So I thought it would be fun to put my DDs mascot on a hat for her. I used Microrevolt’s Knitpro to put a gif in an intarsia chart and it didn’t look too bad. But I swear I’m spending more time untangling all this dangling yarn than knitting. It’s driving me nuts!!! Anyone have any tips? I won’t use too much of one color so I’ve left that as just a long strand but the two other colors are pretty heavily worked so I wrapped them into the center pull bobbins that Amy shows on the vids. I’m still getting tangled up messes.:hair:
Grrrrr! Intarsia is kicking my butt!
Wish I could help, but I haven’t tried intarsia yet. I’m a little scared… Deep, cleansing breaths…
I haven’t tried it yet, either, but I’ve read that you should possibly put the balls in a ziplock to keep them from rolling around on you (though with the center pull, maybe not as much), and that you need to be careful to turn your work carefully so that it doesn’t tangle (i.e., turning it one way tangles the yarn, so turn it the other way on next round so you’re twisting and untwisting rather than just plain ol’ tangling.
Way to go for trying it. Keep us posted on your progress.
try taking a shoebox *With a lid, and poke as many holes in the top as you have balls of yarn. put the yarn in the box and run the yarn out through the holes. If you knit with them this way, the balls won’t float around and tangle up in each other.
Good luck!
I like this idea. I’ll give it a try & let y’all know how it goes.
I haven’t had any issues with bad tangles with intarsia. Just some extra twists that I can undo.
The shoe box idea I don’t think will work for intarsia because you have to twist the yarns to prevent gaps in between the colours.
Do you have them rolled into short bobbins? Or are you just attaching the yarn right from the ball of yarn?
–edit–
After re-reading your post and checking the videos I can see your dilemma. Amy has a video for a center pull ball. Using multiple colours for intarsia right from the ball will result in a lot of tangles.
What you want to do is shorten this. You may run out of a certain colour and need to wind up another bobbin, but intarsia is all about weaving in those ends. lol.
Here is an example of bobbins at work. You cut X amount of yarn until you think you have a good amount… If you run out you can just wind another bobbin. You wind them so they are short, dangling maybe a couple inches… long enough so they don’t interfere, but short enough so they don’t tangle. Whichever length is good for you.
You can buy bobbin things like this…
or you can use clothes pins or anything your creative mind can think of. My current project doesn’t require alot of yarn so I just roll them into teeny tiny center pull rolls, and don’t need anything to hold them.
With alot of different colours, or larger amounts you would want to find something to hold them in place…
Right - I totally wasn’t thinking about having to twist the colors when changing. What I have been doing is using the small center pull bobbins Amy shows on her intarsia video and the color I don’t use much of I just have one long strand of yarn not attached to anything. Maybe I just let them dangle too long. I might use the clothespin thing…
It may become totally manageable if you stop every row and just do a couple of untwists to sort stuff out rather than waiting even just three rows when it may become TOTALLY FREAKEN ANNOYING AND MAKE YOU WANT TO CUT UP THE KNITTING are you sorting it out every row or just when it becomes necessary?
I haven’t had a problem with big tangles either, just some twisting of the yarns. I keep the yarns in center pull balls, only “balling” (haha) up what I think I’ll need to use. Most of the time, as I’m turning my work, I just hold my needle up high enough to let the ball kind of untwist itself. What it doesn’t do in its own, I untwist. I’ve tried the clothespin bobbin, but, found it more of a hindrance than help.
When I did mine, I ended up resigning myself to the fact that the yarn was going to become tangled. I got so sick of carefully moving the balls of yarn around after each time I turned my work. I waited until the intarsia part was done, then set about untangling them…now I just have to weave them in. >.<
I am untangling (or maybe I should say heavy duty untwisting) every row. I’ve got 4 bobbins going - two for the background color on either side of the design as it’s a large design, one for the main color of the design, and then I’ve got an outline of the design. I think I am gonna try the clothespin thingie first. I think my problem may be that the bobbins are just hanging too low (they lay in my lap and sometimes fall to the floor which makes them even longer) and they just go everywhere.:noway:
Very organized, but how/where do you logically place all of those bobbins? Cheley
i havent tried it yet either…i will try it though…im a little scared about it though…