07 January 2011

Intarsia

Intarsia: I do not think it means what I thought it meant.

So I'm working on a sooper-sekrit project right now. It's a big hunk of intarsia knitting in a Kaffe Fassett pattern. It's been rife with problems.

It has mitered corners. This means I have to knit corners that look roughly like this:

And then you fold them to get this:


But I didn't understand the directions as written. Now that I know the goal, the spartan directions are perfectly clear.

Apparently, I didn't read the directions clearly the first time I tried knitting them. This could have been related to the following facts:
  1. I started it on Sunday, during the 1:00 [American] football game.
  2. I continued working on it through the 4:00 and 8:00 games.
  3. All of this happened at DH's parents' house.
  4. DH's dad bought, and was steadily working through, a handle of Captain Morgan.
  5. DH has mad bartender skillz.
It doesn't take Sherlock to deduct why I had problems with the pattern.

Well, I finally figured out that the increases for the mitered border had nothing to do with the interior intarsia field. So the corners were finally correct. But the field itself was so tight and unevenly knit... and damn, was I tired of interminably twisting those damn yarns with every stitch.

from the front:from the back:


look at that beautifully-wrapped, carried yarn! The only problem is:


I found this video a helpful refresher course. Watch it, and do not do as I have done.

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