Intarsia (eBook)

Siân Brown (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2021 | 1. Auflage
112 Seiten
The Crowood Press (Verlag)
978-1-78500-948-8 (ISBN)

Infos

Intarsia is a knitting colourwork technique used to create different areas of colour to form a pattern or image on the knitted fabric, without having to carry the yarn across the back of the work. This accessible book guides you through the basics of the technique, how to practise your skills and finally to the stage where you can produce your own original designs. It includes twenty charted motifs from the simple to the more elaborate and provides five full knitting patterns to practice your skills and to use as templates for your own intarsia ideas. Supported by over 200 photographs, sketches and knitting charts, it will serve as an invaluable practical guide to the technique but will also act as a springboard for your own original ideas.

Siân Brown is a knitwear designer for magazines, yarn companies and publishers, working with a team of knitters and pattern writers. She completed a fashion and textiles degree before starting her career as a London-based designer of factory machine knits for high street stores, and then moving on to commercially produced hand knits after that. She has also been a visiting lecturer at London College of Fashion.

Textauszug

CHAPTER 1

Starting Out with Intarsia

In this chapter, we will look at the origins of intarsia, when it has been popular, and what it involves as a technique, including preparing the yarn, combining intarsia with other techniques, working from a chart, and what to do throughout the knitting process.

ABOUT INTARSIA

Intarsia is a knitting technique used to create different areas of colour to form a pattern or image within the knitted work. Its name comes from a woodworking technique, where pieces of wood are laid together in a similar way to pieces of a jigsaw or a mosaic. This knitting technique uses separate lengths of yarn for each colour section, to form blocks of colour, with no yarn being taken across the back of the work, which is the method used in Fair Isle knitting.

Intarsia is thought to have been used in knitting as early as the 1500s, for kilts and socks, with an unclear history following that. As a technique, it has been used throughout the decades, gaining and declining in popularity. It appears in the 1940s and 1950s in vintage knitting patterns often featuring traditional argyle patterns with a preppy look. For some time, intarsiaworked golfing motifs have also been popular for men’s knits, featuring golfing figures, or large-scale geometric shapes, especially diamonds.

Group of vintage patterns.

Intarsia had a big revival in the 1980s, with patterns featuring bold geometric designs, flowers, animals and any other large-scale motifs that the designers could think to create. The large-scale picture knits needed big charts, which would often take days to complete. Designers at all levels used the technique and became adept at translating a large picture, such as a landscape, into a knitted garment. Some of the well-known designers using this technique were Kaffe Fassett, Patricia Roberts, Artwork, Bodymap, Susan Duckworth, Annabel Fox and Sasha Kagan. All of the yarn companies producing patterns for their yarns will have used intarsia at this time.

Although there was a big intarsia revival in the 1980s, it is a common misconception that anything using this method will have a 1980s look. The novelty Christmas jumpers that we are all familiar with, with motifs such as snowmen, penguins, deer and other winter or Christmas elements, are often knitted using the technique, sometimes combined with traditional Fair Isle patterns.

Frosty’s Christmas. Drops Design.

Children‘s Christmas Jumpers. Stylecraft.

Intarsia has an ongoing popularity today for use in children’s garments and home knits; For example, throws, blankets and cushion covers often feature the technique as a way of producing large areas of colour. It can be used either to form repeating patterns such as argyles or single motifs, anything from a simple geometric shape to an elaborate landscape. It is used whenever the yarn not in use being taken across the row at the back of the work would cover too many stitches to be done with the Fair Isle technique.

WHAT INTARSIA INVOLVES

Intarsia is normally worked flat by using two needles and most commonly with stocking stitch. Each area of colour requires a separate length or ball of yarn, but there is only one yarn being used (the ‘active’ yarn) at any one time. It differs from Fair Isle knitting in this way, which has the second colour not in use being taken across the current row at the back of the work. In addition, Fair Isle is normally knitted by using two colours in each row, whereas intarsia can be worked with any number of colours. This makes intarsia a flatter and lighter way of working, with only a single depth of yarn being present on each row, so the yarn weights used can be quite varied, as long as the weights are the same throughout a motif. Each time an area of colour is completed, the yarn is left in position on that row to be picked up and used on the next row.

Children’s Elephant Intarsia Jumpers. Sirdar.

Children’s Kite Jumper. Sirdar.

Robot Blanket. Cascade.

Children’s Truck Jumper. Elizabeth Smith Knits.

Off to the Races Jumper. Cascade.

Keeping the yarn from becoming tangled is an important part of intarsia knitting. There are a few ways to do this, which are covered in the section ‘Preparing the yarn’ later in this chapter. For a beginner, it would be best to start by doing some swatches using a very simple motif, to get used to the technique.

