More colourwork fun - Intarsia

 

Intarsia might sound like some exotic rainforest animal but it's actually a really economical colourwork method that can save you a LOT of yarn if you're working on something multicoloured. 

Intarsia does take a bit of planning out, so I thought I'd give it a go with three colours of yarn (and a black border) to see what all the fuss is about. Several knitting / crochet bloggers have said how much they prefer intarsia to the fair isle method I'd been previously using for colourwork (which you can actually see in the background of these photos) and after finally working out the method, I can see why they're raving about it. So how do you do it?

For the example above I cast on 30 stitches in a simple black double-knit yarn using any cast on method (I am lazy so I nearly ALWAYS either go for the knit-cast-on method or the simple "Wrap the yarn around your finger and make a loop onto the needle" method - Long tail cast ons still elude me!)

After knitting 30 stitches in black (for the bottom border) I knitted a further 10 stitches in black for the first block of colour. 

Now the fun bit, introducing the 2nd colour is pretty simple (there are many different methods of changing colour mid-row, again I simply wrap the new yarn round the needle and knit it as you would a normal stitch). BUT one thing you will need to do is twist the two colours (I usually opt to bring up the second / new colour from beneath the existing yarn to make sure there's a 'twist' in there). 

This was where I'd gone wrong in the past. No twist, and you end up with three separate 'columns' of stitches and your work falls apart. If you're already familiar with the method of 'carrying along' yarn while fair-isle knitting you'll be familiar with the technique but this brilliant SpruceCrafts tutorial explains things a bit better - How to Knit Intarsia (thesprucecrafts.com)

So once the second yarn is added in, knit 10 stitches with it, and for the last 10 bring in your last colour / ball of yarn to complete the three colour blocks. 

Some people have worked up to 10 different yarn balls / bobbins at the same time to work on more intricate designs so intarsia isn't really practical for every scenario (for example for my space invaders ugly sweater I calculated I'd need something like 30 strands of yarn being worked simultaneously for some sections - I think I'll stick to fair isle!)

The main advantage of Intarsia is that both the front and back of the work look pretty similar. No messy floats or carried-over yarn. just nice flat and thin colourwork. SO give it a try using the tutorial above and don't forget to twist those colours every time you begin your stitches on each colour block!