Where is this "Fair Isle" You Speak of?

Let's lay down some ground rules about this here challenge I've set up for myself: yes, I'm knitting from my stash. But I'm ok with using yarn that is gifted to me, either directly or through a gift card to one of my favorite stores or sites. Also, my mom has quite the stash, and she has generously offered it up to me if I want to pick through it for projects. I'm not proud. I'll stash-dive in someone else's stash. That brings me to today's post. My parents, in their infinite generosity, gave me a gift certificate to KnitPicks for Christmas, so I bought me some yarn.

They have a WONDERFUL library of independent designer patterns, so I bought the Joule Hat Pattern and got to work. Don't ask me what possessed me to give Fair Isle a try, but I absolutely loved it!

I'm a "thrower"--I knit in the English style, which means I hold the yarn in my right hand and wrap it around the needle to create my stitch. Two handed stranded knitting requires that you both throw and pick, that is, use the English and Continental methods, at the same time. I did it, and I loved it! I was a stranded knitting machine, kids! I started it last night, and finished it this afternoon. Where is this Fair Isle you speak of? As Liz Lemon would say, "I want to go to there!" A trip to Scandanavia is definitely on my bucket list...

The finished product:

Confession: I've been making a lot of hats lately. I live in the Sonoran Desert, for heaven's sake! What the heck am I doing making so many hats out of wool?? Well, it gets cold here at night in the winter, so I can use them to do my evening power walks (or my weekend grocery store trips when I'm wearing no makeup and haven't done my hair). But hats are great stash busters: they don't take a lot of yarn, relatively speaking, and they provide nearly-instant gratification. So there you go. Expect one more post on hats in the next week, and then I'm movin' on.