Bonanza!

I'm hopeless and very slow. During knitting lessons at school I spent all my time untangling the knots in other girls wool! Anyone remember that horrible pink/blue school wool?? Have a German friend who one day is going to tech me to knit the continental way, which is the same sort of action as crochet - which I can't do either. :(
 
For intaglia, (i.e, when knitting a pattern with a motif,) it's much easier if you just unwind lengths of yarn, about a metre, and leave them trailing at the back. Just gently pull the threads through when it begins to get a bit tangled, or after you have crossed the thread to prevent a hole appearing in the knitting.
Also, when knitting fairisle jerseys or anything basically tubular, it makes a big difference if you use circular needles so all the pattern is done on the right side, ie, the Knit side, the side you can see. If you knit the back and the front separately, going backwards and forwards, you can't see the pattern on the purl side because the stranded threads obscure it. It helps keep the tension even, and not having to turn the work every row makes tangles less likely. And you don't have to match the sides and sew them together, because the garment will be a tube at least up to the armholes. Traditional fairisle hand knitted jerseys even have a way round this, of making 'steeks,' i.e, knitting the jersey as a tube right up to the shoulders and then cutting the armholes open and picking ups stitches for the sleeves. This is possible with the right sort of Shetland yarn because the fibres stick together and don't unravel, but it's a bit nerve wracking the first time you try it. I always do sleeves on short circular needles as well, saves all that boring and unnecessary sewing up of the sleeve seams. With the right sort of traditional pattern, you can pick up stitches round the body edge of the sleeves and then knit them downwards, circular, gives a really nice seamless finish.
If you choose a pattern with a yoke, the body is usually knitted as a tube up to where the sleeves join in, and then you knit the sleeves up to the armholes, and then you join the sleeves to the body and knit round and round top over the shoulders to the neck, decreasing as you go. This is the part where the fair isle pattern usually come, and it's very satisfying to do.
 
Here’s one I made earlier ...
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Wow, that's gorgeous Marigold! My mother-in-law started a mohair cardigan before she died and as it's stocking stitch I can manage the knitting, but the pattern!!!!!!!!!! It's a harvest mouse with poppies and ears of corn. The instructions are adamant that each colour must be knotted in every time it's used, so the inside will be a mass of knots if ever I get it finished. I may have to line it. The mouse (one on the right front and one on the back) has a single pink stitch at the end of its' nose! The ball of wool is tiny - but the colour does show up
 
Single contrast stitches are usually sewn on afterwards, Margaid, and I've never heard of having to knot in a colour every time it's used. Generally, it's carried along the back for fair isle designs and twisted in every 3-5 stitches, or for motifs like your mouse, you leave long strands of the colours dangling at the back and pick them up on your way back on the next row when needed.
 
Fantastic, Marigold, looks lovely. Will you be making a Glaslyn family one ?
 
Marigold said:
For intaglia, (i.e, when knitting a pattern with a motif,) it's much easier if you just unwind lengths of yarn, about a metre, and leave them trailing at the back. Just gently pull the threads through when it begins to get a bit tangled, or after you have crossed the thread to prevent a hole appearing in the knitting.
Also, when knitting fairisle jerseys or anything basically tubular, it makes a big difference if you use circular needles so all the pattern is done on the right side, ie, the Knit side, the side you can see. If you knit the back and the front separately, going backwards and forwards, you can't see the pattern on the purl side because the stranded threads obscure it. It helps keep the tension even, and not having to turn the work every row makes tangles less likely. And you don't have to match the sides and sew them together, because the garment will be a tube at least up to the armholes. Traditional fairisle hand knitted jerseys even have a way round this, of making 'steeks,' i.e, knitting the jersey as a tube right up to the shoulders and then cutting the armholes open and picking ups stitches for the sleeves. This is possible with the right sort of Shetland yarn because the fibres stick together and don't unravel, but it's a bit nerve wracking the first time you try it. I always do sleeves on short circular needles as well, saves all that boring and unnecessary sewing up of the sleeve seams. With the right sort of traditional pattern, you can pick up stitches round the body edge of the sleeves and then knit them downwards, circular, gives a really nice seamless finish.
If you choose a pattern with a yoke, the body is usually knitted as a tube up to where the sleeves join in, and then you knit the sleeves up to the armholes, and then you join the sleeves to the body and knit round and round top over the shoulders to the neck, decreasing as you go. This is the part where the fair isle pattern usually come, and it's very satisfying to do.
Click to expand...

