Pattern: Baby’s First Fair Isle Sweater by Susan Gutpearl
Yarn: Opal Uni 4ply, two-thirds of 100g in colour: #1999 Magenta and Zitron Trekking XXL, two-thirds of 100g in colour: #76 maroon-mauve
Needles: 2.5mm circs and dpns
Hand me that gold medal right now – I am a winner. 
Finished neatening the steeks on Saturday evening and then left it to block on Sunday. The photos had to wait til this morning due to the model needing her beauty sleep. 
I am really thrilled with the end result. It has been a bit of a slog. Pre-baby I could have finished this in a week, easily, but having a small person interrupting at random times makes everything so much harder and at the beginning I honestly did think that I’d be posting today with half a sleeve done and a vague promise to finish it off before stuffing the whole sweater into a Tesco bag and hiding it at the back of my wardrobe.
This is the first fair isle sweater I have ever knitted. To date, the biggest project has been the Deep V Argyle Vest, but that at least didn’t have sleeves to bother me. All the other stranded projects I’ve done were mitts or hats, so it was even more of a challenge.
I like the pattern and I’ve said before that there were a couple of problems which I queried and worked out. I didn’t swatch because of time constraints. I wanted a slightly bigger sweater than the small, so I just used the stated needle size and ended up with a chest width of 25cm which gives lots of wriggle room. 
The sock yarns aren’t great for steeking as they don’t stick together, but they make for a lovely soft sweater. The colours of the Trekking change ever so subtly throughout so it looks as if I’ve done clever shading with a million different colours, a la Kaffe Fassett. It also means I can put the sweater in the washing machine without fear of it shrinking as they’re my two favourite workhorse sock yarns.
All in all, I am a very happy knitter today. 
Oh wow! It turned out awesome! Love the subtle color shifts. Very clever to use sock yarn on a children’s sweater! Yay for machine washable! And the model is very, very cute.
It’s great, Rose looks a little surprised…perhaps she thought you wouldn’t finish it in time?
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Fantastic, you do deserve a medal.
*Stands prizewinning podium and applauds vigorously*
that is a seriously awesome jumper! I am very much contemplating making a slightly bigger one…. i love your subtle colour changes, the little lady looks beautiful in it.
By the podium. I’m standing by the podium. A preposition fell out of that first sentence somehow, doh!
Not just a great knitter, but an excellent photographer too! That sweater is adorable anyway, but with your totally cute model in it, it’s a complete winner!
Absolutely beautiful.
Fab sweater and even more fab baby!
that looks great! the model doesn’t look as impressed as she ought to though…..
As one who’s fairisle days are long behind her [ it was a norwegian style cardi in 1972 that killed colourwork for ever for THIS particular knitter ] I can only stand in front of the podium and applaud hysterically.
It is fantastic Kate
I’m having troubles with starting the lower body pattern! I don’t understand what I should be doing with the ‘center stitch
That I’m supposed to be adding after the first 4.5 sets of the chart? Is it supposed to make a fatter line along that section? Am I supposed to do the same thing twice? And I don’t understand if I am supposed to start in the middle of the pattern… Or how I am to continue after I have put this middle stitch in. Do I start again in the middle or from the begging on the far right of the pattern.