I would like to include colours as I gain confidence with knitting. Can anyone point me in the right direction? I’m doing a practice Swatch of 20 st x 20 rows and want to have a 6st/row colour border without having to constantly cut the yarn and leave so many tails. So rows 1-6 I will knit all in colour A. Then on row 7 it would be k6 in colour A, k8 in colour B, then k6 in the original colour A (and continue like this for 8 rows) before back to colour A across whole row for last 6 rows. Using garter stitch.
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Hello
That’s a great idea for learning how to add colour.
The method you’re describing is intarsia.
Here is one video to get you started, there are lots available.
For your particular project you would have
Rows 1 to 6 colour A
Row 7 colour A for 6 sts, drop A introduce colour B for 8 sts, drop B introduce a second ball of colour A for 6 sts
So you need 2 balls of colour A.
If you have more questions or get stuck just ask for help.
I hope you will share a pic of your progress. When I learned intarsia I thought it was totally amazing!
Thanks for the info - I was trying to do with just two colours which clearly was wrong! Once I got my head around where each yarn needed to be to get the “twist” and worked out how to stop the 3 balls if yarn tangling, was fairly straightforward.
WS:
RS:
Now I’ll have a go with the same when knitting a triangle from 2st on 1st row to 40st on last row.
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Success!
It looks perfect.
The triangle is another very good idea.
With intarsia you always need a new ball of yarn for each section of colour, as you’ve seen with the rectangle the different balls are introduced when needed and excluded completly when not needed any more.
Balls getting tangled can be reduced by always turning the work in one direction at the end of a RS row and the opposite direction at the end of a WS row.
With additional balls it helps to prevent them rolling around together which causes excessive tangling, seperate bags or tubs for each to sit in can help.
With many many strands it helps to work without balls and instead use long open strands, they do tangle but each strand can be gently pulled out for use as needed. Other methods use bobbins or butterflies of each colour.
Please share your triangle pic too.