tin can knits

I have been seeing more and more makers in my Instagram feed posting about the Summer of Basics – #summerofbasics. Intrigued, I decided to check it out. Fringe Association (a very cool blog) is running a make-along (MAL) this summer to create 3 wardrobe basics in June, July, and August. Since I have been considering my own wardrobe lately the idea was immediately intriguing!

Flax Light – a great basic and also a free pattern!

The idea of a summer of basics started bringing forth all kinds of questions, because what is a basic? Do accessories count as basics if you wear them practically every day? Will I sew something too (it’s been a few years…okay a lot of years….since I’ve sewn a garment) or just stick to knit? I still have more questions than answers, but I’ve decided a few things:

I will take these items one at a time. I’m late to the game since June and July are already gone, and while 3 items is a great goal, it’s a busy time and one basic would be pretty nice!
I’m going to knit a sweater. I’ve wanted to up my knit sweater game in my wardrobe so now is the chance! I have 2 great sweaters that I would consider basics (a mustard yellow Flax and a tweedy brown Antler), and I want to add to that collection.
Maybe I’ll sew something too, I love a challenge!

Pockets make for a great feature in a basic for me! These pockets are the Playdate Cardigan

Now, the question I’ve been working on for the last week is which sweater to knit? Should I cast on a new design? Something really simple but lovely like the Harvest cardigan? I’ve been itching to cast on a North Shore sweater for myself for ages… I know I want something in a DK weight or lighter because I have 2 worsted weight sweaters already. Here are a few sweaters in the running:

North Shore, Hearthstone, Tenderheart, 1999, Harvest

Decisions decisions! While I was on my Alaskan Adventure I picked up a sweater quantity of Brooklyn Tweed Arbor in ‘humpback’, a lovely grey with just the slightest hint of green, so now that I have yarn it’s time to narrow down my sweater choice!

Brooklyn Tweed Arbor in ‘humpback’

So, what are your favourite knit basics?

Basic Basics from Tin Can Knits:

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When Jen of Arnall-Culliford Knitwear invited me to submit a design for consideration for her Year Of Techniques book, I was thrilled! We love the idea of bringing new techniques to knitters so they can up their skills, that was the goal behind our whole Simple Collection!

This was also a great opportunity to work with some other amazing designers, on a really special collection. Bristol Ivy , Ella Austin , Ella Gordon , Jen Arnall-Culliford , Jim Arnall-Culliford , Martina Behm , Mary Jane Mucklestone , Rachel Coopey , Romi Hill , Sarah Hatton , and Woolly Wormhead, are all also represented in this great and inspiring collection; you should check it out!

The little tern blanket is really quite simple, but gives you the chance to learn or practice a couple cool techniques you might otherwise not use. Because this collection has been put together with such thought and care, there are tutorials to teach you each step of these techniques, if they are new or unfamiliar to you.

Some other Tin Can Knits patterns which use the provisional CO technique:

The second technique that is interesting in this blanket is the sideways bind off. I had tried this before, but never incorporated it into a design before this point. Interestingly enough, Romi Hill’s Brightheart yoke design for the Heart On My Sleeve collection used this technique at the neckline. And, in fact, so does Bristol Ivy’s Wholehearted design, which creates the entire YOKE of a sweater using a variation on this same technique (combined with short-row shaping).

Neve seems to like Little Tern!

Bristol’s Wholehearted sweater uses a sideways bind off and short rows to shape the yoke.

What are some of the techniques you are interested in trying?

TCK patterns to try something new:

My current knitting (Bodhi’s September Sweater) hanging out at Eyak Lake

While Cordova is an awesome and beautiful place, and The Net Loft is an amazing shop, I think my favourite part of my visit was the knitters. There were so many warm and welcoming knitters, they immediately made me feel right at home! By then end of the weekend I was waving at cars as they passed when I walked down the street and stopping to chat in the grocery store parking lot. I felt like a CDV local!

Michelle knit this lovely Flax for her husband to keep warm on the boat

It seemed like so many were knitting gansey sweaters (popular among the group was the Fisher Lassie), and there were so many awesome Bowline hats! During the show-and-tell portion of my Thursday evening talk, I was delighted to hear knitters share stories of their very first sweater: Flax. I wish I had pictures of all of them to show, there was an adorable wee green one in the colour ‘Pan’ from Skeins in the Stacks, and one in a Three Irish Girls colourway, ‘Salmon’ that had been worn and loved.

When Emily and I dreamed up the Simple Collection, and the Flax and Harvest sweaters in particular, we hoped that they would inspire knitters who might be a bit timid to try a garment. It seems like it’s working! Michelle was good enough to share a pic of her hubby out on the boat in the Flax she had knit him!

Amber in her beautiful gansey

Amber wore her beautiful and inspirational sweater when we went on our trip to see Child’s Glacier. It is a gansey she knit, and when she told the story of her sweater I was rapt. Each stitch pattern had a different meaning in her life (anchors and fish featured prominents), and she had even put her initials in a purl pattern at the hem. To me it was everything I love about knitting, it was a labor of love (she had had to re-knit a sleeve among other things), personalized in every detail, and in a colour that knitters who know her well described as ‘so Amber’. Just lovely!

A special little tag for Jonesy’s Bowline sweater. The Cordova Gansey Project

Sometimes in my project zeal and *ahem* lack of ability to ‘reel it in’, I forget the wonderful simple pleasures of knitting something that is unique and one of a kind. Each sweater I knit ends up being original in one way or another (choosing a different yarn and colour, adding an inch to the arms for Hunter, that time I forgot to work sleeve increases for a few inches, etc.) but it isn’t usually my intention from the start.

This trip inspired me to think more about the meaning behind the projects and yarns I choose (rather than ‘ooh pretty, I want it!’). Inspires me to keep creating special and meaningful knits. I knit a lot for my kids, trying to keep them wrapped in Mama’s woollies as much as I can, but maybe sometimes less is more.

TCK knits that are popular with the Cordova crowd:

In case you hadn’t already guessed, Emily and I love camping (last year we even got to camp together in Tofino!). I love sitting around the campfire, I love s’mores and spiked coffee, I love pancake breakfasts. I love waking up in the forest with that fresh forest smell. I love walking on the beach, swimming in lakes, day hikes, camping quesadilla night, all of it! My knits always come back with a hint of a campfire smell to them, but I really don’t mind. British Columbia is a beautiful place and every summer I like to hit the road, family in tow, and camp out in a little piece of it.

SO, when I first saw Tolt Yarn and Wool’s Camp Tolt, I was instantly in. Last year we created the Banff hat for the collection and it quickly became a fan favourite. Simple fair isle creating a charming tree line hat, in our classic size range of course, in case you and your kiddos need to match (and we definitely think they do).

Banff Mitt:

Pattern: Banff Mitts

Sizing: Toddler (Child, Adult S, Adult M, Adult L)
To fit approximate hand circumference: 5 (6, 7, 7.75, 8.5)”

Yarn: Worsted weight yarn in 2 colours
MC: 70 (80, 100, 110, 120) yards
CC: 20 (25, 30, 35, 40) yards

samples shown in the lovely, woolly, Peace Fleece Worsted

I always love the photos Anna and Claire send me of the knits. They remind my of camping as a kid, because some things really don’t change! There is always debate around the campfire among family and friends whether the best s’more is a toasted marshmallow sandwiched between 2 graham crackers with a square of chocolate hiding in there somewhere, OR a graham cracker/marshmallow/chocolate sandwich, wrapped in tinfoil and warmed on the coals all together. I’m not sure there is a wrong answer when it comes to s’mores though…. I’m also pretty excited for the invention of graham crackers that come pre-chocolated, that’s a game changer!

So, what project do you pack for your summer adventures? Are you a sweater knitter who packs a body and some sleeves? Maybe you like to knock out a hat on the way to the campground?

