Intarsia, Part Two

INTARSIA, PART TWO

Before I start talking about how to knit intarsia, I want to emphasize that the method I'm showing is from the book Intarsia: A Workshop for Machine and Hand Knitting by Sherry and Keely Stuever. There are actually several ways of doing intarsia; from what I can tell Kaffe Fassett
endorses more of a free spirited approach where sometimes colors are stranded instead of interlocked and the millions of yarn ends are worked more like you would in stranded color knitting. I think the Stuever method produces more even stitches and the reverse of the work is much
neater looking.

It is important to remember that to knit intarsia flat you have to read the chart from two different directions depending on what row you're on. The right side of the knitting is worked by reading the chart from right to left and the wrong side of the knitting is worked by reading the chart from the left to the right. Some knitters do intarsia by knitting back backwards to avoid having to purl and read the chart from both directions but I
actually like working the wrong side as it is easier to see which yarns to grab every time I get to an interlock.

Another important point is that every time you get to a new block of color, you start a new yarn supply. If you are knitting a vertical line in black on white background, you will have two white yarn supplies on each side of the black line. As I said in my last post, I simply cut about 2-3 yards of each color for each yarn supply and let it hang loose on the back of the work and pull each color loose out of the tangle of yarns when I need it.

To start a new color yarn you simply lay the yarn end on the front or right side of the work (whether or not you are working the right or wrong side of the project). Bring the old yarn OVER the new yarn and start knitting with the new yarn. Ignore the tail until you get to the next row.



Here you can see I added the blue yarn on the previous row and I'm to the point where I added the second blue yarn. You can see the tail under my thumb on the right side of the work.



Here on the reverse side of the work I've pulled the blue yarn tail to the back of the work right through the center of the two needles. The blue yarn is now connected to the work and you don't have to worry about holes.



Each and every time in intarsia you get to a color change you have to do an interlock. The new color you're beginning to knit with always comes UNDER and to the RIGHT of the old color. In the photo above I'm about to start purling with the green so the green yarn has been pulled under and to the right of the blue yarn.



After I knit the green I need to find the right blue yarn on the back of the work to interlock with the green. This can be complicated with the yarn tails and more than one section of the same color so I turn the work around to figure it out.

That's pretty much it - I've shown a method to add new yarns and a method to interlock the yarns at every color change. Next week I'll show how to deal with all the yarn ends.

Intarsia

Stranded color knitting is not the only method of knitting with more than one color. Another method is intarsia knitting which is shown in the lovely sock pattern below from Borealis Sweaterscapes . (Slip stitch knitting is an additional method to accomplish color knitting patterns.) Both stranded color knitting and intarsia use color charts and have many ends in to work in after you're done knitting. Most knitters who enjoy knitting with multiple colors will eventually find themselves with a pattern that requires at least some intarsia and it is often up to the knitter to decide which technique to use for various charts.



In stranded color knitting you carry all the colors you're using along the entire row; in intarsia you do not. In stranded color knitting you end
up with a thicker fabric because of the stranding and floats on the inside of the work; with intarsia you only have a single layer of knitted fabric.

In intarsia you twist the yarns around each other every time you get to a color change (called interlocking); this is not done in stranded color knitting. Most stranded color knitting is done in the round; intarsia is most frequently knit flat. In intarsia you'll see bobbins, yarn butterflies, or long strands of yarn hanging from the back of the work; in stranded knitting there is usually just several skeins of yarn attached to the back of the work.

Intarsia is also called picture knitting . If a color chart requires really long floats or 12 colors per row, you'll want to choose intarsia. If you want to knit a large initial on a sweater for instance, you'd use intarsia. If you want to knit authentic argyle socks or knit most of Kaffe Fassett's beautiful designs, you'd use intarsia. Duplicate stitch is also often combined with intarsia for more intricate patterns.

The best way to tell if something is knit using the intarsia color knitting method is to look at the back of the work. The first photo shows the back of stranded color knitting with the ends woven in using reverse duplicate stitch; the second photo shows the back of an argyle sock with the ends woven in using a diagonal split stitch method specific to intarsia knitting.





There is definitely an art to get good tension in intarsia knitting - it isn't as simple as just interlocking yarns every time you get to a color change so to learn more here are some links to excellent intarsia information.

Borealis Sweaterscapes has an info page HERE and a free pillow pattern to get you started HERE. Check out some of their gorgeous intarsia sweater and sock patterns.

Vicki Meldrum is an expert intarsia knitter and has some info HERE.

Lucy Neatby has some intarsia tips HERE.

If you'd like to learn even more, this small self-published booklet is the bible of intarsia knitting. Intarsia: A Workshop for Hand and Machine Knitting by Sherry and Keely Stuever. It is inexpensive and last time I looked Elann sold it. It is full of color photos and diagrams of all sorts of intarsia techniques.