Suggestions....

For first time fair isle (stranded) projects - hats are great - circular knitting going round and round.....so here are a few suggestions.......


Freebies:


Fair Isle Tam in Patons Classic Wool - from the Patons site


Winter Forest Tam - knit in traditional Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift - gorgeous traditional tam - a Ravelry download

Béret généreux by Isabelle Allard - a tam in worsted weight - a Ravelry download

Nordic Sweetheart Hat

If you want a lot of practice- try my Nordic Sweetheart Hat - done in Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift - or fingering weight - this is a double layered hat - that when folded up provide 4 layers over your ears - a traditional Norwegian design.

If you are on Ravelry (why not, it's free) you can do a pattern search for a hat, stranded, knit in the round and look at all of the choices -- I would suggest something with small repeat patterns - not something that has bigger motifs (like skulls or other alien beings LOL!) because you want to learn how to strand with this exercise.  

Traditional Fair Isle uses motifs that use small groups of stitches - so that you never have a long stretch of one shade being used - so you don't have to catch floats.  For this exercise - pick a pattern that you can just knit....no long floats.  (We'll cover catching in yarns on long floats later - for now - more practice!)

There are lots of good patterns to buy too.........so I'm going to knit .....

Caller Herrin by Kate Davies - available thru Ravelry or at Kate's blog Needled.  A friend (Hi Candice) knit this and thought it was a bit small....so I'll be checking it out and maybe making some amendments to the original pattern as I go.

Caller Herrin is knit with Alice Starmore's Hebridean Yarn - which I have right here ready to go - and I'll just have to wind some yarn tonight!   It's great to finally get around to knitting one of those kits that I made up with my pdf's earlier this year.  (OOPS, I have one little project to finish up tonight - and if I wind the yarn I'll be ready to go tomorrow.)

Pick a pattern - join me in knitting a stranded hat.