hi - so, i’ve never done fair isle before and thought i would give it a shot with this pattern for the design below. i wanted to go through the pattern to make sure i understood it before buying the yarn.
so, the pattern is knit in black (B) and white (W)
my first question is regarding the first row (yeah, i didn’t get too far )
1st Row: (Wrong side) P1B., * pass B. wool to back, sl. 3 purlwise, bring B. wool to front, carrying it loosely across sts., PIB., repeat from * to end.
ok, so purl 1 st in black,
put the black yarn in the back,
then [I][B]slip[/B][/I] 3 in white purlwise ? <— is that what it is saying? am i really slipping and not purling them?
Yes, you will slip 3 stitches purlwise without actually purling them. And they will not be in white, you’ll still be working just with the black yarn. This is a type of knitting called “mosaic” where it looks like fancy colourwork but really for the most part you will only work with one colour on any given row. Like we always say, trust the pattern!!
The sts you slip will be white; you don’t knit them on this row because you’re using the black yarn. Other rows, you’ll be working with white yarn and slipping the black sts. That gives you the checkered effect.
Although you won’t be doing fair isle mosaic is a cool form of colour work and you don’t have to carry all of the strings which I like. The fabric once knitted seems a bit lumpy or textured (not in a bad way) and I don’t know yet if that will even out more once it is blocked. I haven’t gotten that far. I was told it would be a bit textured though.
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