First? I'd love a book!

I'd love to learn Fair Isle!

Love your blog, and adore you!

Heh. I've had my eye on that book but I can't really bring myself to take it when I can afford to buy it myself.

Not first, but well within the first hundred! I will dance and sing for a Fair Isle book!

Rachel -- email me your mailing address :) Congrats!

Doh! Too slow!

Target also has a bunch of fair isle sweaters and whatnot. It's all the rage this year. For around twenty bucks. Way to downgrade knitting just a little bit more, all you acrylic, machine-made-in-Chinese-sweatshop wonders.

I was taken aback when I saw "0" in the comment line...I don't really want a fair aisle book just wanted to see if I was really the first commenter. :)

I thought you liked pinks & red....I'm all about the oranges but I'm not emotionally strong enough to wear them. **sigh** Yes, I'm drinking my water! See you next week!

I love pink, red and orange, all my favorites. Can't wait to see you!

And yes Mary I agree 100% about the sweatshoppage... sometimes it's muy irksome.

Wow I'm in the top 20 comments!!

lol now I go read the post...

Oh, is that what that pattern is called? I love it! And the pompoms!

p.s. I love DWTS, too! We watch it all the time.

Cute projects! I am not near brave enough to try that level of knitting yet.

And I do like the Old Navy fair isle collection this year... Viva la pompom!

Thanks, Laurie! I just sent you an e-mail. And maybe after reading it you'll be glad that you know my address but I don't know yours. :P

hmmm...I'm now thinking of trying my hand at Fair Isle legwarmers with pom poms...maybe I could wear them when I have to use the snowblower this winter...I might just have to felt them to keep the snow out (or find some crazy/ugly/cheap acrylic yarn that is impervious to the elements).

I love my copy of Alice Starmore's Fair Isle Knitting. All the lovely how-to of stranding and pattern creation. Of course, Jill recently told me that the book is now worth a small fortune -- something like $150 -- so now I guard it with my life.

I actually considered going to ON to check out the FI sweaters they've been advertising. Then I realized, I'm not a 6' 100lb model. Even starting at $29.99.

Ohhhh I would love a Fair Isle Book. I just purchased yours (and followed your pre-purchase $ saving advice!)

Rachel... I'm not seeing an email from you, can you re-send? Thank you!

Fair Isle's in this year?

Crud. I was hoping I could get away with not actually doing any complicated colorwork for another year. Sigh.

Always love your sneaky retail pics.

Some days I feel like such a doofus.

I didn't know that 'fancy pattern knitting' was called Fair Isle. Yep, I've learned something new @CAP again and now I will have to explore in depth.

Curiosity, oh how you intrigue me.

I always enjoy the extra tidbits of information that tell you exactly how to do a given technique. When I first started knitting I would get very irate when a pattern would say "weave in ends" like it was something so obvious.

I'm over it.

Laurie, which hand holds your wineglass? I know you've covered this at some point, but I forget. Presumably the other one holds your yarn. Having Issues with wine myself (namely, if I have more than a tenth of a glass I spend the next three days wretchedly hung over, which hardly seems fair), I hold one yarn in each hand, but this involves comfort with knitting both English (yarn in right hand, as I was taught 40-odd years ago) and Continental (yarn in left hand, as I taught myself maybe 10 years ago). Some people think this is too much work and hold both yarns in the same hand.

There is also such a thing as double knitting, wherein one makes two knitted faces at once with two colors of yarn, each face being the inverse of the other, colorwise. I think it's very cool, but some people think I'm very nutty. Note, however, that with double knitting one can make a Fair Isle-style pattern without ever working with more than one color at a time.

How do the scarves (in either Old Navy or the book) deal with the back side of the Fair Isle? Are they folded over (that is, they achieve two knit sides by the simple expedient of knitting a double-wide scarf, folding it over and seaming it up, or by doing it in the round and closing the ends)?

it will probably be scarf weather here in seattle later in the month on your book tour...

Lucia -- The scarves in Old Navy had the stranded yarny backside... the one in the book is knit in the round so the backside is inside :)

Hmm...I prefer the strandy backside (sounds so dirty, doesn't it?) to be covered. I remember wearing the fair isle type sweaters in the 80's (yep, we're back to that again) and always getting a finger or two stuck in the strands while pulling it over my head. (Granted, I was about 10ish.)