Charts are the main part of intarsia patterns and show where to work stitches of each colour, resulting in the written patterns themselves often being quite simple. This is the opposite of a pattern using textured stitches, such as cables or lace, where these stitches are the main part of the pattern.

INTARSIA AND FAIR ISLE

Intarsia and Fair Isle are both colourwork techniques and require the use of charts. Fair Isle is a more traditional method of colourwork knitting and the one that most people think of in connection with colourwork. Here, two colours are used in one row, and colour changes occur are over a small number of stitches. These patterns are smallscale repeats, and the yarn not in use is taken across the back of the work as a float, ready to be in place for the next time that this yarn is needed.

Back of an intarsia section.

Back of an all-over Fair Isle section.

Intarsia is used for producing larger areas of colour and can have any number of colours in each row. As it produces a single-thread depth of fabric, it is more flexible and uses less yarn than does Fair Isle knitting. Intarsia is a technique that often makes knitters nervous, because of working with a lot of yarns at once and having to follow large-scale charts, and also the time that it takes to finish the multiple yarn ends. However, once the technique is mastered, it can produce unlimited and creative results and is most commonly worked using only knit and purl stitches.

COMBINING INTARSIA WITH OTHER TECHNIQUES

If you are mixing large and smaller, more detailed areas of colour then you can use the Fair Isle technique for the parts that have a colour change over only a small number of stitches. Some knitters prefer to work even small numbers of stitches in intarsia, as Fair Isle will produce floats of yarn at the back of the work, which will give the knitting an extra layer of yarn in those places. Whether you use intarsia or Fair Isle will depend on how many separate yarns you are willing to have in use at any one time.

Cables and intarsia cushion cover. Simply Knitting.

Intarsia can also be combined with any other kinds of stitches, for example, cables, lace or textured stitches. When the colour change takes place on a wrong-side (WS) row, loops will show on the right side (RS) of the work. To prevent this, make sure that each colour change takes place on right-side rows only. For the stitches, you can avoid the purl loops of the previously used colour showing by working the part of the knitting at the location of the colour change in stocking stitch, so, even if you are knitting in squares of lace, the edges will be in stocking stitch at the colour-change points. If you are making a blanket as multiple separate squares, the squares can be worked in any stitch throughout, as they are sewn together after the knitting is completed, and the seams will hide any unsightly edge loops. You could also combine intarsia squares with squares featuring texture, cables or lace, to vary the look of the finished project.

The back of the Ice-Creams Cushion Cover (see Chapter 3) reveals that the motifs are knitted with the Fair Isle technique, with areas of intarsia separating each motif. This approach works well where large areas of colour are combined with more detailed knitting.

Back of the Ice-Creams Cushion Cover.

MATERIALS

Essential materials

For knitting and finishing, you will need the following materials.

Materials for knitting and finishing: tape measure, blunt-ended tapestry needle, pins, scissors, knitting needles (left to right).

Yarns

Most knitters will already have an extensive collection of different yarns. The advantage of knitting colourwork is that it is a good way to use up small amounts of yarn left over from other projects. A large storage box could be used for whole balls of yarn and a smaller one for partial balls. For more on yarn choice, see later in this chapter.

Knitting needles

A good variety of sizes of knitting needles is an essential part of the knitter’s toolbox. Knitting needles are normally made from metal or wood, including bamboo. Make them easy to find by storing them in a container with the ends facing upwards. A few circular needles are a good addition as well, in both short and long lengths. For more on needle choice, see later in this chapter.

Scissors

A small pair of scissors will be used a lot while knitting. Embroidery scissors are a good choice, as they are small enough to be portable.

Tape measure

You will be using this a lot to help calculate tension and to check the measurements of projects while you are knitting.

Pins

I normally use dressmaking pins that have coloured, round heads. They are easier to see while working than are the ones with small metal heads. These will be used when working tension swatches, blocking, pressing, and sewing up finished work.

Tapestry needles

These...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 27.9.2021
• Reihe/Serie: Knitting Techniques
• Reihe/Serie: Knitting Techniques
• Reihe/Serie: Knitting Techniques
• Verlagsort: London
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Freizeit / Hobby ► Handarbeit / Textiles
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Freizeit / Hobby ► Heimwerken / Do it yourself
• Schlagworte: animals • chain stitch • Chart • clothing designs • Colours • colourwork • Design • fabric art • French knots • Guide • hats • Intarsia • knit • knitted fabric • Knitting • knitting pictures • knitwear • make your own • Methods • Motif • scarfs • Styles • Swiss darning • techniques • themed knitting • Yarn
• ISBN-10: 1-78500-948-6 / 1785009486
• ISBN-13: 978-1-78500-948-8 / 9781785009488