If you have been following the runway last year for this year’s Fall & Winter collections, you would have noticed quite a bit of knitted items that remind you of ski attires with pictures. Stranded-knitting is in this year and I plan to do it.
What’s more? It’s not just stranded-knitting works that will be in, but Fair-Isle knitting! Not sure whether I will tackle fair-isle though.
But why am I saying “stranded-knitting” and “Fair-Isle kniting”?
Those two terms refer to different things, but with the same technique.
“Stranded-Knitting” is the basis of “Fair-Isle Knitting”. Stranding in this place means knitting with two or more colours on the same row, whilst at the same time, carrying the unused colour yarn on the back of your knitting (creating what we knitters call “floats”).
Fair-Isle knitting refers specifically to the style of stranded-knitting originating from the Fair-Isle Island belonging to the UK. This type of stranded-knitting is distinctive by colour play, whereas the colour in the foreground motifs or the colour in the underlying background changes over a number of rows. Normal stranded-knitting (e.g. Norwegian jumpers) does not change the colours, i.e. maintaining the bitonality throughout the whole work.
That being said, of course, there are exceptions. But at the least I hope that this will help you correctly identify a piece of knitting correctly to be Fair-Isle or “just” stranded-knitting.
For more information, you can read the following blog posts by fellow knitters out there:
HERE is an example of stranded-knitting work that I did and blogged about:
Norræna hættuspil, originally uploaded by elemmaciltur.
Also read this article on Fair-Isle knitting from the Business of Fashion.
Ps. Now, don’t get stranded-knitting and fair-isle knitting all confused with “intarsia”, that’s a whole different story.
