Project 60 Number 21. This is not just Fair Isle...

This is Alice Starmore Fair Isle.

For those who don't know, Alice Starmore is a renowned knitwear designer, specialising in extremely lovely and extremely complex Fair Isle designs, although she designs in other knitting traditions as well. People write books about knitting Alice Starmore jumpers - well, I know at least one person did, see here. It's quite a funny and interesting read, but that's by the by.

I love AS's work but I'm unlikely ever to knit one of her sweaters unless I go down about 4 dress sizes so that I have the time and the money, no to mention the motivation of knowing that I will look good, but as one of my Project 60 challenges I wanted to tackle some proper Fair Isle. So when, last autumn, an offer on an Alice Starmore kit dropped into my in-box I lost no time in forwarding the e-mail to the OH, appending the message 'If you were wondering what to buy me for Christmas...'. And lo! on Christmas morning, there was the box and I have been itching to get started but there was no point in trying to knit this in winter when the light isn't good because so many of the colours are so very very similar. Even with the lighter nights I have been obsessive about always tying the label back into each ball of wool when they got changed over because I was paranoid about mixing them up and using the wrong one.

 

I was terrified about the whole thing tbh, but I think I needn't have been. It was actually an enjoyable knit and I only went wrong about three times, which I thought was impressive. And now that it's done, it's a lovely lovely thing.

 

Re-reading that last sentence it occurs to me that I have been watching too much Masterchef. ...

 

We're not done yet though. Oh no! There's a matching beret and  pair of fingerless gloves to do yet, but not just now. For now I'm giving my eyes a rest and knitting something simpler. But as Project 60 things go, this was a good one.