Intarsia

Jun.10, 2007

I didn’t know what Intarsia was until long after I was knitting with many colours of varying lengths and no longer knitting only in stripes as I had been doing.

I have never knitted “pictures” as such – but played with the yarns, sorting the colours into something very pleasing to the eye – and leaving them on a large white sheet on the floor in front me.

I could then move the colours around, test one colour surrounded by the other colours in the piece I was knitting. When I was knitting something in many colours – and that was usual – my family carefully stepped over the yarns on the sheet. They didn’t dare lift it in any way as that could have discombulated my arrangement. Mind you had that happened something new and wondrous might have pinged out at me.

The way the yarn was knitted up – using the Intarsia method – was free form. The shape of each colour section in the knitting has always been decided on the needle. Hmm – that looks okay – but that is not balanced – so I will change colour or move it up in a different section or whatever took my fancy. hmm – like that and so on.