Fair Isle Advent MKALendar

DESCRIPTION

With the Fair Isle Advent MKALendar you'll create a stocking cap or a cowl in 25 days... or take the emergency exit to turn the cap into a head-hugging beanie. All sorts of fingering-weight leftovers, scraps, half-a skeins, unicorn tails, or advent calendar minis are ideal.

Each day is presented as a stranded colorwork chart knit in the round. All charts can be worked with just two colors but you can use as many as you wish! Your color choices determine whether your project is a classic or modern interpretation of traditional Fair Isle motifs. Regardless of how many colors you pick, all rounds are knit with just two colors and short floats. Tips for choosing and using colors are provided.

Fair Isle Advent MKALendar comes in four sizes for the stocking cap or beanie (kids, teens, ladies, and gents) and one for the cowl. Length is adjustable within pattern.

The pattern is written with both metric and US terminology. Only charted instructions are given for the colorwork patterns.

In addition to instructions for knitting the accessories, the pattern also includes

• 24 colorwork charts in two variations: one for a light background and another for a dark background color — that's 48 charts total!
• tips for choosing colors with seven illustrated color scheme examples
• links to technique tutorials on colorwork

This pattern was originally released as a 25-part advent calendar mystery knitalong in December 2022.

FINISHED MEASUREMENTS

Stocking Cap or Beanie

• Sizes: kids [teens, ladies, gents]
• Circumference: approx. 49 [53, 58, 62] cm / 19¾ [21, 22¾, 24½]"
• Ribbing circumference: approx. 46 [49, 51, 55] cm /*18 [19, 20¾, 21¾]"
• Beanie length: approx. 20 [22, 23, 24] cm / 8 [8¾, 9, 9½]" or adjustable within pattern
• Stocking cap length: approx. 60 cm / 24"

Choose a size with approx. 10% of negative ease in ribbing and zero to a small amount of positive ease in circumference.

Cowl

• One size
• Circumference: approx. 62 cm / 24½" or adjustable within pattern
• Ribbing circumference: approx. 60 cm / 23½" or adjustable within pattern
• Length: approx. 60 cm / 24" or adjustable within pattern

MATERIALS

Yarn

Fingering-weight yarn, a total of approx.

• beanie: 160 [180, 190, 210] m / 180 [190, 210, 230] yd
• stocking cap: 440 [470, 490, 530] m / 480 [510, 530, 580] yd
• cowl: 730 m / 800 yd

Needles

• 3.25 mm / US #3 short (40 cm / 16") circular needle for stranded colorwork (or size needed to obtain gauge)
• 2.5 mm / US #1½ short circular needle for twisted ribbing

Notions

• 1 stitch marker
• Colorwork yarn guide (optional)
• Darning needle

GAUGE

• 27 sts × 34 rnds = 10 cm / 4” in stranded colorwork on larger needles, blocked
• 28 sts × 42 rnds = 10 cm / 4” in twisted ribbing on smaller needles, stretched

TECHNIQUES USED

This pattern uses the following techniques: working in the round, twisted stitches, stranded colorwork, increases, decreases, stretchy bind-off (for cowl). Instructions for the colorwork patterns are provided only as charts.

REFERENCES

• How to Knit Colorwork Inside Out
• Color Dominance in Stranded Colorwork
• Catching Floats on the Next Round
• Comparison of 20 Stretchy Bind-off Methods