Intarsia Knitting Basics

This video shows how to knit in intarsia. My pattern, "Intarsia Heart Dishcloth by DetroitKnitter" is available for free at https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&am....

This video also includes: adding a new yarn color, twisting the yarn at color changes, left slanting, right slanting and vertical color changes, weaving in the ends.

• Category

  Howto & Style

[Inspirit177]

I'm trying to knit a name but I'm not sure how to. How would I go about doing that?

[Marlene Dysert]

Depending on the size of the name "duplicate stitch" may be a good option. The name would have to be REALLY big for me to want to do intarsia for it because of the number of strands of yarn you would have to start, finish and weave in.

[denvervet]

I still cant get this right, I am only doing vertical so you would think it would be easy! Worked on it yesterday and today, still no closure where the colors change, wonder what I am doing wrong.........................

[Marlene Dysert]

You say vertical... is your pattern more than 1 stitch wide per row? Not to say you can't do intarsia with just one stitch per row stacked vertically but there could be a tension problem from pulling the yarn up from the previous row without it being dispersed over a few stitches.

[Marlene Dysert]

@denvervet For same color changes I would use either a double knit in join; Amy at knittinghelp dot~com has a good video for that one. It's quite easy to do and probable the eaisiest relative to being a strong join. Another join is the Russian join, for which I have a video of here on my channel; it's takes longer to do, makes a very strong join and is not as thick as the double join in method.

[angeleyez111406]

that is not intarsia.... thats fair isle. Intarsia has multiple colors not just 2 colors

[Marlene Dysert]

Intarsia is a knitting technique in which blocks of colors are knit separately. There can be more than one color, but never is more than one strand of yarn used at at time which is why intarsia is generally used for larger blocks of color due to the number of yarn strands that are used. Fair Isle and stranding is a technique where every color in that row is carried behind the public side. Fair Isle locks every other stitch and stranding spans several sts.

[MarielHawke]

This is great! Probably the most helpful intarsia vid out there I've seen (having watched 3 or 4, while prepping my first intarsia project). One question- you say don't twist the left slants. Does that mean a left slant from the point of view of the right side of the work? Or a left slant from whichever side of the work you're facing? It looks like you did all your increases of the middle color on knit rows here, so it never came up, but it would be really good to know!

[Brittni Willett]

Thank you so much for this video. Every other video I've seen shows intarsia once it's all pretty and they don't show how to weave it in. This video was a life saver for me!

[Rozikess]

I'm not sure what you mean by knots, if you're referring to when you run out of yarn and need to add more then I suggest using a 'Russian Join' and you can find the video for that here on Youtube I never knot my yarn now. Also I just saw on KnitPicks where you can get bobbins that you use for intarsia knitting to hold your yarns. There pretty cool

[tankgirl79]

Thanks for this. Tried twice to do Intarsia on a dog I am knitting, am going to try for the third time armed with my new info about twisting the yarns! Thanks.

[MellyWeggie]

I also found this video super helpful. Thanks a lot!

[mama14022010]

Ive been knitting over 37 years and have not ever heard of intarsia,until i began to knit an animal hat for my grandson. I find this style of knitting much easier than fairisle,its a much neater finish i think. So a huge thank you for your easy to follow video.

[Patricia Christmas]

Thanks for this video. The sketchy instructions in the book of patterns that I'm using had me leaving tails all over the place. The way you describe it here actually makes sense.

[CocoaLikesLipstick]

Great introduction thank you. You made it look very easy but I bet as soon as I try it it will become a lot more complicated!

[Larry Greene]

Now I understand this video. I didn't when I first started knitting. I missed the part where you said the hole that is created when changing a color would be closed up on the next row! So, I never got past the first row. Then I just kept knitting one day and got it, but, I have been crossing yarn every time I change color, I will only do when necessary now.