More forest inspired knits from TCK:

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A request from up north

I suppose it was a couple of years ago now when Dotty from The Net Loft first contacted me about her Fisher Folk retreat and her lovely shop. She asked if I would design something inspired by the Cordova Gansey project. I was immediately smitten with the idea of hardworking knits, out in the real world! The fact that knitting is usable art is one of the things that drew me to it to begin with. I came up with the Bowline hat, but always in the back of my mind I wanted to design a gansey sweater. This year, in preparation for my trip to Alaska (read more about that here and here), I designed the matching sweater, Bowline, a hardworking knit for everyday wear.

Choosing a stitch

This is an image of a traditional style gansey I found here.

A gansey sweater is of a type. It has a certain look to it and you can see examples of it in many historical pictures (like the one above). It is mainly stockinette on the bottom and then somewhere before the split for front and back the patterning starts (sometimes higher, sometimes lower). While ganseys often have intricate patterning, sometimes with stories behind the stitch patterns, I wanted to do something a little different. I had designed the Bowline hat the year before and still couldn’t get that lovely garter ribbing out of my head. For me adding that ribbing to the top was the perfect combination of simplicity and tradition.

The ribbing from the Bowline hat was just the inspiration I needed for the Bowline sweater!

Swatch swatch swatch – trying different yarns

it took a few swatches to find the yarn I wanted for my sweaters! These are Hinterland Range, Stone Wool Cormo, and YOTH Father

Choosing the perfect yarn for the Bowline sweater was a tougher task. I knew I wanted to use a slightly more rustic yarn. My Bodhi prototype was in a hand dye I had on hand, but the Cordova gansey project is all about harder working yarn, so I wanted to stay true to that idea.

Bodhi in her wee prototype sweater, knit up in The Plucky Scholar in ‘grumpy old sailor’

I swatched in a few yarns I had on hand that I thought would fit the bill. In the end, my swatches didn’t help very much because I wanted to knit the sweater in all of them! There is something delightful about the halo on the Hinterland Range yarn, a mix of 50% Alpaca, raised on Vancouver Island, and 50% Canadian Rambouillet, I cast on an Antler sweater for Hunter in that yarn instead. The YOTH Father (another Rambouillet) had such a lovely stitch definition, but I had used it for the Elwha sweater in Stranded magazine.

You can see here I have separated the 2 plies of yarn

The winner, in the end, was the Stone Wool Cormo. The yarn has 2 plies that are twisted together and they gave that squishy rib the perfect amount of added texture. The yarn is soft but sturdy, and has a lovely bounce to it. The finished sweater is light but warm, the perfect piece for the great outdoors!

Not a perfect gansey

When compared to a traditional gansey sweater, Bowline breaks a few rules….but we think that’s okay! I wanted to create a gansey that was approachable and simple, something someone new to garments could tackle without too much strife, and with a bit of a modern fit. Instead of creating a box we added in some shaping at the armholes. Instead of a traditional gusset at the underarm, we added in some short rows to shape the sleeve cap. It has the lovely overall effect of a more traditional gansey, but with a few modern twists.

The Bowline sweater has EVEN MORE sizes than our usual, we have our usual range of kids and adult sizes, but for this sweater is was important to make the armhole depth and upper arm measurements different for the men’s sizes, so we have those too!

Bowline pattern details:

Pattern: Bowline by Tin Can Knits

Sizing: 0-6mo (6-12mo, 1-2yr, 2-4yr, 4-6yr, 6-8yr, 8-10yr, Ladies XXS, XS, S, SM, M, ML, L, LXL, XL, XXL, 3XL, 4XL, Mens S, SM, M, ML, L, XL, XXL, 3XL, 4XL)

Yarn: Worsted / Aran weight yarn
300 (350, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900, 1000, 1100, 1200, 1300, 1400, 1500, 1600, 1700, 1800, 1900, 2000, 1300, 1400, 1500, 1600, 1750, 1900, 2000, 2100, 2200) yds (samples shown in Stone Wool Cormo in ‘shale 2’ and ‘tobacco 2’)

The Bowline sweater is perfect for anyone you want to send out in the world wrapped in woolly love!

More simple sweaters from TCK:

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The TCK family

As we may have mentioned (about a million times?!), Tofino is a very special place for Emily and I. I have been visiting Tofino my whole life, first with my parents, then with my 20-something friends, and now I visit every year with my own brood. Tin Can Knits began on the beach there, Emily and I gazing up at the stars and dreaming up our very first project. Tofino is an amazing wild place, with beaches as far as the eye can see, rainforest all around, and a laid back vibe I love.

Since our first trip to Tofino together, Emily and I have designed knits inspired by this special place, and worked photoshoots into our family vacations there too! When TCK first started, there wasn’t really a separation between work and life (even now the line is pretty blurry), and so I would bring knits with me on any vacation in the hopes my family would be good enough to do some modelling while we were together.

Rye, Simple Yet Effective, and Tofino Surfer were a few of our early Tofino photoshoots. I begged some tired and dirty campers to gussy up for a minute, put on some woolly socks, and pose casually on a dock… where one would naturally wear a pair of hand knit socks right?

A few years later we wrote Road Trip, half of which is dedicated to Tofino! Clayoquot sound inspired our Fair Isle Cardigan, memories of beach bonfires inspriring a cozy blanket, and walks on the endless sandy beach inspired some HBC coloured mitts.

Bonfire, Old Growth, Clayoquot, Paddle, Grayling, all from Road Trip

Em and I, along with our hubbies and gaggles of children, headed to Tofino this year together. While we mostly hit the beach, sat by the fire, ate, drank, and were merry, we also gathered the whole TCK family together for a few sweatered photos.

It was a glorious trip, with smashing weather, good friends, relaxing, and even a bit of knitting! Who could ask for more? Until next year Tofino…..

Are there places that inspire your creativity? Get the wheels turning for your next project?

More TCK knits inspired by Tofino:

Last chance for Knits Stars! Enrollment CLOSES Thursday, September 14th at midnight PST. Enroll today and learn to design your own Fair Isle yoked sweater. We give you all of our tips and tricks and you have access to 9 other amazing instructors. Included on that list is Andrea Mowry, designer of the So Faded sweater (like the one I knit below) and Beata of Hedgehog Fibers (the yarn I used for Hunter’s So Faded)!

Okay, so occasionally I am prone to jump on a knitting bandwagon, and it seems like everyone is faded crazy lately! For good reason, it’s super fun and an excellent way to take on a whole bunch of speckled onesies in the stash. I could only sit on the sidelines for so long, I took the plunge with a new So Faded Pint Sized sweater for Hunter!

I knit a lot (in cast you couldn’t tell), but I mostly like to design new things, and knit up different versions of other things we have designed. There are only so many hours in the day, so although my list of ‘things I would love to knit, designed by other people’ is pretty long, I only occasionally get to check one off the list. I have enjoyed following Andrea Mowry for a while now, and when I took a look at some Hedgehog pretties that were hanging around in my stash, it was time to cast on!

sleeve detail! I think Fly is my very favourite Hedgehog colourway

Project Details:

Pattern: So Faded Pint Sized by Andrea Mowry

Yarn: Hedgehog Sock in ‘harijuku’, ‘oracle’, ‘pesto’, ‘boom box’, and ‘fly’

The ‘pesto-boombox-fly’ part of this fade

While I’m more of a black/grey/jeans wardrobe kinda girl, Hunter enjoys bright and fun. I knew I would have a blast knitting with these speckles too, so I cast on a So Faded Pint Sized! I mean, she NEEDED a new sweater for Grade 1 right? This might be the fastest I have ever knit ANYTHING in fingering weight yarn. I shy away from the time it takes, but I always so love the result. It’s light and warm, and super fun. It screams unicorns and rainbows and my little pony, and I love it. Best of all? It was simple and fun to knit and Hunter loves it too!

TCK patterns that could use a fade:

Wanna design your own custom colourwork yoke sweater?

YOU CAN.

Strange Brew makes it easy, exciting and fun!

We’ve been cooking up this special pattern for quite awhile now, and we are oh so excited to share it with you!