I just got your book in the mail and read
the first few pages. Can' wait to read
more! Thanks, Laurie

traditional fair isle (i wanted to type that aisle!) is usually only 2 colors per row. just sometimes each row is different colors!

i'm not a big color knitter, but i get bit by the bug on occasion

I just stayed up last night reading your book. It was TOTALLY worth it!

I tried to make a pom-pom for a scarf this weekend....Only to discover *horror* my pom-pom maker got lost in my move last year. Well, lost or it's in a different box now, and I really don't know which one! Whichever, I'll have to make them using your quick and dirty method. So, Thanks!

Here are my thoughts on colorwork.

Fair Isle -- wholesome and good

Intarsia -- evil and bad

This is just from my own personal experience, mind you. I've done one intarsia project and as God is my witness, I'll never do another again!

Juicy Couture is also big on pom-pon scarves this year.

Thought you needed to know.

Perhaps you could design a knitted wine glass holder (feed bag style?) that could allow you to knit Fair Isle and drink at the same time??

My very first sweater was intarsia. I made my daughter the Skully sweater from the first Stitch and Bitch book. It came out okay but what a stupid choice for first sweater! Mucho aggravation!

why aren't you keeping it?

That. Scarf. Is. Awesome.

Read your book in one sitting. It was fantastic.
Glad your life seems to be getting on track now. Knitting can really help with that.

I just got back from Old Navy. I had a coupon so I went to see if I could find something I didn't need. Your friend was right. EVERYTHING is Fair Isled Pom Poms and all of it is really ugly. I couldn't find a thing to waste money on and that's saying a lot. Also I'm in Florida and it's 375 degrees now with the heat index, so the last thing I wanted to see was a sweater. Yours is prettier. I think Old Navy's colors are drabby and the cuts on some of the sweaters and sweater dress things are unflattering.

I'm very much looking forward to winter. (I detest 90 degrees.) However, I'd rather go out with a naked neck than wear one of those monstrosities! Egads--who dreams up these things! Fair Isle AND pompons? Ugh!

I'm with you on the strandy backside, Tami, at least for items like scarves where both sides are public. For sweaters, mittens, etc., not so much. Among other things you would essentially have 4 layers (the two sides and the two concealed layers of stranding), and unless it was knit in extremely fine yarn (= 59 gazillion stitches to the inch = a very long project) the sweater would be too warm for indoor wear.

If the item is wool and the stranding is done with care, it should not hook your fingers, and the floats will eventually felt together.

of course I doubt the scarves hanging in Old Navy are wool, and therefore probably wont felt. (acryl-ICK!)

Since I'm not doing Fair Isle yet, I think it's ok for me to buy either a scarf or sweater. Alas, spending money is being saved up for Halloween!

Marin -- I've seen the Juicy stuff for this season (specifically the knit handbags!) but it is way harder to get away with taking pictures in Bloomies! The Juicy handbags are cute but they're all knitted in creams and tans and I would have that sucker dirty in five seconds flat, alas.

Cuz you a dirty gurl!

you know it...

I love that Old Navy FI commercial. But I am not a 6foot model either. Damn.

Hey, Laurie! There's a great video here: http://www.philosopherswool.com/Pages/Streamingvideo.htm on 2-handed fair isle.
I was able to make my first pair of fair isle mittens using this technique - no way was I committing to anything as long as a scarf!

my book came!!!! YEA Amazon!!! can't wait to start reading tonight :)

love the scarf pics up top - dont think i have the agility or nerves to do something that detailed :)

I bought some of the Fair Isle sweaters from Old Navy's website last week. I dont think they'll ever get to me though, because the UPS website says they are stranded in Salt Lake City due to inclement weather. I've never ever seen that msg before, so I can only assume that SLC has broken off into the ocean, somehow. Oops.

Laurie,
I started reading your book last night and I can honestly say that I did not want to put it down!! You are an amazing person, best of luck to you.

Hey Laurie, it's almost winter here in the sunny Okanagan - so it fits your winter getaway wishes, you can come up here and do a wine tour at all the fabulous wineries, and I can help you learn knitting fair isle with both hands - what do yah think? Come for a visit.

