Intarsia - need clarification

I feel like everything has "Intarsia" next to it. It confused me, especially because I used to confuse it with "ikat" and some items are even ikat intarsia!
So I looked it up. Intarsia is used to describe a knitting technique when the yarn colour changes, and the yarn is not carried along the row, but rather pulled up when a colour change is required. (It also describes a woodworking technique where the different woods are inlaid into each other - ?)

So, my questions are:
How can something be "intarsia" if the colour does not change (the blue Tess Gibberson sweater below)?
What makes intarsia so great that it is being mentioned so frequently?
What is he significance of the term:"intarsia pattern", as in the 3rd sweater below which is clearly painted or printed and not knit from different colours of yarn, so no way of knowing if it is intarsia knit or fair isle knit?

Thank you for your advice!

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11 years ago

Vildy

Veteran

Intarsia has a reputation of requiring more skill, though I don't see why it would. The difference would be that the design area would not be made thicker than the rest through the presence of extra yarn that is being carried along but not knit with. Intarsia, therefore, would not have that loopiness/stringiness inside in the design areas.

On my screen, the first blue sweater appears to have a slightly lighter color pattern.

deb

I found this.

Probably the most difficult thing for people new to intarsia knitting is keeping all the different strands of colors in control. Because you need a different working strand for each block of color in the piece, you could end up with many strands of yarn hanging off the back of your work pretty quickly.

It sounds like when you are knitting you carry the yarn on the back side of the work following the line of the pattern. For instance, if the pattern is a circle, the two colors would twist on the back side where the colors change.If you have ever knitted, you would do this with a bobbin for a small article. An argyle sock is knitted this way so that it stretches. The other option when knitting a multicolored item is to carry the different color behind the work stringing it horizontaly along the work. If you look at the back side of work done this way, you will see a thick layer of loose yarn.

lyn*

(website)

Intarsia makes me think of the bear in #4 too

Kalli

Active Member

I'm a knitter and I made an intarsia scarf so I'll give you my take.

Intarsia is a technique in knitting and it is difficult because you work with so many strands at once. There is a lot going on! Lots of yarn lots of changing color over and deciding what to do with the excess yarn pieces while you work a complex pattern.

#1 there is blue and there are many shades of blue, I gather that I see a pattern knit in there with a different shade of blue to give a sort of 3D effect so it's not just solid blue

#2 this is classic simple intarsia where a simple pattern is added

#3 intarsia is like a buzz word for this sweater, intarsia has a distinct look if you ever see it in a sweater and I think he's trying to achieve the look by print instead of technique

#4 the bear is cute

Side note: I prefer much easier stress free knitting which is why I don't indulge in intarsia after my experiment. Too much counting. I reserve the right to change my mind though.

Adelfa

The opposite of intarsia knitting, at least in terms of multi color knitting, is Fair Isle. Traditionally in Fair Isle knitting you knit only up to five stitches in a row of the same color. So Fair Isle patterns are finer and you can see all of the colors happening a lot (see photo). This contrasts with say the lobster, where you do a bunch of white, then a bunch of lobster, then a bunch of white. Or an argyle sock where you have the diamond color going on for a while.

As for why everything is called intarsia, I think it's just to make it sound cooler. Another word in common usage is "crochet" which drives me crazy, because a lot of the items described as crochet are actually knitted or produced by another process entirely.

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