We have been working on many Fair Isle designs and swatches in the last little while, and have so loved looking at all of the beautiful colourwork yokes out there. Inspired by our participation in Knit Stars 2.0, and the great interest in our Holiday Hackathon last winter, we developed a recipe so that you can design your very own sweet Fair Isle yoke sweater too! We wanted a pattern that knitters could dive right into and come out with a sweater, without too much fuss or fear. Strange Brew is a bottom-up sweater, designed for DK weight yarn in 25 sizes for babies, children, women, and men.

The Dog Star sweater was designed using the Strange Brew recipe; it illustrates how a yoke design can be developed by applying the Strange Brew instructions.

Strange Brew features a simple plug-and-play recipe which allows you to simply choose colourwork motifs you love, follow the instructions and design your own round yoke without doing any math! For the slightly more adventurous knitter it also outlines a method for designing your yoke by creating a wedge-shaped chart. Whether you choose to paint by number or colour outside the lines, this recipe makes knitting your own custom sweater accessible and a whole lot of fun!

Play with it! Take advantage of the freedom to work patterns at cuffs and hem or all over, or keep it minimal and stick to the yoke.

The Strange Brew recipe includes:

instructions for sweater body and sleeves
a ‘plug and play’ yoke recipe
swatch hat and cowl patterns for testing gauge, yarns, and motifs
nearly 100 colourwork motif charts to try
a ‘wedge design’ method for developing larger vertically aligned designs

We’ve included a sampling of colourwork stitch patterns to get you started! If you’re unsure about how to read knitting charts, check out our tutorial.

we’re more than a little bit colour obsessed

Strange Brew is really only the tip of the (colourwork) iceberg. We’re brewing many more designs, tutorials, and inspiring tips to get you started or help you take your colourwork and design to the next level!

The Tenderheart Sweater from Heart On My Sleeve is a good illustration of how your Strange Brew sweater will fit, and some inspiration for colour and patterns you might try!

KAL with us

Strange Brew

We’re hosting an epic Strange Brew Knitalong, starting Thursday October 19 and running for a full 7 weeks, until Monday December 11th. Join in the chat on our Facebook group, then list your finished knit in our Ravelry thread for a chance to win a prize. We will release more details when the KAL begins, but for now just get the pattern and start choosing colours!

We have noticed most knitters aren’t big fans of making swatches (*gasp*), however, when knitting sweaters and colourwork, the process of checking for gauge and experimenting with pattern, yarn, and colour combinations is important. So the Strange Brew recipe includes a hat and cowl pattern that you can use to make (our favourite) ‘useful swatches’ as you plan your sweater.

Strange Brew

does colour leave you a little overwhelmed?

Are you feeling uncomfortable at the prospect of designing-your-own?

A bit uncertain if colourwork is for you?

If you’re ready to take the plunge, but need a helping hand, join the KAL and ask all your questions – we’ll be there to help! Or skip the design aspect, and cast on our newest pattern – Dog Star – a sparkly yoke sweater developed using Strange Brew as a base. This could be a great first colourwork project, or perhaps a Christmas jumper?

We designed Dog Star in Sweet Fiber Merino Twist DK in ‘paper birch’ and ‘tree line’.

get started with our resources

Over the coming months we will add more colourwork resources, but we already have a number of tutorials you may find useful:

Do you have a favourite colourwork pattern or tip? A yarn you love for Fair Isle? Share your knit knowledge:

Strange Brew

Colourful projects from TCK:

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While we were developing our Strange Brew recipe we thought to ourselves, ‘knitters are going to want to know what this looks like’, and so we created Dog Star. This twinkly yoke is was designed following our recipe, with 3 patterned sections, separated by decrease rounds.

Dog Star is knit in Sweet Fiber Merino Twist DK in ‘paper birch’ and ‘tree line’.

My favourite part of this design was experimenting with colour. For Bodhi’s little sweater I kept it utterly simple by using 2 colours. The main colour is a classic neutral, and the contrast colour is a subtly variegated yarn, which adds some depth and interest. The high contrast between the two colours makes the pattern really pop. This kind of two-contrast pair with strong contrast is a great starting place if you are new to colourwork.

When I swatched the charts for the adult sizes I experimented with changing the background colour and the contrast colour part with through each chart. It has a completely different look! That is really the charm and addictive nature of colourwork for me, the same pattern with a few minor tweaks is a whole new sweater. Check out our posts on our favourite colour combos, and choosing a palette for colourwork too.

This is the same sweater, but with a few small colour changes: Sweet Fiber Merino Twist DK in ‘charcoal’ with ‘chartreuse’, ‘sea glass’, and ‘winter’.

Dog Star Pattern Details

Pattern: Dog Star

Sizing: 0-6mo (6-12mo, 1-2yr, 2-4yr, 4-6yr, 6-8yr, 8-10yr, Women’s XS, S, SM, M, ML, L, LXL, XL, XXL, 3XL, 4XL, Men’s S, M, L, XL, XXL, 3XL, 4XL)
Finished Chest Measurement: 17.5 (19.5, 22, 24, 26, 28.5, 30.5, 32.5, 35, 37, 39.5, 41.5, 43.5, 46, 48, 50, 54.5, 59, 37, 41.5, 46, 50, 54.5, 59, 63.5)”

Yarn: DK weight yarn in two or more colours
MC: 300 (400, 500, 650, 800, 900, 1000, 1100, 1200, 1300, 1400, 1500, 1600, 1700, 1800, 1900, 2100, 2200,1300, 1500, 1700, 1900, 2000, 2200, 2300) yds
CC: 100 (125, 150, 175, 175, 200, 225, 250, 250, 275, 275, 300, 300, 325, 350, 375, 400, 400,300, 325, 350, 375, 400, 425, 450) yds
Sample shown in Sweet Fiber Merino Twist DK in ‘paper birch and ‘tree line’, adult charts shown in ‘charcoal’, ‘chartreuse’, ‘sea glass’ and ‘winter’

So, if you are a little hesitant to use our Strange Brew pattern to design your own Fair Isle yoke, get started with Dog Star! Pick your 2 contrasting shades (or many!) and cast on.

Join the party!

We’re hosting an epic Strange Brew (and Dog Star) Knitalong. It starts Thursday October 19 and running for a full 7 weeks, until Monday December 11th. Join in the chat on our Facebook group, then list your finished knit in our Ravelry thread for a chance to win a prize. We will release more details when the KAL begins, but for now just get the pattern and start choosing colours!

More Fair Isle fabulous with TCK:

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Since we released the Strange Brew recipe, a pattern which guides knitters to create their own colourwork yoke design, we realized there were a number of colour-related terms we hadn’t yet defined on the blog. The KAL for Strange Brew starts next week and we know you are all picking colours! This discussion of colour theory is included in our book Mad Colour.

When picking and combining pairing colours, there are some concepts and terms are useful.

Hue

Hue is what we generally mean when we say what ‘colour’ a thing is. If you’ve been through primary school, you’ll probably already know that there are 3 primary hues: red, yellow, and blue. Mixing these hues (in light, in paint, etc.) generates the 3 secondary hues: orange, green, and purple. These colours make up the ‘colour wheel’.

A colour wheel of Rainbow Heirloom Sweater

Taking the colour wheel as a starting point, we can name a series of relationships between colours.

Complementary colours are located across the colour wheel from each other, these colours have a very strong contrast against each other. This can be great, or sometimes a little to strong or harsh. Red + Green, Purple + Yellow, and Blue + Orange are complementary colour pairs.

Analogous colours are located adjacent one another, these ‘similar’ colours often play nicely together. Green + Blue, Blue + Purple, Purple + Red, Red + Orange, Orange + Yellow, Yellow + Green are analogous colour pairs.

We find that analogous colours are a pretty solid bet for colourwork, provided there is enough difference in value between the colours for the pattern to read clearly.