Hi Laurie!

Kristen- I think maybe the pom-poms and FI don't look good ALLTOGETHERUPTHERE. I think ONE of them would look good on your naked neck.

My fave ski hat is blue and white intarsia with a huge pom-pom on top.

I swear, Fair Isle is not as hard as it looks. I just tried a little Fair Isle purse thingy (no shaping, knit in the round) and it would be a great intro to Fair Isle. I got the kit at Blackwater Abbey, and you can pick the colors you want. They send you little mini-skeins, too, so you're not buying 4 ounces when 1 ounce would be more than enough! It's the "Blue Jeans purse" here if you want to check it out --https://secure.addllc.com/BWAY/html/products_frame_page.html

OMG I love that kid sweater. I do not need another knitting book, but I need this one just for that pattern! Except my daughter will only wear cotton now that she's older (6) and picky and I don't think cotton works that well for FI.

Tami, fair isle is OK for kids as long as you don't strand the sleeves.

Laurie, I am in the middle of reading your book. You are so cute!

Speaking of unimaginable legwarmer horrors, might I suggest: http://straw.com/cpy/patterns/nubbles-legwarmers-hat.html

"Speaking of unimaginable legwarmer horrors, might I suggest: http://straw.com/cpy/patterns/nubbles-legwarmers-hat.html"

Good grief!! It looks like that girl in the photo has sheep on her legs and on her head! I guess they really do mean Clydesdale style looking at the size/girth of those legwarmers!!

Laurie:

As a fellow SoCal resident, I am always laughing when I see the serious scarves break out at Old Navy. It is so beautifully delusional! And dude. The pom pom factor! Bring it on.

BTW, I found your book in a Border's in the OC - it was in the "Crafts" section.

the first time I heard the phrase "Fair Isle" I thought it was some kind of bastardization of "feral," as in feral cats. I am a genius.

I really wish I was an an accomplished knitter, or that I had the time to find and attend a class.

Hi Laurie!
I've been reading your site for along time and I absolutely love it. You have become a part of my daily routine, one that I enjoy :)
I just received your book and started reading it this afternoon... I LOVE IT! Can't put it down.. I thought I'd send you some love and thank you for sharing...
You are the best!

Finally got the book via Amazon today(!) as apparently did lots of others here. Decisions, decisions... whether I should start reading it now and not be able to stop and be comatose at work, or save it for the weekend as a reward for getting through the week...

Fair Isle made me cry. Seriously.

The most color knitting I'll ever be able to do, I suspect, is the occasional stripe.

Now, I'm rushing to finish a sweater, because I'm going to France over Thanksgiving!!

I bought your book! I love your book!

I am a total knitting spaz, and perhaps the world's slowest knitter, but I was able to get some fair isle done pretty well just by letting the two colors lay on the right side and picking up the one I needed. Sure, it's slow, but it turned out great, and I could actually do it!
In other news, I finally got the book today! Laurie- I just love your "voice"- I'd read 50 pages before I knew it!

The first Stitch N Bitch book taught me to strand, and knittinghelp.com firmed it up. It's not that hard, or even fiddly. But intarsia makes me want to barf.

I tried that fair isles stuff, and i just made a big mess. But I totally made the wine glass/er...jack daniels thing work. Could explain alot;->

Ang

I do Fair Isle one-handed, as in, pick up strand, knit, drop strand and pick up other strand. The floats are actually fairly uniform, but space missions to the farthest reaches of the Milky Way galaxy have arrived faster than any finished objects in my hands. Some of those ON scarves are looking mighty good by comparison, especially the teal/turquoise/aqua one on the end.

Wow, those are some very showy pompoms! But pretty, pretty scarves :)

Off the topic, but I received your book in the mail yesterday!!! It's so totally a real book! Very excited for you. I am finishing another book at the moment, but I do plan to start reading yours so that I'm up on it when I come to the reading next Thursday at the Grove.

Congratulations!!!

Feral knitting, heh. Just the right name for some of the pranks the yarn pulls.

I received a notice that your book is at the post office waiting for me to pick up. They couldn't leave your valuable book but they left my boxes of checks for the crooks no problem. WTF?

So close, yet so far away.....

I will be leaving work early, that's all I have to say about that!

