The socks are wonderful as always!!! As for your fair isle – I think your practice swatch looks *really* good!! And your contrasting color isn’t showing through at all! Yay! I can totally relate to your feeling of having no control/loose tension but tight stitches – I just experience it with my left hand. =) I also love watching the pattern develop and at one point must have knit five more rows when telling myself that I would just knit one more row to see the pattern. LOL Have fun with the Nordic mittens!

Quit weaving and let your unused yarn float. I think you will like the results. Don't pull the floated yarn too tightly, let it relax but not droop.

I love those socks, they came out fabulous! As for Fair Isle knitting, no matter which way you're doing it (it's possible to knit with both strands in left hand, you know), practice and blocking are the two answers :).

Great socks! And here I am wondering how all of you knit with your left hand. I am utterly at a loss when I try, and did my vest throwing both colors with my right hand, so I can give no assistance, other than to say blocking does help even things out. Have fun!

I enjoy two color knitting, too but have yet for my tension to look good on small items. The color of the mitten is fab.
I did laundry all day yesterday, too. It's a good thing to do so you don't sit in one spot and knit without breaks.
The socks turned out great. I avoid Kitchener stitch at all costs;-)

cute socks!!

i can not knit with my left hand, so i guess i can ask you the same thing. i'm sure once you practice more, it'll come very naturally. i do love fair isle and what you have looks pretty good.

The socks look wonderful. I'm totally with you on the two handed fair isle. I've been know to give up and carry all 2 or 3 colors in my right hand.

I am right-handed knitter, but a few months ago (with extreme teeth-gritting), I forced myself to learn how to knit with my left hand. Then, a couple of months ago, I picked up Fair Isle and the ability to knit with both hands made it WONDERFUL! I must agree that it is really fun to watch the pattern emerge -- I'm just like Caitlyn, knitting on and on and on, watching the pattern. So my best suggestion for you, based on my experience, is just practice with the right hand, whether in this project, or another project, or just swatching. My right-hand and left-hand tension is extremely different, still. I don't know any way around that. More practice for me, too, I guess!

Your swatch looks really good (very pretty wool and colors). If the pattern is truly Fair Isle, you shouldn't even have more than 5 or 6 stitches of one color before you use the other color. If that's the case, then I also suggest, like Chery, that you stop weaving and just let it float. You will find it much more relaxing. If the yarn is NOT superwash, then the floats will felt a little bit when you wash it and then they won't be a problem as far as catching on things. If, of course, there are longer periods of one color, then you will probably have to weave. Either way, more relaxation = better tension control, right?

The socks are great - I have that color of Bearfoot waiting in my stash. Now, I have a better idea how long I can make my socks......thanks!
I can only knit with my right hand, and am really a beginner at colorwork..yours looks good to me in the picture.....

I love Mountain Colors Weaver's Wool. Your socks look great. Your fair-isle two-handed knitting is kind of the same thing I'm doing right now. I'm knitting the Checkered Sweater in issue 28 of Rebecca magazine (alternating two colors). I'm using the two-handed approach from Fair Isle Sweaters Simplified (a Philosopher's Wool book). Normally, I'm a right hand thrower and control the tensioin by wrapping the yarn around my right first finger. I find the left hand picking difficult. To make matters worse I'm trying Combined knitting (ala Anne Modesit) on this sweater. I also would recommend a practice swatch with just the right hand until you feel a rhythm. And don't worry about speed. Good luck.

Funny, I feel the same way about knitting with my left hand! Did you try blocking yet? Steam always works wonders for me on my stranded stuff.

It will get easier. I've been practicing two handed knitting, which for me is like learning two new ways of knitting, since I don't hold the yarn neatly stranded through my fingers when I knit normally, so it is awkward with both hands, and it does get easier! You might want to practice single color knitting with your right hand to get the hang of it rather than starting off with two colors. That helped me.

Love them socks! I agree with Grumperina, practice and blocking will be your best friend!

The socks look great! You will get better with practise on the fair isle...I am!

I totally agree with Chery's comment. As for keeping the tension with your right hand, I have the yarn go over my right pointer finger, under my middle finger, over my ring finger and under my pinky. If you have long fingers, you might be able to keep holding the right needle while you wrap the yarn. If not, let go of the needle and move your hand (with the yarn wrapped through your fingers)around the needle. When you grab the needle again, the yarn should be pretty tight. Practice will make perfect!

Your socks look wonderfully cozy and warm! As for the two color stuff, I'm a bit too new to that to really comment I think, but I suspect you'll notice an improvement upon blocking, I know I did with my Halland mitten #1...

The socks look great, I really love the colors.

My tension was wonky when I first started the mittens too, it's not just the two-handed but it's two-handed on dpns that make the difference to me. I think you'll see your stitches even out eventually and blocking will help immensely.

The socks are great...I love the Ellen's Birthday Sock pattern for sport weight yarn. And don't they knit up fast?! As for the 2-handed Fair Isle, I have to say I'm a believer. I learned to knit Continental JUST for doing Fair Isle, but practiced a lot before doing any color stuff. Once your left hand is fluent, it's as easy as the float method or carrying both in the same hand. What's best is not what someone else says, but what works for you!

Great looking socks, I really like those colors. I've not yet had the nerve to try Fair Isle, I'm sure that with practice your tension will even out.

Beautiful socks and color. I'm just getting used to using two color knitting also...I'm with you on hoping eventually it will even out and block better!

Wonky looking stitches (slightly too tight/slightly too loose) will block out. What WON'T block out is if your floats (or weaving) on the back side are so tight that they pull the fabric together into a pucker. If you are feeling any puckering, rip it. That can't be fixed later.

By the way, I agree with Chery too.

The new socks look so warm and snuggly. Great work, Steph!

These suggestions for the color knitting are so great - that is one of my 2006 aspirations, so I am going to refer back to this post for tips! I think your swatch looks great.