Knitting Fair Isle | sweetgeorgia

Life before Colour Correction

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2005

I just picked up a copy of Alice Starmore’s “Pacific Coast Highway” from an interlibrary loan. Realize that this same book just sold for $256 CDN on Ebay this past weekend. _Crazy, I tell you, crazy._

There are just two items that I might make out of here: the Grant Avenue vest and the Abalone cardigan. I’m obsessing over Grant Avenue right now because I want to get the colours “just right”. It doesn’t help when these photos were published without attention to correct colours! See below:

Which version is correct?

You can see a real life example of this at [Junieann's site](http://sablestasher.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/03/grant_avenue_up.html). She knit up Grant Avenue just a few months ago, using stashed AS Campion in the exact colours specified in the pattern. How is it that her vest looks completely different than the book’s photo? Here’s another example on [Veronique's site](http://actaestfabula.typepad.com/photos/fair_isle/grantavenue.html) and also [here](http://actaestfabula.typepad.com/photos/fair_isle/grantavenuedetail.html).

Starting with Meg

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2005

After a bit of swatching (in the round, well, flat with long loops), I finally decided on a colourway for Meg’s Fair Isle Cardigan. Instead of the warmer browns/heathers in the original cardigan, I chose cooler greys and plums for my version. I’m using Jamieson’s Spindrift in Black, Granite, Oxford, White, Loganberry, and Raspberry. See, I’ve started the body:

Corrugated Ribbing. That’s 289 stitches.

There’s my first 6 rows of corrugated ribbing in black and raspberry. I learned the _German Twisted Cast On_ to prevent the ribbing from curling and love this method of cast on now. It’s more elastic and so I’ve used it for a pair of socks now too.

Rather than knit at Meg’s gauge of 6.75 spi for a 48″ circumference cardi, I’m using smaller needles to knit at 7.75 to 8 spi for something closer to a 40″ circumference. Besides, I think the recommended gauge for Spindrift is 7.5 spi… I figure I have some wiggle room here. The good thing about knitting at a slightly tighter gauge is that I don’t have to resize the cardi or cut out repeats, etc. I can just (hopefully) follow Meg’s instructions as is.