Oh, and a by-the-way....

because you book tour ISN'T COMING TO NJ (not that I'm bitter), I'll be sending my lil' brother along to the LA night. Of course, he doesn't have the book; it's safe with me. So I need to come up with something reasonable for you to sign that he won't be embarrassed to be seen carrying around in public.

Also, the cat I was making the "sweater" for (for your contest) passed away this week. We'll be over here in the despondent corner....

Oh my gosh! I have totally fallen behind on blog reading. You have a book! And a tour! Wow! Congratulations, Aunt P! Too bad you aren't coming to Philly - boo.

Fun fact: my friend calls Fair-Isle sweaters "Christian sweaters." When I asked why he calls them that, he said that no self-respecting Jew would ever wear a sweater like that!

I still like Fair-Isle :(

Great book - thanks for sharing! I might have to try that sweater for a friend's new baby. I might actually finish it on time for the kid to wear it.

Ooo! I may finally get around to buying a Fair Isle sweater now.

Your book just came in the mail! Thank you thank you thank you. I'm about to go visit my Mom in the hospital and if she'll let me, I'll read it to her. Maybe I'll wait until she's asleep and read it to her anyway. I will practice my southern drawl on the drive there.

I sent you an e-mail yesterday about how much I loved your book but forgot to mention that I kept reading it out loud to Frank and it reads BEAUTIFULLY! Are they going to do an audiobook? Because they should hire you to read it!

Frank wants to know who would play you in the movie version? He says it would be a smash-hit. (He checks your blog as often as I do and adores the kitty photos.)

Reading about your Mr. X leaving behind a cat that had chosen him just reconfirms my opinion that your ex was a soul-less dolt who didn't deserve you or the cats.

And by my calculations, you are recovering at twice the rate it took me to get over my divorce, so YAY for you, Laurie!!!!!!! You're doing great!

Off topic, but which of you is responsible for this:

http://www.stuffonmycat.com/index.php?itemid=5211#c

Fess up, now...

LOL !

Cheers ! And, Happy Hump Day ! ; )

While on the subject of 1) knitting, 2) ballet wannabes (from previous post) and 3) ADD-knitting-projects-you-can-actually-complete, I fell across this last night:
http://knitty.com/ISSUEwinter06/PATTtwinkletoes.html
Add some leg warmers and you are all totally set! :) Maybe a matching Fair Isle headband? Hmm?

I thought I was about ready to try a Fair Isle pattern, and chose the felted bag in the Interweave Knits special felt edition magazine. While selecting my yarn at a great yarn shop in SF I fell into a conversation with a very accomplished male knitter, and told him what I was going to attempt, and mentioned I was afraid of cables and other knitting idiocy and he said something along the lines of "Girl, you're afraid of cables but you're going to try fair isle?! You'll lose your ever-lovin' mind!" Now I'm afraid of cables AND fair isle. Maybe I'll try socks....

Socks scare ME!

(All I ever make are sweaters. I've done Fair Isle, but only in wool because wool is more elastic and if I mess up the tension, I can block it out. Sort of.)

hubby and i watched an ON DEMAND cable movie last night called The Sea... it was a foreign film from Iceland. I though about you because of 2 things: you always mention loving lil desolate fishing villages, and the knits and patterns were so kewl! However....Overall a depressing film, with a disfunctional family coming to an emotional peak. There were amusing bits here and there. Some sex that americans wouldn't normally film from that perspective.
i preferred the fishing village areas i have seen in Ireland based films. or even England. But there is still something desolate, bleak and disparing when land is missing trees and lushness.
As for this post....and yes i can find the topic eventually, i would love to see that fairisle pattern done in a pink/orange combo.
have you googled for an online tutorial on knitting fairisle? i found some kewl film bits on Utube for general knitting. Good luck with that.

Pom pom scarves just like the pattern in your book. They copied you!!

I got my book, all is good in the world.

Love You!

Laurie.

I went to the bookstore with my parents tonight. Where I found the ONLY apparent copy of your book in my city. I'm totally destitute, so my mom bought me the book. (yay Mommy!)

I just started chapter 14. Where I had to go back and re-read chapters 12 and 13.

