Another Knitting Post

This time it's about beginnings rather than the finished object. For a very long time - two, maybe three, years I've been dithering about starting a fair isle jumper - or frankly any sort of jumper. Fair Isle has won out because although it comes with its own set of challenges seeing the patterns grow will keep it interesting and it's going to be a big jumper.

This really should have been a better incentive to lose enough weight to go down a size. As well as being quite round I'm also long in the body and short in the leg (a genetic inheritance from the wrong grandfather - the other one was long-legged and lean - he bequeathed me his startling ability not to hang on to money and a taste for good port. The short fat one was excellent at making and keeping cash but had no palate at all. I would have chosen a slightly different combination of attributes from them both). The short boxy jumpers that everyone seems to be designing at the moment are hopeless on me. It all adds up to a real difficulty in finding a good base pattern and extra knitting.

I've bought the yarn to start on a jumper twice, and have half used the first lot for another project now. I'm no longer sure about the colours I chose really carefully last September and am wondering what I have to change them with - more dithering.

The closest I've found to the right pattern for me is Matti Ventrilon's Slash necked all over in 'Knitting From Fair Isle' to which I plan to add a couple of pattern repeats to give it the length I want. However, I also find I'm between sizes so after a lot of faffing around with tape measures and trying to guess which way to go I'm taking the risk of a smaller size, but on slightly larger needles. I did some swatching but on the whole, found it inconclusive - the answer would be to do a bigger swatch, which would be a good plan, so instead, I've just decided to start.

I like a plan, and at this point I'm not clear how much yarn I'll need, or exactly what the final colour combination will be which is the opposite of having a plan (I'm cocktail testing as I write this, with a rum and whisky version of the same drink on the go, which has the upside that I'm steadily caring less about everything). On the other hand my learning style is to have a go and work it out from my mistakes, and whatever happens, this jumper will fit someone (I really hope it's me). Getting started on it is perhaps the biggest hurdle to overcome (I also need to learn to crochet by the time I get to the arm steeks). 

Wish me luck.