Intarsia Knitting Patterns to Test Your Skills

One of the first intarsia knitting patterns I ever developed was the Color Block Pillow, which is a really easy way to approach intarsia knitting because you're not trying to insert a complex pattern into the knit fabric, you're just knitting squares. This is a great one to make in any three colors to match your decor and will help get you comfortable in the basics of intarsia.

Another of my favorites that's really easy is the Intarsia Apron. Most of this apron is simple, solid-color knitting, but the pocket features a cute little robot worked in intarsia. Of course you could use whatever motif you like on the pocket if you're not into robots.

Another great choice for intarsia knitting (Mother's Day will be here before you know it!) is the Mom Tattoo Bag. This one has a little bit of most kinds of colorwork, including stranded knitting at the bottom of the heart, intarsia for most of the colorwork and duplicate stitch for some of the details. This one is a lot of fun to knit; line it and it will be a great go-to bag for the busy mom in your life (even if that's you!).

Intarsia Knitting Patterns to Test Your Skills originally appeared on About.com Knitting on Monday, February 13th, 2012 at 14:00:01.

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Intarsia Tips: It's All about Yarn Management

To me, the most important thing to think about when knitting intarsia is what's happening with your yarn. Each section of a different color requires a different ball of yarn, of course, and as I mentioned yesterday the threads need to be twisted to make sure that the different sections of knitting are "locked" together.

But as you might imagine having a lot of big balls of yarn on the back of your work can be both heavy and messy as the threads get twisted around each other. One great intarsia knitting tip is to use long strings -- maybe as long as you can reach with arms outstretched -- of yarn rather than actual balls. These threads are easier to untangle and do less to weigh down your project. Of course you may end up with more ends to weave in later, but the eliminated frustration of untangling several big balls of yarn every few rows as you knit is certainly worth it.

Do you have any tips for better intarsia knitting? Share them in the comments or by filling out this form.

Intarsia Tips: It's All about Yarn Management originally appeared on About.com Knitting on Monday, February 13th, 2012 at 08:47:19.

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Getting Started with Intarsia

Intarsia is generally considered to be more difficult than stranded knitting, but once you get the basics down, a lot of knitters find this technique to be more fun. That's because intarsia is picture knitting on a much bigger scale than is possible with stranded knitting; you can make big blocks of color to make a face, an animal, a monogram or just about anything else you can dream up.

Intarsia is a knitting method by which each block of color is worked with a different strand of yarn. That means no strands running across the back of the work to make it tight (yeah!) but it also means lots of ends to weave in (boo!). There are no limits on the number of stitches you can work in a particular color as there traditionally are in stranded knitting, because you're working with a different yarn each time. This is the anything goes style of color knitting!

The one thing you really need to remember when knitting intarsia is to twist the yarns when you change colors. There's nothing to "link" the two colors together if you don't do this. Without a twist you're just knitting a bunch of different pieces of knitting on the same needle at the same time.

Do you love intarsia? Or are you a Fair Isle fan? I'd love to hear which technique is your favorite and why.

Getting Started with Intarsia originally appeared on About.com Knitting on Sunday, February 12th, 2012 at 10:45:37.

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A Handy Way to Store Your Knitting Needles

One problem I have pretty much constantly is that I have way too many needles -- particularly double-points and circulars -- and I have yet to come up with a good way to store and organize them. Right now I have a whole filing cabinet drawer dedicated to needles and crochet hooks, and it's a perpetual mess. In addition to that, there's a basket on my desk that has all the random DPNs I've found here and there (my daughter loves to play with them) that have yet to make it back to the drawer.

I have a needle roll, but I'm really bad about not putting things away after I use them. So my storage solution really needs to include someone who will put things back where they go when I'm done!

Unfortunately, the Crafter's Tool Butler by Jordana Paige is not a real butler; it can't help me with my picking-up issues. But it is a big, roomy storage pouch with room for a bunch of DPNs, circulars and other knitting tools. (There's no such tool that's big enough for my whole stash, but for a normal knitter this would probably provide plenty of storage space.)

It has six flat pockets for DPNs and four zippered mesh pockets for circulars, which also have spots for labels so you don't have to dig into the pouches to see what's in there. There's also a needle inventory so you'll know exactly what you stored inside.

I think this bag is probably too big for most people to want to carry around with them, but as a storage solution that gets a lot of needles into a compact space, it's a great choice.

A Handy Way to Store Your Knitting Needles originally appeared on About.com Knitting on Saturday, February 11th, 2012 at 14:31:14.

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Juniper Moon Farm is Having a Design Contest

I don't know how many of you out there are designers, but here's an opportunity to show off your designs on a small scale for a chance to win yarn.

Juniper Moon Farm is hosting a design contest that requires participants to make an original project using either one or two balls of the company's Willa or Chadwick yarns. (One is a wool-alpaca blend, the other a wool-mohair.)

Participants need to enter their designs in the Ravelry database and send the completed project and written pattern to Juniper Moon by March 1. The folks at Juniper Moon will choose their four favorite designs in each yarn, then the public will be invited to vote on the winners. The designs from each yarn with the most votes will receive $300 of Juniper Moon Farm (second will get $200, third $100 and fourth $50 of yarn). The winning designs will become property of Knitting Fever and may be used in future projects.

If anyone here enters this contest, I'd love to hear about what you made! Or, if you have entered design contests in the past, I'd love to hear about your experience.

Juniper Moon Farm is Having a Design Contest originally appeared on About.com Knitting on Saturday, February 11th, 2012 at 10:27:48.

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Easy Baby Knitting Patterns

Our free knitting patterns help you make fun, fashionable baby gear. Find easy knitting patterns to make baby clothes and accessories at HowStuffWorks.

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