Fair Isle Headband / Hat

One of the things I do when I'm starting work using a new technique is to develop little prototypes. Something I can use to ensure my stitching, colour work and shaping is all OK.

Well this time I was going to work in fair isle stitch , combining 2 and sometimes 3 colours together in colourful designs.

I had done some fair isle work before, but always chickened out when it came to knitting in the round. I wasn't sure I could control the pattern when it came to the point where the round joined and so steered well away from it. But recently I had been to a fair isle work shop with my new knitting group, here we had learned all about steeking (I'm sure I'll cover this in a later post) and the lady running the workshop had shown us some of her lovely fair isle knits that had been worked in the round. I couldn't for the life of my see where the round started and finished so I took my trust in this technique and decided to give it a go.

Last week I knit a fair isle headband. I liked the pattern I had designed on paper and loved the colours I had chosen. The stitching work was ok, but not brilliant BUT the headband , even though I measured it when I started) was too small:( . 

I quickly sussed out the problem , I had worked on the wrong needle size, picking up the incorrect circular needles to use (why don't they have the size on the needles?)

This had caused both the stitches to be a little tight and the size of the headband to be too small.

Today I set to, to create yet another prototype. This time working on the right size needles (just 0.25mm bigger) I set off working in the same pattern. I finished the headband off, tried it on and then realised I had created it too wide ! 

Golly gosh , why don't I put my brain in gear sometime!

Ha ha , so my headband is now a hat ! I used my experience of knitting hats for the Wool and Gang and shaped the top of the headband / hat as I went along. 

I think it's rather cute, don't you?

Our stay at Strontian, Scotland

On our travels to the Hebridean islands we stopped at a wee village called Strontian (Srón an t-Sithein), on the shores of Loch Sunart, Argyllshire, Scotland. It is the main village in Sunart, an area in western Lochaber,Highland, Scotland, on the A861 road. It lies on the north shore of Loch Sunart, close to the head of the loch.

We were heading for the Sunart camp site , run by Tim and Lynn originally from Huddersfield , Yorkshire. Tim runs the camp site , Lynn runs her own crafty gallery shop / workshop. 

As soon as we entered the village I saw the sign that the chemical element strontium was named after the village. Me being a scientist at heart had to find out more.  I didn't see any more reference to it in the village so I did a little research on line

view from the village pub

This is what I found- 
Adair Crawford who was trained as a physician was also interested in chemical research. For a period of time, he was on the staff at St. Thomas's Hospital in London, England, and a professor of chemistry at Woolwich University.
In 1790. He was studying barium minerals and found a new (not barium) element in minerals found in the lead mines at Strontia. He called the element strontia from which the samples came. Strontia was later found to be a compound of strontium and oxygen. In 1808, Davy found a way to produce pure strontium metal. He passed an electric current through molten (melted) strontium chloride. The electric current broke the compound into its two elements:


Strontium and its compounds have relatively few commercial uses. Interestingly compounds of strontium are sometimes used to colour glass and ceramics. They give a beautiful red colour to these materials. Strontium compounds also provide the brilliant red colour of certain kinds of fireworks.

That evening , being a little fascinated by the subject , I was trying to come up with a new fair isle design. 

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/200423592/red-tan-cushion-hand-knit-fair-isle

 

Don't you think it looks rather like a chemical element , electrons circling the inner neutron. I thought I might call it the "strontium" pattern.

I will be incorporating this design into my fair isle work in the next few weeks. I'll post here when I do.

Playing with patterns

I have been wanting to design some of my own fair isle patterns for the last few years and I've finally taken the plunge. As part of my research I started looking into fair isle patterns in general , how a simple little charted pattern can transform in to a new pattern by simply stringing a few little patterns together or by turning patterns upside down .

For example this simple pattern 

can be turned in to the pattern below by laying two patterns side by side and then again underneath.

 

and then it can become even more interesting when you start turning patterns upside down 

 So looking forward to knitting this pattern and playing around a little more.I may even add some more detail to it , make it a little more intricate , see what a difference that will make. Keep tuned , just in case I do.......