Fondness for Fair Isle

Last post I mentioned Shetland wool. I happen to love Fair Isle/stranded colourwork knitting. I still have this vague feeling that it is extremely uncool to like it, but I do. I recently received my copy of Feitelson's Art of Fair Isle Knitting, and I love it. I love the history of it, the fact that it is a craft connected to necessity and artistry, and that it represents women's creative contributions to public economic life. From what I can gather it also represents a degree of exploitation -- if not outright oppression -- by brokers who bought wholesale and sold retail in the early part of the 20th century, but that history also appeals to the socialist side of me that enjoys feeling a bit of righteous indignation every once in a while.

Still...I look at the patterns and I desperately want to make them, yet have some difficulty imagining myself wearing them. There are some updated versions; a couple years ago I made a stranded vest from Rowan, and now I am working on this:



Eunny Jang's Venezia. I really want to make it a cardigan, and the class I am taking at Make One Yarn Studio provided a pattern for a v-neck cardigan version, but I would really like a scoop-neck cardigan. The dilemma is whether or not to risk totally and utterly f______ up all the work I've done by attempting to make said scoop-necked cardigan, or just be happy with the v-neck. A pullover is out of the question for me -- it is too fitted to wear much under it and I will itch like crazy. What to do...

Bica says I should just let her use the sweater as a nest and forget about it.