WIP Wednesday: My Fair Isle Sweater

 Once I got the holidays behind me and all its gift knitting, I couldn't wait to get back to work on my Bauhaus Fair Isle sweater, designed by Mary Jane Mucklestone. You'll remember that I previously blogged about it here and here.

I had to leave the project somewhere in the middle of the upper body where I had discovered my mistake in misaligning the color pattern when setting up the sleeves and V-neck. Thanks to the subtleness of the colors, you can't really see it here. However, if I were to run into Mary Jane while wearing it she might say, "Oh, dear, you stacked your lozenges right on top of one another!" And she wouldn't be talking about sore throat medicine, either. 

I won't go into detail about that, but you can see another of my mistakes in this picture--that bright whitish line just above the hem ribbing. That was me trying to use what yarn I had instead of sticking to the yarn suggestions. After getting way up from it and seeing the problem, I just could not rip. I decided that this was a learning piece and did not need to be perfect.  I found some of the correct yarn (Dale Heilo) and things went much better from there...until the lozenge misalignment, that is.  After a little holiday hiatus, I accepted the mistake and decided to keep going. 

The picture at top shows a little pooch in the middle front of the upper body. That's the V-neck steek! I was a little skeptical about this until I worked it for myself. Folks, it's like a little miracle. By working the steek where the V-neck goes and decreasing just as you normally would for a V-neck, once you reinforce the middle of the steek with single crochet (this is optional, but I wanted to be safe)...

 Warning: Avert your eyes or scroll past the next picture if you are squeamish!

Then you can cut it!

And ta-da! You have a V-neck!

Then you set up the armhole steeks the same way and cut them the same way...

...right up the middle of those two rows of single crochet.

Then the body will be ready, with armholes and neck holes and everything, just like it should.

You graft the shoulder seams together with Kitchener...

...and then work the collar. 

I chose to work the collar before the sleeves. Things seem all secure for the most part, but I wanted to get this out of the way. I can happily tell you that I have started the first sleeve and it's going well. I'll be back next week, I hope, to show you at least one sleeve completed. Who knows? If I get lucky maybe I'll have two!

See you soon!