Wednesday, March 26, 2008

F is for....

Fair Isle Meanderings!

Remember the Endpaper Mitten of Doom, I did look at creating my own fair isle pattern, but felt the drawings were too contrived. These Fair Isle swatches are knitting homework from the City and Guilds course I'm doing. The original design source was a stencil I made from a simplified drawing of seaweed. We then had a look at turning the stencils into repeat patterns and I found that isolating a part of the stencil into a shape of a triangle changed it into something more abstract and interesting. This month we transferred the image onto knitters squared paper.


These first two are the image transferred to small squares, the pattern itself is actually 19 stitches by 25 rows so not very practical in reality, but the exercise is really looking at how the original image can change by using different scale knitters graph paper, and knitting it at the same gauge!



This second photo is the same drawing onto larger squares, the actual repeat is 14sts by 14 rows, possibly more manageable.



This final swatch is a slight tweaking of the 14 sts x 14 rows pattern, into a 12 sts by 16 rows repeat, having 12 sts means that I can repeat the design by stacking repeats directly above each other or by offsetting the design by 6 sts on alternate rows which is how I've knitted this final swatch!



They may not grow up into anything yet, it could be an edging or a mitten, but what's important at the moment is the journey, and the discovery, not the final 'product'.

12 comments:

Marianne said...

Oh Jo! Look at you... I think they're all great and love the differences between them... and it IS the journey and discovery!

Peri said...

Impressed!!! :-D

Heather said...

I love all of these :-) and it is great to see the progression of the design

Artis-Anne said...

Wow Jo that is so interesting and such a great learning curve . Great to see how the design can change

fiona said...

Looking great, jo!

I know what you mean, I spend a lot of time sitting and trying out new patterns or stitches before starting on a project or garment (have learnt the hard way!) :-)

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing this learning process. The steps for finding a workable pattern are intriguing. I can see where design work would be more fun than actual production!

Seahorse said...

I am well impressed!

Anonymous said...

Very cool! Thanks for the peek into your mind.

Rosie said...

oooh, these are really striking. In my book, F is for frogging...

blog-blethers said...

Oh, I do hope they do grow into something! What beautiful swatches and stunning work, Jo!

Sareth said...

Hi! I'm tagging you :D

The rules are:
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

www.sarethsstitches.blogspot.com

Sheila said...

The patterns are so very organic! I love them. And who said they "had to be something"? They are art to be art. You make me want to knit some swatch just to knit a swatch and be done with just that.