**Edited: I actually took a Fair Isle class, not an intarsia class.  Man, oh, man.***

Gah!  I took an Fair Isle knitting class at Knit One One taught by Carrie Vermazen several weeks ago.   I just got around to blogging about it tonight , but I can't find the Fair Isle swatch I made.  The heck?!  It wasn't very fancy, but I would have liked to show it off to you. :(

This is the first craft class I've taken, and it was awesome.  Totally worth $20.  It was nice to have someone there helping me adjust to having yarn in both my hands.  It was also great to ask questions and chat about knitting with the other attendees.

I almost laughed out loud when some of the other students started talking trash about buying yarn at craft stores and then specifically sneered about Vanna's Choice (which I used to make my chair covers).

I didn't say anything.  I mean, what do you say?  Plus, I didn't want to make them feel weird, because lord knows I've said dumb things in social situations *and* I can be a self-righteous boob myself.

I've been curious about Fair Isle for a long time, and it was amazing to be able to get professional instruction on how to do it.  Carrie also showed us how to catch our floats and gave us tips on weaving in the ends of our secondary colors.  Just writing about it has my fingers itching to do some more Fair Isle knitting.

Hilariously, I found a way to make knitting with both hands even harder than it already  is.  I knew we were going to be knitting in the round, so I brought my favorite double pointed needles.  What I didn't realize until AFTER the class (which you'll agree it ridiculous once you hear this ...) is that it's nearly impossible to do Fair Isle with DPNs.

Why?  Because you are feeding yarn to your knitting with your left AND your right hand.  Which means when you finish the stitches on a needle and need to reposition it to start the next set of stitches, you don't have a free hand to grab it and shift everything around.  I was literally using my mouth to help me shuffle my needles around.  I diligently kept knitting this way for TWO HOURS without thinking, "Hey, this seems sort of impossible."

So next time I try Fair Isle, with my circular needles of course, it's going to seem easy as pie.