Hello, I’m here again with my first post for September. Today I want mention the wonders of Fair Isle knitting for using up woolly stash.
If you are anything like me then somewhere, (or possibly many ‘somewheres’ 😂!), you have a collection of yarn leftovers that are too precious or pretty to throw away. It might be a carrier bag or a big storage box but if you’ve ever done any Fair Isle knitting you almost certainly have such a collection
My favourite way to work through those is to make a few small Fair Isle projects. Hats, fingerless mittens, a cowl perhaps? Currently I’m making a couple of the Shetland Wool Week Buggiflooer Beanies1 and basking in the virtuous feeling of ‘waste not want not’ that comes from stash diving.
In this project I’m using up a glorious pinky purple Shetland Supreme from JC Rennie. This was part of a gift from family. The rest of the colours went really well together and ended up in a Fair Isle vest for my partner Andy. Though a stunning colour this just never quite worked for a project. Until I decided to pair it with a dark shade and give the beanie a 60s Mary Quant vibe. The dark shade is interesting too. It’s not black, as you might first think but a dark, almost chocolate shade of brown.
I was going to do an off white as the middle of the flowers but it just doesn’t work once it was knitted up in the swatch. I’m fact it looks, as one friend described it, “like a bad mend”! She’s not wrong 😂
This is yet another good reason for colour swatching by the way! So I did duplicate stitches to try some colour changes. First I tried a bright yellow which was even worse, then a yellowish orange which was better but still didn’t zing.
Then I had a slightly mad thought. There is a blue tinge to the pink so I tried a tiny precious piece of Little Grey Sheep Hampshire 4ply in a pale blue. Perfect!
This is a really tiny piece of yarn but it should be enough as it’s only two rows of the hat and the second row is in the crown. If I’m stuck near the end I can duplicate stitch it in. I’m feeling smug that I let myself hang on to that and didn’t give into the urge to purge my leftovers stash.
Stronger Together- combine your stash with friends.
Another good thing to do is to share your leftovers with friends.
My local knitting group are all knitting the Shetland Wool Week beanie so one Saturday we all brought our leftovers and spares to a local coffee shop and each found our 6 colours from the collective pool. It’s such a lovely thing to knit a project as a group, all supporting each other.
A little word of warning though. Do try to go home with less yarn than you bring rather than more! It’s vital to avoid waking up Cinders AKA Yarnella 2
Despite my own warnings I couldn’t resist putting more yarns together 🤷♀️ so now I’m knitting two hats. They will be lovely though!
https://www.shetlandwoolweek.com/knitting-pattern/
The pink-purple yarn is beautiful. I can't wait to see the hat.
"A little word of warning though. Do try to go home with less yarn than you bring rather than more! It’s vital to avoid waking up Cinders AKA Yarnella"
I am HOWLING! 🤣🤣🤣