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Knitting Tip: Intarsia in the Round

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I’ve been working on a project — which I’ll share with you as soon as it’s done! — that is a mostly plain hat with some colorwork. I’d been resistant on working the colorwork section, and once I started knitting it, I realized why: it needed to be worked as intarsia, which you can’t really do in the traditional way in the round.

working intarsia in the roundIntarsia is also known as picture knitting, and it involves working a section in one color and another section in another color without stranding the yarn behind the work. So if you have a background color and an accent color, you have one ball of yarn for the background, another ball for the accent, then another ball of the background color to work on the other side.

The trouble with this when working in the round is that your accent color yarn ends on the incorrect side for using it to knit with on the next round. There are a couple of ways you can deal with that:

  • Cut the yarn of every round and start a new strand.
  • Leave a really long tail so you can knit the next round with the tail from the previous round (you’ll still have to start a new strand every two rounds this way).
  • Work back and forth rather than in the round for that section, which requires joining the rounds together (described in this fun pattern from Knitty).
  • Strand the yarn all the way around the work so that you can use the same strand throughout. Make sure you work really loosely if you do it this way.

Check out this great article from Abfabulies for the pros and cons of a couple of these methods, as well as great pictures of what the methods look like on the front and back of the knitting.

I ended up doing some kind of crazy hybrid of stranding and cutting, but when I write the pattern I think I’m going to suggest another method altogether: using duplicate stitch instead.

[Photo via Abfabulies.]

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Pencil Knitting Patterns

Getting ready for back to school makes me think about pencil crafts, so let’s take a look at some pencil themed knitting patterns! 

I recently made a pencil on a circular knitting machine, and it was a fun, quick, easy project that uses little bits of leftover yarn (and if you don’t have yellow you can make it a colored pencil using whatever color’s your favorite). And if you want to make a bigger version check out this pattern from Orange Olive Road on Etsy.

If you want to knit a pencil pillow by hand, check out Sketchy, available on Ravelry from Shana S. Cohen. This one uses worsted weight yarn and has two size options and the choice to make a pencil with an eraser or a colored pencil. 

Pencil scarves seem to be the most popular kind of pencil knitting pattern, and there are lot of cute ones. This one from Cosy Craft UK mostly uses garter stitch, with some welts to add texture and what looks like an I-cord edging. It calls for DK weight yarn. 

If you want to go all garter stitch try this version from Emsley Co Creations, which uses five colors of DK weight yarn and just a little shaping to make the point of the pencil.

There’s also this fun, mostly stockinette so it looks like it curls a bit, pencil pattern that looks like it’s worked in chunky yarn from Little Knits Studio. This one uses just a little garter stitch and easy shaping for the point. 

If you don’t want a pencil scarf, how about some pencil socks? The No. 2 Pencil Socks from The Yarn Enabler are available from Ravelry and use five colors of sock yarn. They feature wide ribs to mimic the texture of a pencil and have options to be worked from the top down or the toe up. 

Needs Sharpening by Alexander Walker is a free pattern on Ravelry that uses five colors of sock yarn to make a sort of shortie sock. The little bit of black at the tips of the toes inspired the name. These, too, can be worked in either direction and are available in three sizes.