Intarsia knitting question

Hello, I am knitting a baby jumper with this elephant motif on the front, and I have a question about which technique would be best use?

I am trying to work out if it’s best to use intarsia or fairisle, or both. I would assume intarsia, that is what the pattern says to use, but I was always taught that you should avoid having very narrow sections of one or two stitches in intarsia, as it’s difficult to get those stitches secure, but I can see on this chart that would be the case here in several places. So my question is, would it be better to mix and match the two techniques and use fairisle for these narrow parts (ie in between the legs, and around the ear and eye), and then switch to intarsia for the larger blocks of colour? Or is is better not to mix the two techniques and just pick one or the other and stick with it throughout? If so, which one would you suggest would be better here?

Thanks!

Because of the bulk of the body, I’d recommend intarsia for the project. You can complement it with some stranded knitting especially at the legs and trunk. You can also consider using duplicate stitch in the area of the ear and eye.


It’s a lovely idea to have the elephant on a baby sweater. What is the name of your pattern?

That’s a cute design.

I see no reason why you can’t use intarsia for the whole piece. There’s really no reason that a narrow column can’t be secure so long as at each colour change you link the 2 yarns by dropping the old colour over the new colour to trap it in, and at the end to securely weave each tail of yarn.
You could also combine intarsia with stranded work as you are considering, if I was to combine I’d probably have 1 background colour across the whole row then 1 motif colour for the back 2 legs and a second ball of motif colour for the front 2 legs as the gap between the legs is too long to carry the yarn across unless you catch it somewhere between the front and back pairs of legs.
I think for the eye I would probably work it in the motif colour and then afterwards put that eye in with a duplicate stitch. Whether duplicate stitch or a single intarsia stitch the ends would need weaving in.

Ah, I see salmonmac has suggested the same.

Thank you, and good idea about the duplicate stitch, I will definitely try that! The pattern is Zoo by Martin Storey [https://knitrowan.com/en/products/zoo]

Thank you, that is really helpful advice- I will try the legs with one background colour and 2 balls of motif colour as you suggest. Love the duplicate stitch suggestion- I hadn’t come across that before!

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That’s a darling little vest!
Those single lines of white (around the ears for example) are difficult to work with the same tension as the larger areas and background but they look good anyway. Duplicate stitch would make them stand out a bit as well and perhaps that’s what was used in the model vest.
Enjoy working the pattern!

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It does look like the ear and eye have been made using duplicate stitch on the pattern photos. I was also thinking they would be nice very slightly raised which you can get with duplicate stitch and they would both be nice in a darker grey than the elephant rather than in the background colour.

It’s such a cute vest!

I know you have a good video link there for duplicate stitch, this one shows how you can use this method for weaving in ends on the back of your work and how to weave in on the same colour as the fabric so it doesn’t show on the right side (ie to avoid weaving in grey yarn into white stitches so it doesn’t peep through) which you might find useful for this colourwork whether you use intarsia or stranded)

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Thank you, that’s super- helpful, I love this video. I will be trying that method for weaving in my ends. And will do the single stitches around the eye and ear in duplicate stitch too!

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