This fair isle rug is knit as a tube, steeked, and cut after felting. Pattern calls for 8 colors of Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Bulky.

Tip: If you’ve never worked a steek, this chart will show you how your steek should look: Kiki Mariko Rug: Steek Chart.

Tip: The first and last rows are plain, single-color knitting. DO NOT ADD ANY ADDITIONAL PLAIN ROWS, or you will get a ruffle when you felt it. Due to the stranding, Fair Isle felts faster/tighter than plain knitting. The resulting ruffle can be cured by re-felting just the ruffled part, but it’s best to avoid it in the first place. If you want to add more plain-color rows to the ends, work them in “Invisible Fair Isle”, i.e., use 2 strands of the same color.

A knitter who added extra plain rows and had to deal with the “ruffle issue” (ahem, one of the authors) blogged about it here.