Contrast

Low contrast pairs create a more blendy (which is totally a word) or soft effect which is indistinct. High contrast pairs create more crisp graphics, really emphasizing each stitch, stripe or motif. When working stranded colourwork, the higher the contrast, the more clearly and crisply the pattern itself will read.

Contrast

Saturation

Saturation is a measure of colourfulness or colour intensity. Less saturated is closer to grey

If you think of mixing paints, then the more white or grey you add in to a pure colour, the less saturated it becomes. Or when dyeing yarn, the less dye you add into the water bath for a skein of yarn, the less saturated the finished yarn will be.

value

Value is how dark or light a colour is. Sometimes this can be difficult to perceive clearly with your eyes, because your perception of the hue can get in the way. Converting an image to grey scale can help you perceive value more clearly. You can see that, for example, blue is darker in value than yellow is.

These concepts are useful as they can help you to choose colour combinations. Next week, in preparation for the Strange Brew Knitalong, we are bringing you an in-depth look at colour strategies you can use when designing your own colourwork projects.

More colourful designs from Mad Colour:

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Let’s admit it. Even for experienced designers, choosing colours for stranded colourwork can sometimes seem daunting.

So what do you do? You may pull out all of your yarn in a given weight, or head to your local yarn shop, and then feel overwhelmed by the colourful mess of possible options.

Max is undaunted by the pile!

Week of Colour : 5 days, 5 example hats

Our Week of Colour is designed to make the process of choosing a palette simpler. This coming week we will outline several colour strategies which you can use as a guide. Beginning with a colour strategy can help by narrowing your choices to a manageable number!

To choose yarns for my Week of Colour hats, I began by pulling all of my DK weight yarns, plus some sport and light worsted weight too. Then I played with them, pairing, combining, and recombining before casting on.

choose a colour strategy

How does choosing a colour strategy help? A strategy narrows the focus and limits your decisions. For example, once you decide that you’re going to work in 2 colours, then all that remains is to choose which two. You can simply choose your main colour, then try out various contrast yarns until you find one that feels right. Or if you decide you would like to do a Fair Isle style blend using 3 background colours and 3 foreground colours, you may begin by choosing the approximate value of either your background or foreground, then choosing the opposing blend that will have sufficient contrast to make the pattern really pop!

In the past we shared tips for knitting colourwork, how to collect your favourite colour combos, and how to choose a great colourwork palette, but the Week of Colour will delve deeper into the specific ways you can use colour in stranded patterns.

After you’ve knit a number of colourwork projects, this process may become second nature to you. You will get comfortable improvising on the needles. But when you are starting out, it helps to choose a strategy and narrow down the set of decisions that you’ll have to make before you can cast on. The Week of Colour starts next Monday, October 16th!

The Week of Colour

Monochrome Monday will look at monochrome and 2 colour pairs
Tonal Tuesday will illustrate how effective an ombre can be
Wacky Wednesday will explore wackier combos; using handpaints and speckles, marled, handspun, and self-striping yarns
Tricolour Thursday will cover the complexity you encounter with three colour combinations
Fair Isle Friday will overview the Fair Isle blending technique with a 6-colour example

Even given LOADS of info, you’re still not guaranteed to nail it the first time. Swatching is vital, because it’s nearly impossible to know whether you’ll like the finished combination until you get the yarns on the needles. Still, we we hope these tutorials point you in the right direction!

Are you ready for this?!

If you want to play along, get the Strange Brew pattern. Along with the fair isle yoke sweater recipe, it includes a swatch hat & cowl pattern for DK weight. This is the pattern that we have used to create all of the swatch hats this week. We’re also hosting a Strange Brew (and Dog Star) KAL starting October 19th, with plenty of time for Q&A in our Facebook group! Learn more and join in now!

What are you most confused about?

When it comes to stranded colourwork or Fair Isle knitting, many people have questions! Let us know, in the comments, what is holding you back, or what you’d like to learn, and we’ll do our best to cover it in our coming tutorials. Many knitters find Fair Isle knitting delicious and addictive once they get started, so we would love to introduce you to this world of colour!

Fair Isle Knitting

Follow along by visiting the blog, or find us at your favourite social spot. If you aren’t already getting Tin Can Knits email updates, sign up now to get our special stories and knit tips once or twice a month. And you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest too!

Some Fair Isle Favourites from TCK:

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Two tones for the win!

If you’re ready to try colourwork, but you are anxious about choosing colours, a monochrome or two-colour combination is a conservative choice. You’ll probably be able to choose this kind of palette and get it right first time. If you’re ordering online, and want your choice to work out first time (don’t we all?!) then this is a likely winner. Low risk, and high satisfaction!

Monochrome, technically, means an image that has only one colour. That colour could be black, red, blue, green (you get the idea), but the image is made up only of tones of that single colour.

To pare things back to the very most basic, Monday’s hat uses black as foreground on a white background. If you use white (or lighter grey) with black (or darker grey), you’re pretty certain to have success. The difference in effect comes in how much contrast there is between the two colours. You may prefer a very high-contrast pair, or a lower-contrast pair; they create different moods.

To make this hat, I used John Arbon Knit by Numbers DK in ‘KBN55’ (white) and ‘KBN02’ (charcoal). I LOVE working in this soft-as-butter yarn and I enjoy the satisfying way it blooms and melds together into a lovely fabric for colourwork.

I followed the swatch hat pattern that is included in Strange Brew, making a child size hat, using the chart included here. I used 3.5mm needles at the 1×1 ribbing and 4.0mm at the colourwork and stockinette. After blocking, I found I had achieved a slightly tighter (smaller) gauge than the Strange Brew and Swatch Hat pattern called for; the gauge measures 25 sts & 27 rounds in 4”, while the pattern calls for 22 sts & 26 rounds. So this child size hat came out a little bit small; it’s a good fit on Neve, my 18-month-old toddler, but it probably wouldn’t fit an older child. Confused about gauge? Review the basics here.

What I learned about gauge was that if I use this yarn to make a Strange Brew sweater, I would either have to try using a larger needle size (I’d try 4.5mm) or adjust the pattern for the gauge I did achieve (6.25 sts per inch rather than 5.5 sts per inch). We have a tutorial on adjusting patterns for a different gauge here.

Monochrome with a twist

For Alexa’s monochrome cowl she worked with a marled yarn, Brooklyn Tweed Shelter in ‘newsprint’, along with tweedy solids ‘cast iron’ and ‘snowbound’ for the ribbing and the Fair Isle. The ribbing is a garter rib, worked as follows:

Round 1: [k1, p3] around

Round 2: knit

Work rounds 1 and 2 for a 1×3 garter rib.

The overall effect is punchy contrast in the colourwork section of the cowl, with a marled look for the rest. A winner for sure!

An (almost) Monochrome North Shore

North Shore is still one of my very favourite things I’ve designed. When I was up in Alaska this past summer I brought the original sweater and the knitters there took an immediate liking to it. I could see why, it seemed like it was made for Cordova! Water, trees, mountains, all hallmarks of that beautiful place.

I re-fell in love with the North Shore sweater and after some colour consultation with Melissa of Sweet Fiber, I cast on a North Shore for Hunter (ignoring all the other WIPs and deadlines I had at the time). This sweater is mostly greys (‘smoke’, ‘paper birch’, and ‘charcoal’) but has a pop of blue in the waves and the sky with ‘marshland’ and ‘sea glass’. I am in LOVE with this colour combo for this sweater, I might just need to cast one on for myself…immediately! For all the details on Hunter’s North Shore check out the Ravelry project page here.

Pump up that contrast!

But back to the colour! I’m very pleased with the high contrast effect of the black on white pattern. And I think this hat would look pretty great in other monochrome combinations too.

A related strategy to monochrome colour pairs is to use 2-colour pairs. Here are a few examples of colour pairs. Probably the most critical aspect to consider when choosing colour pairs is the level of contrast between the yarns.

One thing we always recommend to those who are new to working with colour is to develop a colour file of combinations you love. In fact, we’ve written all about it this, and included some of our own favourite combos!

