How to Knit Fair Isle & Stranded Colourwork

Stranded colourwork — Fair Isle is its best-known style — knits with two colours at once, carrying the colour you’re not using in loose strands (floats) across the back so it’s ready the moment the chart calls for it. It’s the diamond bands on our Outback Harvest socks, the stranded motifs ringing our Christmas stockings, and the colourwork our winter sock sets explain step by step.

Step by step

Never work more than two colours in a single row or round. Fair Isle motifs are drawn so each row needs just the background colour and one pattern colour; a third colour in a row means you’re reading the chart wrong, or it’s an intarsia piece instead (see our How to Work Intarsia page).
Carry the resting colour along the back of the work in a float. Every time you swap colours, the new yarn picks up from the same side — most knitters keep one colour always coming from below and the other always from above, so the floats stay in tidy layers instead of tangling.
Hold the yarns comfortably: one in each hand, both in one hand, or one around a finger of your working hand. There’s no single right grip — there’s only the one that keeps your tension even, so try a practice band before a sock depends on it.
Keep the floats loose — this is the whole game. Spread the stitches out along the right needle before you change colour, so the float spans the stretched width. A float that’s snug on bunched-up stitches will pucker the front into permanent ripples.
Catch any float that runs longer than about five stitches: knit a stitch with the working yarn while trapping the resting yarn behind it (bring the float over the needle before the stitch, knit, and it stays caught at the back). On the front, nothing shows; at the back, no long loop waits to snag a toe.
Read the chart from the front of the work, one square per stitch, and in the round read every round right to left. Stranded work is happiest in the round — our stockings and sock sets are built that way — because you knit every round and never have to purl with two colours.
Decide which colour dominates and keep it consistent: the pattern colour usually sits slightly forward when its yarn is carried in the hand (or position) that brings it from below. Swapping which colour dominates halfway through a band shows as a subtle change of emphasis — charts assume you picked one way and stayed with it.
Check the front every few rounds, not just the back: floats should lie in flat, even ladders behind, and the front should show crisp motifs with no background colour grinning through. Spread the work out flat to judge it — bunched on the needle, everything looks puckered.
Block the finished piece (see our How to Block Your Work page). Stranded colourwork improves more in the bath than almost anything else in knitting: floats relax to a common tension, motifs square up, and small unevenness simply melts away.

Patterns that use it

Outback Harvest Women's Sock Set Knitting Pattern | Thick Knee-High Socks, Gloves & Beanie PDF

Southern Lights Women's Sock Set Knitting Pattern | Thick Knee-High Socks, Gloves & Beanie PDF

Snow Gum Frost Women's Sock Set Knitting Pattern | Thick Knee-High Socks, Gloves & Beanie PDF

Women's Winter Collection | 3 Knitted Sock, Glove & Beanie Sets PDF

Aussie Christmas Stockings Vol 2 | 12 Knit Patterns PDF

← Back to the Stitch Library

Common mistakes

Keeping the floats snug while the stitches are bunched up on the needle. The float has to span the stretched width of the stitches it crosses, or the front puckers into ripples that even blocking can’t fully forgive.
Letting a float run on and on without catching it. Anything longer than about five stitches needs trapping behind a stitch, or it waits at the back as a long loop ready to snag.
Swapping halfway through a band which colour comes from below and which from above. The dominant colour changes with the swap, and the motif subtly changes emphasis where the two halves meet.

Tina’s tips

Spread the work flat and look at the front every few rounds, not just the back. Bunched on the needle everything looks puckered; laid out, you can see the motifs as they’ll truly sit.
Knit a little practice band before the real piece, and hold the yarns the same way from the first stitch to the last. Colourwork rewards a settled routine far more than a clever one.