Currently obsessing about intarsia, knitting with little blocks of different colours to make pictures. It’s the most fun although I’m sure everyone else has nice neat strands waiting to be sewn in, rather than a spaghetti monster like this which has been carefully and deliberately nurtured on the back of my work.
The pattern is from a book called Susan Duckworth’s knitting. Looks so nice in the pattern, hopefully the mess can be tidied into something wearable. Sewing in the ends so they close the holes and don’t show on the front is a separate skill to master.
Making three modifications – omitting the pocket because it will be bulky, omitting the 3 flowers on the back because it feels more modern to just have motifs on the front but not all over. The other modification is that the black main body of the jumper around the flowers is supposed to be basketweave stitch but I’m working it in stockingette stitch because it’s hard enough learning the intarsia without complicating things further.
After spending lots of time reading up about the technique online and taking the intarsia class earlier in the year, it seemed that not using bobbins is the sensible way to go. Small lengths of yarn can just be pulled loose from the spaghetti and I haven’t had to spend much time at all sorting the yarns out, it is organised chaos despite appearances.
Not sure why there’s worms in colours I’m not even using in the mix. Ah well, all fun. And time to make lots of sweaters by adapting mad 80s children’s patterns for adult sizes. Am thinking a Thunderbird 2 sweater would be quite cool, and perhaps the USS Enterprise.