Thanks for writing those two chapters. I've just been inspired. I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in January. Before that (in August of 2006) I had developed optic neuritis. (inflammation of the optic nerve) which is usually one of the first symptoms of MS to appear.

After I'd developed optic neuritis, and in deathly fear of MS, I became somewhat of a hermit...well, I was already pretty much of a hermit before that, but the fear of having an incurable autoimmune disease made it worse.

I read Chapters 12 and 13 tonight, and read about your Fear Life, and the hermit-ish-ness you went thru. I realized that I've been having a similar experience. So, I'm going to take a page (well, 2 chapters) from your book. (no, I'm not going to cut them out of the book with an X-acto knife, that would be silly) and I'm going to look for a SnB somewhere here in Omaha.

I'm not exactly a knitter...I'm a crocheter who just happens to knit. One of the things that kept me sane last year, mostly because I needed a challenge, was learning how to knit. I actually learned to knit just days before my vision in one eye went wonky.

So, for some reason after reading about your emergence from HermitVille, I'm inspired to want to actually walk across the border between HermitVille and visit Real Life for awhile and go and knit AND crochet with other people of the knit and crochet variety.

Hopefully they wont look at me funny when I pull out a crochet hook and a half finished giant rectangle granny square afghan (my own pattern) But, I probably wont traumatize them with that until after a few meetings.

What needles should I take?? Clovers or one of my two Addi Turbos?? I have a knitted shawl I'm making that's only 1/3 finished, should I take that, or a new project??

They wont laugh at me if I admit that I'm a (near) professional crocheter first and just a novice knitter, will they???

Now I just have to check a couple of yarn stores websites out and see who has a SnB meeting first.

Of course, I'll have my copy of your book in my yarn bag, just in case I need an excuse to actually have to talk to the people there. (hopefully they wont expect coherent conversation from me much)

YAY! The yarn store that I like the best here in town has a Sit & Stitch (guess they dont want to use the SnB name) TOMORROW afternoon!

Yay! I can borrow money from my dad for yarn and yet more knitting needles (I have a weird obsession to collect crochet hooks and knitting needles) and maybe get some non-Red Heart yarn and a cable needle or two (I really want to learn how to do cables!)

Maybe I'll even talk to people?

Just finished your book yesterday, and the left-alone cat made me furious and crying at the same time. Also, ashamed of belonging to the human race.
You made really, really amazing steps out of the pit of depression and fear-life- congrats. And *Yay* to you.
Gina

I just read this post and found there was no link to the right of "main" and I realised I'd got to the end - since discovering you a few weeks ago I have gone back to the beginning and read every single one of your posts - I am totally hooked - the thing I love most about your blog is that your writing didn't change once you got your book deal - so many blogs you can tell almost to the day when they get a book deal - the writing suddenly becomes self-aware (all Terminator II-like!) and all stilted and it just ruins everything - but yours didn't and its just great

There were so many things I wanted to comment on as I read through - things I wanted to say like "yeah I do that too" and "you are not alone feeling this way" and sometimes just "*hugs*" - now that I've got to the new stuff I can start leaving comments and you'll realise that there are other crazy people out there too!

Yesterday two things happened - I read your cleaning post and my husband complained about the washing making him itchy - so last night I went to the supermarket and bought a whole load of Ecover laundry stuff - it smells great - I got the liquid detergent stuff and can't stop sniffing it - in contrast the fabric softener smells of hardly anything - strange - anyway I am so excited about trying it!!

Oh and you mentioned knitting swiffer covers - can you explain more??

and I'm currently addicted to hot white chocolate drink - and I don't even like chocolate - I am actually physically craving it right now and I know I can't have any till I get home because, well its at home and I'm not - and its almost pure sugar but its so good and I know you'll understand.

Glad to have found you - keep blogging!

I'm in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and well have been wearing my scarf and mitts for a week or more now. One of my colleagues had a few snow flakes at her home this morning!? I am seriously thinking of moving someplace warmer.

So did you spend the evening with Al?

I spent it with your book and a box of kleenex (and the season finale of Top Chef, Hung won).

I didn't see Al, unfortunately. I was in bed alone with some kleenex, but because I am sniffly alas. Yuck.

Oh, and Violet Rose thank you, what an awesome comment you made.

The Swiffer thingy -- let me try to find a link for you and post it one day this next week.