knitting – Granary Knits

Intarsia is a visually striking knitted fabric, with large blocks of colour or complex patterns not possible using stranded methods. Intarsia pattern instructions usually tell the knitter to twist the colours together, but don’t really specify how to do this to achieve a neat effect. I have found that just holding the two yarns in a particular way allows them to naturally lock together forming a line on the reverse of the fabric, without bumps or exaggerated twists. This is intuitive and quickly becomes a natural way of working.

**The join between two colours shown on the reverse**

This is how I do it.

Stocking Stitch Colour Joining

**Work to the point at which the colours are to be joined, in this case, the join is a straight line**

**Hold the yarn you have been working with out of the way, and bring the new colour under the old. Here, the old colour is green (on the left) and the new colour is orange (on the right).**

**The view at the back of the work, old colour above, new colour coming from the right and below.**

**Start working with the new colour (orange).**

**Having purled back to the point of the join, this is what it looks like**

**After a few rows, the back of the piece shows the neat pattern of the join**

Garter Colour Join

The method here is the same as for stocking stitch at the front of the work, but for the back of the piece it is a little more complicated.

**The back of the piece, the orange has been kit to the join, the orange yarn is still at the front of the piece**

**Bring the “old” working yarn through the gap to the back of the piece; “new” working yarn is the green below the orange**

**Holding the old orange to the left, bring the new green under and up**

**Pass the new green to the front of the piece over the old orange and adjust tension**

**The view of the back, showing the pattern for both stocking stitch joins and garter stitch joins are the same**

The Feather Cap Beanie pattern is now available from the Granary Knits Pattern store.

Feather Cap is a stranded knit hat, using ten colours of Jamieson’s of Shetland wonderful pure wool Spindrift yarn. The motif itself and the colours I have chosen reflect the feather patterns and colours of my lovely Cream Legbar chickens: Freddie, Sorrel, Sage, and Lavender. From a distance they look a like a dull brown, but close up, their feathers are a beautiful brown/grey, with touches of cream and pink. The four background colours and six foreground colours reflect this lovely effect.

The pattern gives three sizes; teen/small adult, adult, and large adult. In addition to the subdued palette I also provide suggestions for a more brightly coloured palette and for a monochrome colourway in shades of grey.

There are matching mittens (full mitten and fingerless) and a matching cowl, also now available.

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/feather-cap-beanie

Tag: knitting

Intarsia: twisting the colours

Stocking Stitch Colour Joining

Garter Colour Join

Feather Cap Beanie Pattern Released!