To help you choose just the right monochrome or two-colour combination, we created a Pinterest board of all kinds of beautiful projects that use this colour strategy.

Are you ready to tackle colour? We’re running a fun KAL starting this Thursday, October 19th. All the details are here!

Share the colour love:

Colour is one of those things that many knitters find very difficult. Practice makes perfect, and we find knitting colourwork patterns HIGHLY addictive! You can’t help but knit just one more round to see how it will look. It’s a delicious adventure. To share this colour strategy, just click the links below to share this blog post on Facebook, Twitter, or by email. And invite your friends to join in the KAL too!

Monochrome Fair Isle from TCK:

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Because we love an ombre…

Are you a collector of ombre mini-skein sets? Do you love blue so much that your entire stash is blue? Well when it comes to creating colourwork projects, tonal combinations are often an easy win!

Just like Monochrome Monday’s hat, this hat is worked following the swatch hat pattern included with the Strange Brew sweater recipe. I made the child size, and worked an ombre of reds with a cream foreground.

To help in planning my ombre I pulled out my DK weight yarn stash. In fact, I included some lighter worsted weight yarns, and some sport weight yarns too, because I find you can usually combine across yarn weights fairly successfully in colourwork.

I pulled out my stash options for DK, light worsted, and sport weight yarns to choose a suitable ombre.

I decided to aim to work with an ombre of red, and then choose a single contrast colour that would work well with all the tones.

To make this hat, I used the swatch hat pattern included with the Strange Brew sweater recipe, and worked the chart shown below.

This is the chart for the colourwork pattern I used on this swatch hat! This 6-stitch repeat will work for any of the sizes of the hat, if you would like to make one for yourself.

I used 4 red tones, and a warm cream as the contrast: Zealana Heron Worsted in ‘h07 carnival’, Fleece Artist BFL Sport in a brick red colour, SweetGeorgia Superwash DK in ‘blood orange’, and Shibui Baby Alpaca in peach, and chose Blue Sky Fibers Baby Alpaca (Melange) in ‘toasted almond’ as the warm cream. As you can see, I’ve used a worsted weight, a couple of sport weights, and some DK weight too! It all plays pretty nicely together.

Testing Colour Combinations

To test my ombre, I folded up a bit of card, and wrapped the yarns I was considering around it, in order from dark to light. At first I thought I’d use the purply red, rust red, then a salmon. But then I tried wrapping a bright orangey red over the salmon, and it looked to me like it should be included too.

Wrapping yarns in this way around a card is a great technique to trial out colourwork without knitting – it’s fast, doesn’t use much yarn (and in fact, you don’t even need to cut the yarns, as I have).

Ombre chosen, I proceeded to consider the contrast colour. My plan was to use the reds as the background colour, and have the foreground of the pattern worked in a lighter / brighter contrast colour that would POP out against the reds. So that meant a light / bright colour was called for. So I photographed each of my options laid across the ombre of reds, for consideration.

After taking a look at all the photographs, I decided that cream or pale grey would most definitely work. The goal was to keep this knit simple and easy to duplicate for knitters who wanted to employ a similar strategy but swap out the ombre. Next time I plan to try knitting it with the icy pale blue, or bright golden yellow!

An ombre can either form the background colour, or the foreground colour. In the example hat I made, the cream is the foreground colour, and the ombre of reds the background. The critical point to keep in mind is that each of the colours within the ombre need to have a strong contrast with the main colour against which they are placed. Confused by colour terminology like contrast? Review our post on Colour Theory for Knitters.

This chart shows the colours I used for foreground (FG) and background (BG) on each round.

This hat would look pretty great in other ombre combinations, I think!

You don’t have to stick to a single hue, and use only lighter or darker (or saturated to desaturated) versions of that colour. Your ombre could also shift from one hue to another. Many hand-dyers and mills create exquisite gradually changing yarns, that in themselves might inspire your ombre colour choices.

You can also work one ombre against another, like I’ve shown in the example above. We’ll talk more about this when we get to Fair Isle Friday!

KAL with us:

The Strange Brew KAL starts this Thursday, October 19th. All the details are here! Get started with a hat, then jump right in to designing your own sweet Fair Isle yoke sweater. Working alongside us and other knitters you will receive all the inspiration and guidance you need.

Ombre Inspired from TCK:

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Crazy combos!

Can you use handspun, self-striping yarns, marled, and speckle or multicolour yarns in colourwork? How about holding 2 lighter weight yarns together to create your own marled effect?

Speckle (La Bien Aimee), Handspun (Sweatermaker) and Self Striping (Noro)

There are some yarn types that are a bit WACKY… but can still be really effective for colourwork.

Using hand spun yarn in stranded colourwork

When using ‘crazy’ colourful yarns for colourwork, we would argue that in each case the key is making sure you have really strong contrast. That’s why we suggest pairing a wacky yarn with a solid or kettle-dyed yarn.

As you can see, the hand spun I used is made of a single ply of pale blue, with a rainbow ply of many different colours. The deep navy I picked as my background colour is a very strong contrast, and this allows the pattern to read clearly.

Wednesday’s hat is made in Baah Yarns Sonoma in ‘night sky’ as the background colour with Sweatermaker Yarns Mac (hand spun) in a pale blue + rainbow as the foreground colour.

The colourwork pattern I chose uses large blocks of pattern, which means that the texture and mottled nature of the hand spun can really shine against the backdrop yarn. A delicate and detailed pattern might not work as well for this yarn combination.

This colourwork chart is a 4-stitch repeat, and will fit evenly on the swatch hat or cowl pattern included with the Strange Brew sweater recipe.

This hat is a perfectly lovely hat, but in all honesty, it is also just a swatch! Immediately after completing it, I was overwhelmed by ideas about how I could adjust and improve the stitch pattern. Below are my thoughts for how I might adjust the pattern for a more interesting motif which takes the great aspects of the original and expands upon them. This might be the beginning of my Strange Brew Knitalong design…

First I thought that making adjustments to the ‘blocks’ might improve the flowy nature of the pattern

Next I thought it might be interesting to pair up the triangles into almost floral motifs

That taken as a base, I expanded the idea.

Lastly I began to play with how colours might enliven the pattern, and how the pattern might be ‘broken’ within a larger (24 stitch) repeat.

what if I love my speckles!?

Alexa made a sweet hat for Hunter using Rainbow Heirloom Sweater in ‘princess rockstar’ (leftovers from this sweater), with Hedgehog Fibres Merino DK in ‘fly’ (leftovers from this sweater).

You can see that the speckled yarn (the teal) has some speckles which contrast strongly with the solid (the pink), and others which get a bit lost. This doesn’t particularly matter, because the colourwork pattern that Alexa used creates an overall effect, rather than relying on each specific stitch to read distinctly.

self striping yarns in colourwork

There are a lot of colourwork knitters who pair a self-striping yarn with a solid when working colourwork. The blending is automatic, and so there are far less ends to weave in – always a bonus!

Alexa made this Banff hat in Spincycle Yarns Independence (a self-striping yarn) in ‘the bees knees’ and YOTH Yarns Father in ‘caviar’.

While this isn’t stranded colourwork (it’s a slip-stitch pattern), we made a LOT of Bumble hats and sweaters using a solid colour yarn paired with a self-striping yarn. These examples give you a sense of the effect you could also achieve with stranded colourwork patterns.

Bumble beanies that combine a self-striping yarn with a solid for a beautiful tweedy effect!

I find these ‘wacky’ yarns really addictive and delicious, but sometimes quite challenging to use in a way that really highlights their beauty. So if you’re feeling adventurous, grab your wacky yarns and the Strange Brew pattern to design your own yoke sweater, or choose one of our ready-to-knit colourwork patterns.

Use Strange Brew recipe, and a dash of your own inspiration, to design your own yoke sweater!

Want to Knit Along with Alexa and Emily? It’s the thing to do, folks! We’re running a fun KAL starting tomorrow – Thursday, October 19th. All the details are here!