Marigold, with the circular needle (which sounds a brilliant idea!), how do you get over the increasing/decreasing? Like, when knitting the front of a garment, and it says "increase xx stitches at beginning and end of next 4 alternate rows" and then the back is basically the same? Do you do some increasing at either "end" and some in the middle?
 
Before you start the first round, you hang a marker to indicate the first stitch of the round, and then add another one halfway round. The markers are either little coloured plastic rings, or you can buy special pretty ones with a wire loop and a coloured bead. I always use a red one for the start and a green one for halfway round, so I know whether I'm doing the front or the back. When you come to the marker you just slip it on to the right hand needle so it moves up the work as you go. The green one means 'keep going' and the red one means 'stop- next row starts here.' Like these; https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/KnitPro-Zooni-Bead-Stitch-Markers-Assorted-Designs-Knitting-Crochet/323534135999?hash=item4b542322bf:m:mNpajzL_b4lGgEXkHRK3JVg
When increasing or decreasing, you then just treat the approaching marker as if it were the end or beginning of a row, and follow the instructions accordingly. It's much easier to increase or decrease from the front side of the work as you can see what you're doing.
If told to 'increase in the next alternate rows,' you just knit a round in between the increases.
It's also lovely to know that, once you get to the armholes, you won't have to start all over again at the bottom to do the back, and will have lovely smooth sides with no need to do those troublesome seams.

A word of caution - if you're adapting a pattern which tells you to knit front and back separately, it will normally have a spare stitch at each end of the rows, intended to be used to seam the sides together. You need to omit this if knitting circular, or the item may finish up too large, with 4 extra stitches that aren't needed because there will be no seams. Also, these extra stitches can be omitted if you're doing a pattern, as otherwise they will make a line of 2 unwanted stitches up the sides of the work, which isn't part of the pattern itself.

And of course, if doing a pattern, you will need to rewrite it if doing circular knitting as the instructions will be for K one side, then P. at the back. You need to convert it to all K, but this is usually easy to do. Most two-way Aran or cable patterns either direct you to P. the reverse side (in which case you just K. the next alternate row instead) or they 'shadow' the previous row, which is easy to do, you just K all the K sts and P. all the P. ones from the pattern row just completed.

When doing repeating fair isle patterns (like the star pattern on the jersey I posted) I add a separate ring at the start of each repeat. I usually use plain rings for these, and the decorative ones at the start and halfway marks. Then, if I get interrupted or go wrong in the pattern, it's easy to see where the mistake has occurred, and usually means you only have to unpick back a few stitches to correct it. Without the rings, its very hard to see what has happened and where.

You need the right length of needle for knitting circular, and more than one of them in your collection for each needle size. For jerseys I usually find 80cm is OK for the body, 40cm for the neck, 30cm for the wrist end of the sleeve, moving up to 40 cm as it gets wider. If the needle is too long, it stretches the stitches and makes them hard to knit. If too short, they crowd themselves off the needle.
 
These are the markers https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m570.l2632.R2.TR4.TRC1.A0.H0.Xknitting+markers.TRS0&_nkw=knitting+markers&_sacat=160706

The little plastic safety pins are good for when you want to leave a marker in the work, eg if counting rows or stitches from a certain point, and then want to remove it later, and also if you see you've dropped a stitch further back and need to catch it on to a safety pin for attention later on. They work better than metal pins as they don't get caught up in the yarn. But the plain circular ones, or the ones with loops and beads, are better for when you're moving up the work or marking out patterns.
 
Your jumper is amazing!
I'm a very simple knitter, and very slow! But I enjoy it, which is the main thing!

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