Happy New Year!!! On the very first day of the brand new 365 days of 2017, I am pleased to share with you my new knitting pattern on a Poinsettia Fair Isle Pullover (girl and boy version) which I have designed and knitted for my kids. I hope this pattern brings a whole new year of blessing to my readers, followers and visitors, may 2017 be a better year for you.
Fair Isle is a traditional knitting technique used to create patterns with multiple colours. This Poinsettia Fair Isle Pullover uses 3 colors to create pattern and at any one time, the most only 2 colors are involved. The knit pattern uses circular and double pointed needles to knit top down in round. It begins with a neck rib then extend to knit a yoke with Poinsettia Fair Isle pattern, follow by the body, lastly the sleeve. The Poinsettia Fair Isle pattern comes in 2 sizes, 8-10 years and 11-12 years. Photos and videos are included in the pattern to make it easier for you to understand.
To be frank, I have been wanting to knit Fair Isle pullover for my kids, especially for a winter vacation abroad. During early last year, we finally decided to have our holiday in Japan: Hokkaido and Tokyo to be particular. Since we’ve planned it quite early, thus, I have ample time to design and knit this Poinsettia Fair Isle Pullover for my kids and also the cable pullover for him and a raglan pullover for me, together with other knit items to be published soon. Not to worry that you have left over yarns for this fair isle pullover, I am going to publish the matched beanie hat (published) and leg warmers (published)soon that are using the same yarns.
The pattern is fabulous and I am excited to see it through! One question though, as this is my first fair isle pattern: in the colour chart, when you include the symbol for make one increase in the next round, in which colour should I make that increase? In other words, do I make that square that has the symbol an increase or do I first knit the square and then immediately follow it up with an increase of identycal colour? Also, I do not understand the difference between placing the symbol at the beginning of the pattern row or at the end, as it seems to me the increase occurs in the same position (since the pattern is a repeat). Please help, as I think the entire colour work will be messed up if I get it wrong 🙂
Good question Emma. The symbol on either the left or right of the square indicate that you are going to make an increase on the next round, just follow the color at the next round. For example, at the beginning of round 30 of the tick-tac-toe pattern, it says to make an increase on round 31 with a dark gray followed by the white stitch on the dark dray stitch on round 30, so, when you knit the first increase at round 31, you just do the 2 stitches increment at the dark gray stitch with a dark gray, then, a white sts. You might feel confused now, but once you have the yarn and needles on your hands and start working it out, you will get the picture why I drew the chart this way. Try and let me know if you still have a problem understanding it.
This is a beautiful pattern, and I would love to knit it for my son. He is ten years old but is a size 18-20. I’ve measured him around his arms and chest, and right now he is 32″ around the chest and 10″ circumference around the arms.
I would like to increase the stitch count to increase by 5″, so that would be 30 stitches at gauge. Will this make an acceptable number of stitches for the color work?
Hi Sarah, thank you for loving this pattern. Regarding your question, I would prefer you instead of changing the stitch count to enlarge the size, why not changing to heavier yarn. Changing stitch count in Fair Isle pattern requires more work to calculate and we might make some mistake during the calculation. Get a slightly heavier weight yarn and larger needles to meet your knitting gauge for this Fair Isle pattern. If you are using Lion Brand, I would say yarn weight of 4 Medium.
Thank you so much for the Poinsettia Fair Isle Pull over pattern.
you are welcome, Kamala.
Any chance you might make an adult pattern for the delightful girl ‘S version? I would love to make an adult version and steek front to make a cardigan.
Hi Laurel, you may use slightly heavier weight of yarn to make into adult size, just need to do some mathematic to get the measurement right. However, you might want to reduce the number of round on the body portion so that it won’t turn out too long.