Got Handspun?

Sometimes spinners have a difficult time finding projects to showcase their beautiful yarns! The strategy of pairing handspun with solids or commercial yarns can both highlight the special nature of the handspun, and make the precious yarn stretch a bit further! To share this idea, just click the links below to share this blog post on Facebook, Twitter, or by email. And invite your friends to join in the KAL too!

Crazy Colour from TCK:

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so… how do I add in a third colour?

I’ll admit it, I don’t find this colour strategy as easy as the ones I worked on for Monochrome Monday, Tonal Tuesday, and Wacky Wednesday. I actually made 4 swatch hats in the development of this blog post! None of them are truly ‘bad’ combinations, but some appeal to me more, and which less.

While I did use 4 colours in Tuesday’s ombre hat, they’re all the same basic hue (that’s just another word for colour) with different value or saturation. So it was relatively easy to match them all up. Which, of course, is why that colour strategy is a great one to try!

In contrast, I find working with different hues in the same piece is more … unpredictable!

To develop a 3-colour palette, I think it’s easiest if you begin by choosing a colour pair that you like together, and which has an effective level of contrast, and then test out a few different options to decide on the third colour.

This is my favourite of the three-colour hats that I made. When it comes down to it, this combination really only uses two colours: yellow and blue. The main colour is a darker yellow, and then the two contrast colours are pale teal and a bright yellow. This combination pleased me because although it is quite low contrast, it has just enough contrast to be effective. And in natural light, the hat really glows!

It was quite a journey I took to arrive at this result! Below are some more swatch hats I made along the way.

neutral + 2 colours

This early swatch hat really got me thinking about how nuanced and fun working with a 3-colour combination could be. It’s made with a neutral (the charcoal) and two hues (pale icy blue and orangey red). This sort of combination is a little bit easier to make work than one which uses 3 different colours. With a neutral in the mix, the important thing is that the other two colours work well together. This combination ended up being a bit too ‘halloweeny’ for my tastes, but there are also things about it that I like.

3 distinct colours

Next I decided I would attempt a hat that incorporated 3 different hues. I chose a deep red main colour, and two light / bright contrast colours. The pale teal and the slightly muted yellow work very nicely together here because they’re quite similar in value, and both have a strong contrast to the deep red. This means that when they are alternately used to work the foreground pattern, this pattern has a clarity and unity. This is obvious in the X shaped motifs, which read very clearly. I didn’t initially love the colour combination. I think it was a little bit too Gryffindor for me! Regardless, I decided to complete the hat, and it turned out to be the favourite of the bunch for my son Max.

While I don’t think I would use this precise combination in a sweater for myself, I did grow to like it in the end. I think that if I were to improve this combination, it would likely be by swapping out the main colour. Here are a few interesting options:

There are many different ways this palette could be altered. I particularly like the options on the bottom row. A more muted / washed out red would take the contrast down a little bit. A muted pink would have a similar effect, but also create a combination that is more girly / romantic. On the other hand, a punchy saturated pink could be quite delicious too!

despite the best of intentions…

After that combination that was a bit ‘outside the box’ for me, I chose a palette I was more comfortable with; charcoal with teal and red. In this example, I also used the bright teal, but this time I used a neutral (charcoal) background, and a really lovely purply red.

This combination looks like an obvious winner, right?!

Despite my love for all of these yarns, the final combination was a bit bland and didn’t have the sparkle that I was looking for. But knit and learn, right? To me, this just illustrates the fact that swatching is essential to choosing 3-colour combinations. You simply can’t be sure whether a palette will work until it is on the needles!

neutral + 2 related colours

It is easier to make a 3-colour palette work if you work with a main colour, and then pick two related CCs; a deeper or more saturated plus a lighter or desaturated version of the same colour.

Alexa did this in her design for the Tenderheart Sweater; for the adult size she used a cream background and two different colours of red for the foreground patterning. Each horizontal motif was worked in a single foreground colour.

The Clayoquot cardigan illustrates a similar strategy; deep and bright green foreground colours create strong contrast against a white background. The Clayoquot toque uses a light grey background with charcoal and brilliant blue as foreground colours, which is two neutrals with a single colour to ‘pop’. And the Triptych mittens use a very similar strategy again! Try this method of employing a neutral background colour for a low-risk way to use three yarns.

Where do I use the 3 colours?

Once you’ve chosen a palette, there are different ways to combine the three colours. You can keep the background colour consistent throughout, and alternate where you use the two different foreground colours. This means that the foreground pattern has shading within it. If you want to do this, and want your foreground pattern to ‘read’ as a clear graphic, it helps if both foreground colours you are using are a similar value or brightness, and that they both contrast very strongly with the background colour (as they do in the red hat example).

Alternatively, you can keep the foreground pattern colour consistent throughout, and change up the background colour. If you want to do this, it helps if the third colour is close in value or brightness to the background colour, and that the foreground colour has a strong contrast with both of the other colours.

What a difference a third colour makes!

On the left is the basic chart of the stitch patterns used in the hat. This is how the pattern would appear in a two colour pair.

On the right I’ve shown where foreground and background colours are used. You can see that the stitch patterns in rows 1-5 and 11-15 are the same, as are the stitch patterns in rows 6-10 and 16-20. However, in the coloured version, you can see that the combination of colours used makes these patterns look different.

In row 3, the bright yellow replaces the background colour. In rows 8 and 13, the bright yellow replaces the foreground colour. In rows 17, 18, 19, the bright yellow replaces the background colour, and this happens again in rows 22, and 23. Lastly, in rows 25-27, the bright yellow replaces the foreground colour, and the teal replaces the background colour.

Do you see the difference? Of course, these two strategies can also be mixed and matched in a single piece, as I have done above. With less contrasting dark vs. light relationships you can also achieve very beautiful effects, but there is a tendency for the line or graphic of the pattern itself to get a bit more lost.

I have found that smaller horizontal patterns make for very sparkly effects when you play with 3 colours; these are the kinds of patterns I chose for the swatch hats I made. We’ve included many of these types of stitch patterns in the Strange Brew sweater recipe, check it out!

Are you knitting along with us and designing your own yoke sweater? It’s the thing to do, folks!

What are you working on now? Share your knit story with us!

Fair Isle from TCK:

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During our Week of Colour we have explored 5 colour strategies and shared many more than 5 knits. We’ve had a blast playing with colour and sharing some of our findings with you!

In order to create these knits, we used the swatch hat and cowl pattern from Strange Brew to try our wacky and wonderful combinations. Of course, I saved the best for last and this is Fair Isle Friday!

What is Fair Isle knitting?

Fair Isle is one of the islands in Shetland, an archipelago northeast of the Scottish mainland. A colourful style of stranded knitting was developed there in the 1800s which spread quickly to the rest of Shetland. It was taken up both as a craft and cottage industry, which has grown and developed to the current day.

The hallmarks of the Fair Isle style are:

Use of patterns that are symmetrical – often both vertically and horizontally.
All-over garments and accessories typically combine little patterns of up to 7 rows (called peeries), with mid-size patterns of 9-13 rows (called border patterns) and larger patterns.
Patterns use two colours at a time in a given row, and employ shading, where both background and foreground colours are changed (typically in a symmetrical manner) over the rounds of the pattern.
Often the centre row is given special attention with a brilliant or high-contrast colour or combination.

What kind of yarn can I use for Fair Isle designs?

In Shetland, yarns are dyed and blended into a truly VAST array of shades, which support the sophisticated blending seen in contemporary Fair Isle design. The 4-ply ranges of Jamieson’s of Shetland include over 220 colours, and Jamieson & Smith have around 100 colours. This makes for an extravagant painter’s palette of colours that really work well together.

By contrast, many yarn lines that you may find at your local shop have in the range of 10-25 colours (so you won’t have 14 different greens to choose from!). For this reason, and for the simple practicality of using what I have in stash, I like to combine yarns across brands and types.

