Getting Started with Stranded Knitting

After knitting stripes, the next color knitting technique most knitters learn is stranded knitting. More popularly known as Fair Isle -- though Fair Isle technically refers to specific motifs and techniques from the Fair Isle region of Scotland -- stranded knitting is a method of colorwork that uses two colors per row or round to produce a pattern.

A finished swatch of stranded knitting. © Sarah E. White.

Fair Isle patterns are traditionally pretty small in scale, with most experts calling for five or fewer stitches to be worked in one color before switching to the other.

Stranded knitting is a relatively easy technique to learn, particularly if you are comfortable knitting both English and continental (and thus can hold one yarn in your right hand and one in your left) and if you work in the round so you can always see how the pattern is developing while you work.