An In-Depth Look at Designing Intarsia

I’ve done a bit of intarsia designing (it’s one of the genres of knitting covered in Colorwork Knitting) but I always find it fascinating to learn about how other designers go about making their projects.

Hands Occupied has just finished a readalong/knitalong where the project was this bold blanket called Intarsia Mountain.

Heidi talks a little bit about the process of designing this blanket, including some of what inspired it, how she designed it on paper and with the help of a computer program, how the sample was knit and more.

It’s a fun look behind the scenes of a really cool knitting project that might just make you want to knit it if you didn’t already want to.

Did you knit along with Intarsia Mountain? If so, I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo: Hands Occupied.]

Next Pattern:

I can’t resist a pattern that’s both useful and a little silly, and that’s exactly how I feel about the Rybka pouch pattern from the delightfully named Rat and Sea Witch.

I know you’re going to ask, because I did, too. Rybka means little fish in Polish. (And because you’re also probably going to ask, Rat and Sea Witch comes from people’s attempts to say the designer’s name, Ratasiewicz, which if you say it fast kind of sounds like rat and sea witch.)

It’s easy to make a little fish bag in different sizes to suit your needs. The pattern has specific instructions for an Airpods Pro case and a pencil case, but you could change the length easily to hold more stuff, and change the size in general by working with a different weight of yarn.

The pattern calls for sock yarn and mohair held together to make a fingering weight gauge, but you could try it with heavier yarn and see what size bag you end up with.

Whatever size you make it, this looks like a fun project for holding trinkets or everyday items. The mouth of the fish is the mouth of the bag, and it closes with a drawstring that is also the strap. I wonder, too, if you could make one of these with a small clasp frame that could be the fish’s mouth and then you could just work I cord straps that would attach to the sides of the fish.

I could also see stripes, or fish of different colors to use up your yarn leftovers. How about a sunglasses case with a little loop to attach to your bag? Once you start thinking about all the ways you could use a fish-shaped bag in your life, I think you’ll see that you probably need more than one.

If you make one of these I would love to know how it went!

You can grab a copy of the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Rat and Sea Witch]

Next Pattern:

Have you read?