In my last entry in “from the studio” I talked about my issues with this design, how I had tried to solve a problem with my “end of round” switching from one place to another and how that in trying to solve that I had some stockinette rounds prior to my fair isle. I have sense solved that (sort of!) and I also mentioned how my Kauni yarn was messed up in that one of the balls had a “color break” where the color simply changed from blue to red without any warning. Very lame. It’s supposed to be a gradual change and having that 25% into the ball was very disappointing.

I had not knit on this sense December. I picked it up this week determined I would finish it out, or at the very least get back on the train. I have sense ripped 2″ of fair isle out twice again. I had to rip a bit when I trying to solve my end of round issues, and then when I cast on the fair isle again with the same color contrast, I quickly realized that even though I was knitting from the same end on two separate balls, one of those balls had been wound the opposite direction, so in turn I would have eventually ran into a color issue.
Stripe Sequences in Fair Isle
Imagine the stripe sequence RED, WHITE, BLUE. So if you knit two balls that had been wound OPPOSITE from each other then your first stripes would be RED/BLUE (last and first) fair isle together, then after that you would wind up with WHITE/WHITE which would be a problem because the fair isle wouldn’t show up, the last part would be BLUE/RED (first and last again on opposite ends).
So to avoid this problem you knit two balls of the same sequence of colors, you knit them from the SAME end, and you start at different parts. So again with RED, WHITE, BLUE, you have two balls of this sequnce. You make sure they are wound the exact same way and you start one ball with RED and one ball with WHITE. It will go like this: First stripe seqence: RED/WHITE, second: WHITE/BLUE, third, BLUE/RED. As you can see, there is no blending issue here or any chanse of having two colors “cross”.
So I ripped it all out (AGAIN!) and started over this time from the outside of one ball and the inside of another, meaning the same end of both balls because one was wound the opposite of the other (thanks Kauni, how nice of you). But then disaster struck, as I was knitting from the center I had to keep pulling a bunch of yarn out, ya know how a whole lot can sometimes be squished in the center. Well talk about SHOCK when I pulled on it after about an inch of knitting and it simply CAME OUT, attached to NOTHING. Thanks again Kauni. You rock (not).
Can you hear me sighing? So now I will have to splice it together, and unwind one of the balls a heck of a lot to get to the point in the ball that has the blue where it broke off, I have no idea why that was stuck in the center, as after that the center is a totally different color (red). So then I also have to double make sure the balls are each going in the “same” direction. This knit has proven to my husband that knitting can be very complicated. I am always telling him how it is sometimes like bug testing HTML code.
Here it is last night, the fair isle is nice and snug against the garter stitch:

This was before I realized the red was turning to blue and the blue to red and at some-point it would cross and the fair isle would be invisible. I also wasn’t a huge fan of the colors at this point and I am a glass half full kinda girl so it looks like it all worked out for the best, even though I’ve had SO MUCH fun the last 4 nights, and stayed up until midnight (it’s 11:45 right now) and I am supposed to be asleep by 10pm in order to be more pleasant to all those who are in my life.
Here is the new version, after a bunch of frogging at lunch and then knitting at night:

I like the more consistent coloring a lot better, and even though knitting with Kauni is a lot of fun, I am just a bit disappointed in them. Knitters should be worried about not dropping stitches, not broken or unprofessionally prepared yarn.