Coloring in a Fair Isle Tam

Stranded colorwork knitting offers one of the most fun experiences in the knitting world—watching your rounds of lovely stockinette stitches grow while seeing how the next color complements the last is really satisfying.

But selecting colors for your project can be daunting, because in order to be really successful, your yarn choices need to have enough contrast and an array of values (how light or dark a color appears), and sometimes hues (the actual color), to get the really rich effect that is the signature of Fair Isle stranded knitting.

Using color theory or playing with a color wheel are important strategies when planning a multicolor stranded knitting project, but sometimes hands-on experimentation is the best way to proceed.

Here are a few tips to get you started: