Friendlier Fair Isle

Every once and a while, I come across a new technique that revolutionizes my knitting process. For example, since I started using spit-splicing and Russian joins, I spend significantly less time weaving in ends. My latest discovery has revolutionized the way I knit fair isle.

I was made aware of this technique after complaining on Ravelry about how fiddly my O.W.L. mittens are; I'm constantly having to twist the two yarns during long single-color runs. Ravelry member aj12ski pointed me to this video which demonstrates 2 new fair isle 'stitches' (stitches 3 and 4 in the video) that interlock the yarn without the fiddly twisting. Since I started using these 2 stitches halfway through my first O.W.L. mitten, I've had a lot less frustration.

I have no idea if this technique has a name, but it's definitely my new favorite thing for fair isle knitting. It's going to make my second O.W.L. mitten (and all my future fair isle projects) go much more smoothly. So if you do any stranded colorwork, I definitely recommend you check out the link above.