What is intarsia knit fabric?

Intarsia knit fabric is a patterned single knit fabric (jersey-based, rib-based,or purl-based fabric). Intarsia knit fabric is made of knitting multi-coloured yarns. The Intarsia Knit fabric has the same course knitted in different colors with different yarns.

What does intarsia mean in knitting?

Intarsia knitting is a technique used to incorporate areas of color into your knitting. This could mean pictures, shapes or polka dots. For each block of contrasting color you will use a different length of yarn.

What is the difference between intarsia and stranded knitting?

At its most basic, the difference lies in where the colors are in your pattern. If the colors run across the width of your knitting, you'll be working stranded, or Fair Isle knitting. If the colors are more blocked off, and don't show up throughout the row, then you'll be doing intarsia knitting.

What is intarsia pattern?

Intarsia is a knitting technique used to create patterns with multiple colours. As with the woodworking technique of the same name, fields of different colours and materials appear to be inlaid in one another, fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.

Is intarsia knitting hard?

Intarsia knitting isn't hard, but there are some basic rules to know. Unlike fair isle knitting, the yarn is not stranded across the back of the work in intarsia knitting. Instead, you have a separate ball of yarn for each area of color.

Intarsia Knitting Basics

How do I start intarsia?

To begin intarsia on the knit side, work the first stitches in your background color, pick up the second color and knit the next stitches with it, then start a new strand of the background yarn on the opposite side.

What is the difference between Colorwork and intarsia?

The biggest thing to understand about intarsia versus stranded colorwork is that in stranded colorwork, stitches are held together by tension across sections of color in the row. In intarsia, sections of color are held together a little bit like a suspension bridge.

Can you knit intarsia in the round?

Intarsia is a great way to transfer pictures and other complex designs into knitting. But there is one major flaw: You need to knit it flat. Knit it in the round, and your bobbins will always be in the wrong place as you start your new round.

How do you prevent gaps in intarsia?

With intarsia, you use a color only for as long as it's needed, twist that yarn around the next color to prevent a gap, then continue along the row with the new color, leaving the original color behind.

Where does the word intarsia come from?

It is thought that the word 'intarsia' is derived from the Latin word 'interserere' which means "to insert". During its zenith, Intarsia was applied to nearly any surface imaginable - walls, ceilings and floors, furniture and jewelry boxes, even carriages for royalty.

What is scroll saw intarsia?

Intarsia woodworking is the art of creating a mosaic-like picture from pieces of wood. Different species of wood are selected for their color and cut to size using a scroll saw. The woodworker can create an illusion of depth by carefully selecting the grain pattern and direction of each individual piece.

What is the difference between intarsia and marquetry?

The technique of intarsia inlays sections of wood (at times with contrasting ivory or bone, or mother-of-pearl) within the solid wood matrix of floors and walls or of tabletops and other furniture; by contrast marquetry assembles a pattern out of veneers glued upon the carcass.