Colorwork Possibilities.

I am now about 1 ball into my Fair Isle Yoke Sweater. Since the sweater is worked in the round starting from the bottom edge, that means I have completed about an inch and a half of ribbing and a bit of plain knitting. I have something to say later about that ribbing, but today is dedicated to thinking about color patterns.

To order the yarn for the pattern, all I had to do was decide which colors I wanted, since each of the colorwork colors (for the yoke) requires 1 ball. And even though a couple of the colors looked a little different from how I had hoped (the "Rose" a little pinker and the "Seabright" a little more teal), they all go together pretty darn well.

So then the question was: which color goes where in Elizabeth Zimmerman's Fair Isle chart? The design has three tiers (A, B, and C) to account for decreasing stitches). I was having a hard time imagining the different options, so I pulled out the colored pencils and graph paper.

I mocked up two versions. This was the first I did:


Bear in mind that the blue lines of the graph paper add a somewhat confusing element. Also, on this scan (or monitor), the pink is pretty hard to see. Still: perhaps you can tell that there is a lot of blue in that design. And really? It is more blue than I wanted, since I envisioned the blue and pink as little flares of color in a largely grey sweater.

So I mocked up another option:
(Please ignore the crossed-out failed first attempt at Section B.)

I like this one better: the grey (which here looks a bit pinkish), white, and charcoal will dominate the sweater, giving it a "shades of the same color" feel, with little bursts of blue and pink.

Not that I am anywhere near starting this yoke. I still have a lot of body and two sleeves to make. But it is nice to know where I'm headed.