The hat that I made uses:

– Zealana Heron in ‘dark brown’ (worsted weight)
– John Arbon Viola in ‘cinnamon’ (DK weight)
– Madelinetosh Tosh DK in ‘nassau blue’ (DK weight)
– Baa Ram Ewe Dovestone DK in ‘parkin’ (DK weight)
– Madelinetosh Tosh Sport in ‘button jar blue’ (sport weight)
– Ginger’s Hand Dyed Sheepish DK in ‘curry night’ (DK weight)
– Madelinetosh Tosh DK in ‘candlewick’ (DK weight)

We used a sport weight and a worsted weight in combination with the DK yarns and the hat came out just fine! And as you can see from the detailed photo of the yarns, the yarns are also of different types in terms of construction. So we encourage you to experiment with yarn combinations!

What we want to focus on is not the ‘rules’ of Fair Isle, but the way that a combination of both foreground and background colours can be used to develop a complex ‘blendy’ palette which is rich and fascinating!

How do you create a Fair Isle style blend?

Well, first I pulled out all my DK weight yarns (and some worsted and sport weight too!).

Next I chose the colourwork pattern I wanted to work on the hat.

Without any colour, this stitch pattern looks somewhat boring! It’s the colours that really bring it to life!

Then I chose two basic colour families / tonal families (the background vs. the foreground).

For this hat, I decided to use a dark brown main colour. This background blend would shift from brown to golden to bright yellow. Against this chose to work a foreground blend of teals. When you choose your foreground and background palettes, it is important that you have sufficient contrast between colours that are worked alongside one another. Value (relative lightness or darkness of a colour) can be more important than hue (the colour of the yarn) in creating this contrast.

I had initially planned to use 3 different teals. However, as I was working, when I got to the point where I would have changed to the brightest of the 3 teals, I knit with it for awhile, but decided it didn’t ‘pop’ as strongly as I wanted to, and so I worked a brighter yellow in the centre instead.

Some other palettes that might work well:

A blend of reds / pinks and greys with a POP of bright yellow (or another colour) would work beautifully. This is an example of working (mostly) a single hue against a neutral colour. You could swap out the reds/pinks for another hue, for example blue, yellow or green, and the palette would still work.

A purple hat with yellow and golden patterning would be striking. This is an example of complementary colours working well together.

Using greens and blues together is an example of an analogous colour palette, because green and blue are next to each other on the colour wheel. The central rows of the motif (rows 7-15) are worked in the more bright and saturated tones to call attention to the centreline of the pattern.

What can our example teach you?

It is useful to get started with a set of assumptions, but be ready to shift course once your pattern is on the needles. While our Week of Colour posts can give you a set of strategies and rules of thumb for developing effective colour combos, you will really learn how the colours and yarns interact when you have them on the needles together.

This uncertainty is both the most inspiring and most frustrating aspect of colourwork knitting! In a sense, every colourwork knit you create is your own design, as you’ve made a creative set of decisions (and often design trials) to arrive at the finished piece. For example, each of the hats above was made using the same pattern, but they are all quite different in finished appearance, because I chose different stitch patterns and colour palettes!

The Fair Isle blend colour strategy possibly requires the most experimentation, learning, and thought of all 5 we’ve discussed during the Week of Colour. But in a way, this strategy is no more difficult… assuming you’ve got a lot of yarn in hand, or some time to meditate on colour at your local yarn shop!

Are you ready to get started with your own colourwork adventure? Join us for an exciting Knit-along that runs from now until December 11!

Fair Isle inspired knits:

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Stranded colourwork is complex. There are many things to consider, and a wealth of experimentation and practice to gain some knowledge. But don’t allow the complexity to put you off getting started! Every stitch can be pleasure, and you really don’t need to know much beyond the knit stitch to get started playing with colour. We’ve got a ‘how to knit fair isle’ post with a free hat pattern here, if you want to cast on right away.

Having knit your first colourwork project, you find yourself on the slippery slope to addiction! Each round reveals a little bit more of the pattern, and it’s hard to put your needles down! As you plan the next (and the next) project, make sure to review our Week Of Colour for many helpful strategies for choosing a palette for your next project.

To deepen your knowledge, there’s nothing like a good book! Alexa and I stick to the design side of things more than the research side, but there are many excellent resources on colourwork knitting, and we’d like to recommend a few of our favourites. If you’re at all like us, these books will bring you pleasure, knowledge and inspiration that you can apply to your colourwork knitting.

200 Fair Isle Designs – Mary Jane Mucklestone

This book is a treasure trove of immediate practical relevance if you’d like to knit and design your own stranded projects. Mucklestone’s explanation of how to choose a palette is concise, practical and forms the basis for the method of fair-isle blending explained in our Fair Isle Friday post.

200 motifs are illustrated, knit up in colour combinations that inspire you to cast on immediately! As a guide for how to get started, this is the best stitch dictionary for stranded colourwork we have come across.

We place it first on the list, because I find it the most accessible and practical for getting started with stranded colourwork.

The Complete Book of Traditional Fair Isle Knitting – Shiela McGregor

This book tells the history of the development of stranded colourwork patterns and style in Fair Isle, and more broadly in Shetland. It tells the story of knitting as a cottage industry in Shetland up to the 1980’s, when the book was published. What most fascinated me about the story was the way Shetland is placed, historically, as a crossroads within a maritime trading network. This allowed influences from the Baltic and Nordic neighbours to be the seeds for the Fair Isle tradition, and highlights how textile traditions are (then as now) an organic, living tradition which involves a dynamic flow of ideas, motifs, and techniques that are spread from place to place through movement and trade, inspiring new ideas and styles as they go. A living tradition.

I consider this book a treasure especially as it includes a very extensive stitch pattern library, and instructions for garment design and project planning alongside its historical contextualization.

Fair Isle Knitting – Alice Starmore

Starmore’s book is the most complete reference book for Fair Isle that I have found. It covers the history of the style and includes an extensive compilation of stitch patterns. The book explores methods for applying colour to the patterns and suggests drawing inspiration from the world around you to develop palettes, something I do in my own work!

Starmore includes an in-depth explanation of the techniques involved, includes several patterns, and a section on designing your own colourwork garments and accessories.

Published in 1988, you may find the style of some of the designs dated, but there is a wealth of practical knowledge and beautiful ideas to inspire you!

KNITSONIK Stranded Colourwork Sourcebook – Felicity Ford

For a designer like me, this book is a delight! I was completely delighted by Ford’s method for designing your own fair isle patterns, starting with everyday inspirations. It is a long and exciting jaunt into a creative space that blends pattern and colour.

Ford says: “The highlight of the KNITSONIK System is the knitting. It enables patterns and shading schemes to be developed and advanced through trial and error. Once an initial pattern and shading scheme have been trialed, they can be revised and modified. This approach means that instead of trying to work out everything before you begin, it is possible to gather answers along the way and to form creative responses to problems.”

This mirrors my own experience of colourwork knitting; essentially that given an initial concept, you once you get started knitting, and discover on the needles what will (and won’t) work. Your questions are answered by the knitting itself. I believe this is a critical attitude to take when knitting colourwork; accepting and taking pleasure in the the trial-and-error nature of the beast will bring you joy throughout the process. If you’re interested in developing your own motifs from scratch and developing your artist’s skills of perception, this book is a beautiful, playful and inspiring one to study.

Alterknits Stitch Dictionary – Andrea Rangel

When I saw that Andrea Rangel was publishing a book on stranded knitting and motifs I knew I had to get it. She is a designer whose style I admire and her thinking about knitting (much like my own) is always a mix of a nostalgic love of the traditional blended with a modern touch. It may seem like too much of a juxtaposition to enjoy both the classic and the modern (sometimes in the same garment!), but it is her reverence for the past that keeps her modern designs both fresh and timeless.

