Chain Link Fair Isle Vest

In August, while I was helping my niece finish quilting her beautiful patchwork quilt, she asked me if I’d knit a fair isle vest for her for Christmas. I said yes, although with a sense of trepidation, as at the time, I had never actually knit a full-size fair isle garment. I’ve knit accessories and Sasha doll-sized fair isle sweaters.

So an exciting knitting journey of discovery began.

I knew that I wanted to include gold as my niece loves wearing golden tones. Inspiration came from some old swatches I’d knit a while ago and the autumn colour in my Witch Hazel’s leaves.

Before Maya returned home, I took her measurements and knew that the size 12-14 would be the best choice. I was careful to swatch to check my tension as I wanted to be sure that the finished fair isle vest would come out the correct size. It is always more stressful knitting a garment for someone other than yourself. Particularly when the first time they will try it on is after it has been finished, dressed and posted to France.

I think that the finished Chain Link Fair Isle Vest designed by Mary Henderson is perfect for Maya. Chain Link was published in The Knitter issue 92. It’s also on Ravelry. I loved the Chain Link pattern as it felt modern in style and my niece likes her clothes to be a little quirky and fun!

I cast on using 3.25mm needles and had completed the 2×1 corrugated ribbing and was progressing well on the body when a niggling worry about how badly my ribbing was curling started to annoy me. I began to feel that this curling was not going to be solved by blocking. I continued knitting the body and reached the underarm point where I would be casting on the steek stitches. I paused to assess the problem of the curling rib again.

After an afternoon spent online searching for a way to solve this issue, and finding that the fixes seemed to involve starting the cast on differently. I was knitting to a deadline, so starting again was not an option.

Most suggestions involved casting on more tightly than normal, using a cable cast on instead of a long tail cast on, or knitting a 1×1 rib for a couple of rounds before starting the corrugated rib.

Another possible fix I found was to steam it into submission. This was a gift for my niece and must stand up to being worn and hand washed without problems. So I really didn’t see steaming as a good long term option.

Apparently, a 2×2 corrugated rib or a 2×3 corrugated rib is more structurally sound than a 2×1 corrugated rib (which is the one used in the Chain Link pattern).

Seemingly, it. can help to do the knit and purls of the rib in different rounds, (2 passes for each round).

But none of these was helpful to me as I needed to fix the curling rib problem as a remedial action after the fact.

I came to the conclusion, that if part of the problem is the cast on being too loose, I realised I needed to fix this. I decided to pick up the cast-on stitches and knit an edging. I used 3mm needles and I knit about 2.5cm/1″ of stocking stitch, cast off and folded the ‘hem’ underneath and sewed the hem into place to create a nice neat hem. This created an attractive and neat finish to the fair isle vest.

I was finally ready to continue with the armhole and neckline shaping and steeks. When I had worked about 5cm/2″ I wasn’t happy with how the pattern looked at the v-neck, so I unknit that section and moved the centre front by 19 stitches. I looked at how this would affect the rest of the fair isle patterning and noticed that the beginning of the round for Chart B had been changed for the front neckline. I just moved mine a little sooner for Chart C from round 11.

There were a lot of ‘firsts’ in this project. It was my first fair isle garment. My first steeks. My first v-neck garment. My first 2×1 corrugated ribbing.

I did crochet edging on the steeks for the neckline and armholes.

And then nervously started cutting the steek for the first time.

I think the cut steeks that are folded under are quite ‘wide’. And I did consider trimming them but that would have meant finding a way to edge the steeks.

I had read that the steek edges will flatten down and felt into the body of the knitting over time with wear so I chose not to stitch the steeked edges down and instead will allow the shetland wool to do its magic!

It was an exciting moment trying the fair isle vest on the mannequin for the first time. Until the steeks had been cut I had no idea how the neckline was going to look.

I love how the 1×1 corrugated rib on the neckline and armholes gives an elegant finished look.

I spent September and October planning this project. I had chosen colours from my collection but wasn’t achieving the blending of colours that satisfied me, so ordered additional balls of shetland wool. I was so glad that I had the Jamieson and Smith and Jamieson’s of Shetland shade cards, as it really helped to be able to see the actual colour interacting with the ones I’d chosen.

I ordered a Shetland Jumper Board to help even out the knitting and speed up the drying process. I chose the traditional Jumper Board made by Paparwark Furniture on Shetland.

It was fun choosing the colours and I loved the finished vest. I did add more colours than suggested in the pattern. I used 18 colours a combination of 6 darks, and two gradients of colours one in gold to olive scheme and the other in an Autumn red scheme. (I’ve listed the wool colours used at the end of the post). This was considerably more colours than the 8 suggested colours for the pattern. The black and white photo shows the contrast in the colour scheme.

I thought you may be interested to see the inside of the Chain Link Fair Isle Vest, showing the steeks and the fair isle stranding.

My niece loves gold, yellow ochre and olive colours but I didn’t want this to be too overpowering. So I wanted to balance these colours with a range of deep dark shades and the autumnal reddish range of colours. I chose a coral colour to lift the centre of the autumn coloured pattern.

After completing the Chain Link Fair Isle Vest, I was lucky to get onto the December Online Colour Blending within Traditional Fair Isle Pattern Workshops taught by Tracey Doxey. This was a very colourful and inspirational class. After taking this class I realised that I’d have approached the ‘centre line’ or ‘singing’ line as Tracey Doxey calls it, in a slightly different way.

I really loved how the finished Chain Line Fair Isle Vest looked. I am looking forward to the next fair isle garment I will cast on and wondering who it will be for.

List of Shetland Wool used in the vest:

Darks:

• Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift 101 Shetland Black
• Rowan Fine Tweed SH375 Burnsall (discontinued wool line)
• Knit Picks Palette Indigo Heather C823
• Jamieson & Smith 2ply Jumper weight Shade FC14 Mix
• Alice Starmore Hebridean 2ply Selkie
• Jamieson & Smith 2ply Jumper weight Shade FC55 Mix

Golds:

• Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift 179 Buttermilk
• Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift 375 Flax
• Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift 1160 Scotch Broom
• Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift 231 Bracken
• Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift 233 Spagnum

Autumn Reds:

• Jamieson & Smith 2ply Jumper weight Shade 9144
• Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift 478 Amber
• Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift 186 Sunset
• Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift 261 Paprika
• Alice Starmore Hebridean 2ply Red Deer

Additional:

• Jamieson & Smith 2ply Jumper weight Shade 125
• Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift 365 Chartreuse