Knitting - Fresh Fair Isle
Liven up your Fair Isle knitting! Spend the day with Mary Jane, authour of 200 Fair Isle Motifs: A Knitters Directory, exploring fresh new colourways.
Teacher: Mary Jane Mucklestone
Workshop Duration: Full Day
Description: This course will introduce you to the basics of colour theory and how to use its principles to guide your colour choices. We will learn about the use of colour over the years in traditional Fair Isle knitting and move beyond, developing our own personal colour schemes. We’ll analyse how different colour combinations can completely change how a motif looks. Knitting a simple stranded wristlet or fingerless glove will quickly illustrate new concepts.
Materials to bring:
Between 3 and 8 colours (or more, more colours = more fun!) of fingering weight wool yarn (Shetland Wool preferred), 25-100 yds of each colour
US size 3 (3.25mm) dpns or your preferred needles for working small diameter pieces in the round
Tapestry needle
Scissors
Stitch markers
Graph paper and coloured pencils, if desired.
Takeaway: Students will gain confidence choosing and blending colours in their own knitting, and leave with a solid foundation for further colour exploration.
Level: Intermediate
Prerequisites: Experience working in the round with stranded colourwork.
Homework: With any colour fingering-weight yarn you like, CO 48 sts. Place marker, join to work in the round without twisting. Work k1, p1 rib for 1" (2.5 cm).
So I wrote last week a post asking “Is my making fast fashion?”. And then I did a video on Instagram discussing similar topics in a slightly different way. And as always, you lovely humans have helped me clarify some of my thinking with your thoughtful, clever commentary.
And while I think there is so much more to discuss, here are four key possibly-more-meta ideas that have come up for me out of those conversations.
In using the quote last week that suggested that there was no single answer, and suggesting that this was freeing, I really did mean that we should sit in the grey. Not that the lack of “an” answer to this question should mean we get to ignore the question but rather that the lack of “an” answer means that we need to keep asking bigger more beautiful questions. And keep asking them.
Is my making fast fashion?
Am I living my values or merely thinking them?
And how can I make those two things a little more aligned in this moment?
These are my big beautiful questions.
Yours might be different.
And importantly this leads to point 2.