A Day Late and a Dollar Short

I have been thinking for some time about starting a knitting blog, but there are a lot of them out there and many of them seem to be moving away from the knitting and towards the life.  At any rate, it's not the right moment to start a knitting blog ... but here I am, anyway.

I learned through a gardening blog that blogging can be a good way to encourage consistent progress. So, I am hoping that this blog will assist me in making consistent progress on the knits.  

I want to make myself a fair isle sweater.  It's been a long time since I made my first fair isle sweater.  In fact, it's been approximately half a lifetime.  I still love, adore, wear, and destroy the original, but I have learned much since then and I'd like the chance to go back and do it right.  I'd like to make it to fit me.  I'd like to make it with lots and lots and lots of colours.  I'd like to make it so that it will last (especially in the cuffs, which were the first to go in the original).  I'd also like to make it my own.  

The first fair isle sweater I made was also pretty close to the first sweater I ever made.  It was called a newfoundland sweater and the pattern came from the Philosopher's Wool company in Ontario.  I got the wool and pattern together as a sort of kit, although I selected the colours (at great, painstaking length) myself.  I messed up the first pattern ring because I didn't know the difference between the first time and the repeat.  There is an extra blank column in the first ring.  I also didn't understand the difference between sizes of yarn and so I ran out of grey long before anything else.  The tops of the sleeves are a different colour than the top of the torso.  

In order to make my new sweater, I am fortifying myself with advice from good books like "Alice Starmore's Book of Fair Isle Knitting" by Alice Starmore and "Traditional Fair Isle Knitting" by Sheila McGregor.  I will design the shape using advice from good books like "Sweater Design in Plain English" by Maggie Righetti and "Knitting in the Old Way" by Priscilla Gibson-Roberts.  I will cast on and off using advice from the inimitable "The Principles of Knitting" by Ruth Hemmons Hiatt, but that one I'll have to take in doses because I only have access to it at my library.  I'm not a millionaire, unfortunately.  If I were, I might fork over the $400 for a copy of POK.  

I thought maybe I'd blog about design decisions and reasoning.  I thought I'd record failures and successes and generally keep track of the sweater.  I don't actually anticipate that it will be unfair, but I thought probably that title could be available.  Right now, there is nothing of the new sweater whatsoever.  There is merely desire in my heart and some vague thoughts in my head.