As I write this blog, eight people have gathered in the shop to learn to knit Fair Isle – otherwise known as stranded colour work. This is a technique with which I am now quite familiar and which I really love. The fabrics created by stranded colour work are lovely and can range from hats to sweaters. The idea is that you work with two or more colours stranding the colours across the back of the work. The hardest thing about it is keeping your tension right and that generally comes easily with practice.
Similar to stranded colour work is creating patterns using slip stitches which are designed to use more than one colour in the pattern, but only ever use one colour in a row. With this technique, a knitter can create interesting geometric patterns by working some stitches in a row and knitting others. I have made a pair of socks using this technique and it is surprisingly easy.
The subject of this blog, however, is the other way in which to create colour and patterns in knitwear which is a technique called Intarsia. When my husband asked me what Intarsia was I said he would have to wait for this blog to which he replied “after you have checked with Wikipedia then”. Cheeky. In fact, when I did do an internet search, the first thing that came up was the Arab wood working technique called Intarsia, similar to marquetry, which goes back centuries and involves laying different coloured wood, or even bone, ivory or mother of pearl, in floors and furniture to create elaborate, sometimes three dimensional, patterns.
Intarsia knitting is the art of creating blocks of colour within your fabric, sometimes using multiple colours. Like slip stitching, only one colour is used at a time, however, unlike slip stitching you may have many colours in one row. Further, unlike Fair Isle, the yarn is not carried over at the back of the work, but rather each colour is carried on bobbins, sometimes several for one colour, which are left hanging as each block is finished. After winding a few yards of each colour onto its own bobbin the knitter simply begins knitting their pattern. When they arrive at a point where the colour changes, the knitter brings the new colour up underneath the old one (to prevent holes) and starts knitting with it. If flat knitting, at the end of the row, the piece is turned round just as with regular knitting, and the knitter returns the way they came. You can also knit intarsia in the round, which is only slightly more complicated.
According to the internet (but with no evidence cited) Intarsia knitting has been around since the 15th century in Europe. However, it really came into it’s own in the 20th century because it is a great way to create pictures, emblems and logos within knitting. Argyle socks and jumpers use the Intarsia technique, for example. Anyone who was around in the 1980s and who cared about such things, will remember the huge patterns on the huge jumpers that people wore then. My grandmother, who took up knitting to stop herself smoking, was brilliant at it, turning out lovely garments some of which my aunts still have 40 years later. Mandy remembers knitting the fronts of jumpers for children, with subjects such as Dennis the Menace for which she was paid £1.60 a piece! She says she was only about 15 or 16 and sos for his Intarsia patterns and has written a book about it. I have a feeling that it will, like all fashion, be making a return in the near future.
I have avoided knitting using Intarsia for years. It has always seemed to me to be much too complicated. However, I recently acquired a book with patterns for knitting socks themed on the Moomins and I rashly promised my daughter that I would knit a pair of socks for her with a picture of the Groke on them. Turns out that not only will I be knitting Intarsia for the first time, but I will be knitting it in the round on double pointed needles. Madness. I have made a start and see that I am going to have to work out how to manage the bobbins better. It took me ages to untwist them but Mandy suggests that a bowl might help. And it certainly is not for knitting in front of The Traitors. I will let you know how I get on.
