Give me colourful knitting

I thought I'd start as I mean to go on; filling the screen with colourful knit. I have been joyfully reunited with my first love, colourwork knitting.

Like many other knitters, I developed intarsia fatigue after Kaffe Fasset's appearance.  Fairisle knitting never appealed to me much because of how quickly and easily it could be done on a machine, leading to lots of cheap and ugly patterning.

But now I have finally discovered the joy of fairisle! I owe this partly to Kate Davies and her  wonderful Neep Head hat. (She models it beautifully on her blog so I won't post pictures of me wearing it.)

And partly to the discovery of the pleasure of using real Shetland wools. These beautiful wools are soft but wiry enough to make colourwork knitting a breeze. They come in a huge range of solid and heathered colours. Combining colours is endlessly fascinating.

These yarns are pure wool and wouldn't be strong enough to run through a knitting machine easily. They are best hand knit. I've tried:

Spindrift from Jamieson's

2-ply jumper weight from Jamieson and Smiths

2-ply from Alice Starmore's Virtual yarns

and Rowan 4-ply Scottish (used to be called Harris) tweed

They are all beautiful and I would love to have some in every colour!

 

Yes, I've been knitting a lot of tams. I've knit many other things too, but tams are such a great way to explore colour and patterns and perfect wear at this time of year. I've even worn one to bed on cold nights!
That's enough tam time for now. I don't want to give you colourwork fatigue. But if you are interested pick up a copy of Alice Starmore's recently republished Book of Fair Isle Knitting. It's a great history and technique book as well as knitter's eye candy.

Just a quick final word for those of you who don't know, I'm working at Loop several days a week now. You can find me there every Monday, Tuesday and alternating Sundays. Please say hello if you read my blog. My yarn passion of the week from Loop is this Misti Alpaca sock yarn:
All my favourite colours in one gorgeous yarn! Yum!

Comments

[iHanna]

Oh yummy knitting - love those patterns! Mmmm... and winter is here.

[blackbird]

Thank you for these bright and beautiful knits today. What a great job you did combining colors and patterns- sometimes the most unexpected color makes it sing.

[Denise]

Gorgeous! What beautiful work you do!

[vintagerockchick]

I got a newsletter from Loop and I thought it was you! I love the hats, especially the purple one. Unfortunately, fairisle requires a bit too much attention for me, and in any case, I've never got to grips with wearing a beret.
Will say hello next time I pop in x

[Susan]

A beautiful burst of colour on a grey,grey day. Thank you.

[Mildawg]

I love all your photos! Great colors.

[Ashley Schott]

I love the colors and the vintagey look and just everything. Berets are my favorite thing in life. I'm fully obsessed with them. These are simply fantastic!

[suzanne]

How lovely - what beautiful hats! I agree about the Jamiesons wool. It comes in some really rich and gem like colours and is great to work with.

[Evebentley.blogspot.com]

lovely yarn - is it the sock yarn in Manu?