I've copied and pasted it into the link above called 'my pages' and also over to Incredimail for folder storage and can print a copy, too. In e-mail format, I can also send to others, just like that.........if you give me permission?

Let me know & once again, TY for the good tut!
~~~~~~~~

I do a lot of Fair Isle and last night got to thinking that maybe I have a couple of techniques that would help others. This morning I got a private message asking how to keep the strands from getting tangled and I answered her but decided to copy that answer into a new topic. I'm sure others out there will have wonderful techniques to add to the topic. I'm always looking for the easy way out, so here it is:

If you are using more than two colors on a row of fair isle, the best thing is to keep your yarn cut short - no more than 2 yards long - and don't wind it into a ball or holder, just let it hang. That way when the yarn gets tangled it is easy to pull out the strands and untangle them.

Also, when working with just two colors, I hold one strand in my left hand and one in my right. (I'm right handed) If I'm working in the round on something small like a hat, instead of twisting the yarn to wrap it (which I do every two stitches) I wrap the yarn down to the right of the hat, wrap it under the hat to the left, then bring it back into place for knitting. Then I just knit with the color that comes next whether it is the color on the right or left hand. Hope this makes sense to you. Doing this my yarn doesn't tangle at all. This only works when using two colors on a small project.

I've recently learned something new called Portugese knitting where you wrap the strand around your neck. I use this for purling when doing fair isle. On the purl rows I wrap one color from right to left around my neck so that the yarn on the left is attached to the project. I can keep a little tension on the yarn by holding my neck in a certain way and I don't know how to explain that. The other color is on my right hand. It is very easy to pick the yarn from the neck strand with the needle, then throw the yarn from the right hand. You can watch videos about Portugese knitting on YouTube.

Hope this helps. Just keep working at it. The twisted yarn is annoying but the beautiful patterns you can make with fair isle are worth it.