The Alterknits Stitch Dictionary was created by Rangel and her husband, a great duo when it comes to motif design! There are fabulous geometric shapes along with some tongue-in-cheek fun designs (I’m loving the racoons and garbage cans!). This book is a great resource to find original motifs you want to add to your Strange Brew hats/cowls/sweaters, but it also has a wealth of information on choosing colours, knitting Fair Isle 2 handed, and it has some of Rangel’s fabulous designs as well.

Are you ready to tackle colour? We’re running a fun KAL starting this Thursday, October 19th. All the details are here!

Share the colour love:

Colour is one of those things that many knitters find very difficult. Practice makes perfect, and we find knitting colourwork patterns HIGHLY addictive! You can’t help but knit just one more round to see how it will look. It’s a delicious adventure. Click the links below to share this blog post on Facebook, Twitter, or by email. And invite your friends to join in our Strange Brew KAL too!

Fair Isle from TCK:

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There is something about December that cries out for a bulky knit. I’m not sure if it’s the cold, the gift knitting, or the combination of the two that makes me paw through my stash, or head to my LYS for a lovely skein of something big.

When I saw the beautiful cakes of Yotta yarn at Julie Asselin‘s booth at Knit City I wanted them all. I took a deep breath, chose 3… and then picked up another skein at Baaad Anna’s a few weeks later! My vision for this hat took all the things I love… and super-sized them!

Bulky yarn + a folded brim + cables + pompom = too much = perfection!

You see how the math worked there? Honeypie is a perfect knit for cold winter nights. After the hectic rush of year-end work deadlines, party planning and busy shops this simple quick knit will bring you pleasure stitch by stitch. It features a delicious doubled brim, some interesting cables, and a big pompom to finish it all off.

How many kissing shots are too many? I never tire of them….

This hat will keep out ALL of the cold! I should also mention that the kids LOVED the big hats. They were warm and fun, with pompoms the size of apples. The giant doubled brim on their little heads made me immensely happy.

Project Details

Pattern: Honeypie
Yarn: 90 (110, 130) yds super bulky weight yarn (samples shown in Julie Asselin Yotta in ‘birch’, ‘haze’, ‘’jaipur’, and ‘nakaberri’)
Needles: US #10.5 / 6.5mm 16” circular, US #15 / 10mm 16” circular and DPNs (or as required to meet gauge)
Gauge: 12 sts & 17 rows / 4” over cable pattern
Notions: cable needle, darning needle, stitch marker

Tis the season for quick gift knits!

If you are a gift knitter, you probably feel each tick of the clock as the holidays approach. Honeypie knits up quickly, and you can’t knit just one! Julie has Yotta yarn available in the shop here, there are so many pretty colours to choose from, I think I’ll make one in blue next…..

A beautiful superbulky – Julie Asselin Yotta

More delicious cables from Tin Can Knits:

A Lovely Little Gift for you!

And Alexa and Emily here at Tin Can Knits always like to put together a little holiday gift for the knitters around the world who send us lovely letters about their projects, keep us in business, and support causes we believe in like Heart on my Sleeve, and Sight is Life.

As I sit here sipping my mulled wine and watching the kiddies romp around the room I’ll keep it brief, as I’m sure you’d like to get back to playing, relaxing, cooking, sharing stories, or possibly some last-minute gift finishing? Surely I’m not the only one who has a dozen projects not-quite-finished by Christmas eve?

So download Barley Light, our new free pattern now!

Barley Light is our latest addition to The Simple Collection – our free learn-to-knit series of patterns and tutorials! We created The Simple Collection back in 2013, with 8 free patterns, but have been adding free patterns since then, and we’re up to 11 now. Let’s just say that sometimes when Alexa and I are involved, things can get a little out of hand!

If the 15,000+ projects knit using the original (worsted / aran weight) Barley hat is any indication, knitters LOVE a good simple hat pattern! So we’ve created this lightweight version of Barley. Barley Light is a perfect project for that skein of beautiful hand-dyed luxury that’s just begging to be knit.

It’s also an ideal simple knit to take visiting; simple enough to put down and pick up at any point, and a blank canvas to allow a beautiful yarn to shine.

Barley Light Project Details

Pattern: Barley Light (free!)
Yarn: 110 (140, 180, 220, 260) yds 4ply / sock wt yarn
(samples shown in The Uncommon Thread BFL Fingering in ‘turbillion’ and The Uncommon Thread Uncommon Everyday in ‘meadow grass’)
Needles: US #2 / 2.75mm 16” circular needle,
US #4 / 3.5mm 16” circular and double pointed needles
(or as required to meet gauge)
Gauge: 26 sts & 38 rounds / 4” in stockinette stitch using larger needles
Notions: stitch markers, darning needle

The Uncommon Thread… supercool colours!

I was introduced to The Uncommon Thread back in 2013 when I was working on Handmade in the UK, and I’ve been a follower ever since! Turbillion (the grey speckle) must be one of my all-time favourite hand-dyed colourways. SWOON.

We made the Peanut Vest (from Max & Bodhi’s Wardrobe) in The Uncommon Thread Merino DK, and it was LOVELY to work with! I love her edgy and modern take on colour (and she’s been making subtle speckles since WAY back).

The Uncommon Thread has in-stock yarns, but will be posting a shop update on Boxing Day – December 26th at 4pm GMT, so there will be a variety of yarns and colourways perfect for Barley Light here.

The Simple Collection

In case you haven’t heard of The Simple Collection yet – well you’d better check it out now! All of our free patterns are marked on our website with a little asterisk, and there’s a full listing of our free patterns here.

So I was knitting along in November, getting all my Christmas knitting done (there wasn’t too much this year), finishing up some WIPs, and working on some new designs when… bam! I just had to cast on a Christmas sweater for Bodhi! This idea hit me like a ton of bricks (as some wild ideas do), and I knew I wanted classic Christmas colours and Fair Isle all the way.

I was inspired by the lovely Vintage Winter sweater from Jess of Ginger Twist. It fit perfectly with my current obsession with Strange Brew yokes and Fair Isle in general. I something timeless, a sweater that would be at home in the pages of a children’s book or a classic holiday movie. I got out my graph paper and set to work!

For my colour palette I went with Tanis Fiber Arts Purewash DK, in Spruce, Poppy, and Natural – a classic combo if ever there was. I wanted the sweater to come out a wee bit big in the hopes that MAYBE it will fit next year too (good luck Alexa), so I cast on the 4-6 with a little extra length.

I loved knitting this sweater. It practically knit itself, which is weird because I feel like sometimes kiddie sleeves take an evening and sometimes they take …. well, forever, and I never know which kind of sleeve it’s going to be. I was so excited to finish this one, and with holiday gatherings, the stockinette portions were great conversational knitting. I finished it up with room to spare, and Bodhi just loved it. She is three and a half and she still loves everything I make her. I overheard her telling her pre-school teachers that her mama made it for her, she was all proud smiles when she said it.

How I made it:

I followed the instructions for the 4-6 year size in the Strange Brew Pattern (our yoke sweater recipe; learn more about this versatile pattern).

Body: I cast on, worked a twisted rib (k1tbl, p1), knit 4 rounds, worked the hem chart, then worked the body in MC and stockinette to the underarm.

Sleeves: Cast on, worked a twisted rib (k1tbl, p1), knit 3 rounds, worked hem chart, then proceeded to increases and worked sleeve as written.

Yoke: I worked the yoke join, then the short row shaping instructions, 4 rounds in MC, then the yoke chart. That took me to 128 sts. I worked 1 round in MC, then worked one final decrease round: k2, (k1, k2tog) around. This gave me a neckline stitch count of 86 sts. I worked a twisted rib again at the neckline

Charts:

Hem Chart

Yoke Chart

I was so pleased with the results, and I was glad I allowed myself this tangential indulgence. At the holidays I often have too many plans, not enough hours in the day, and it can be a poor choice to add something more at the last minute. On the other hand, those can be the things that turn out the best!

My three little sugar plums in their Christmas attire. Jones in his Gramps, Hunter in her Coastal Pullover, and Bodhi in her Strange Brew.

More Festive Knits from TCK: