To those of you who don’t remember from a previous thread of mine, I’m making a fair isle afghan that when finished will fit a king/queen sized bed. I’ve been working on it off and on for over a year. All the info on it is here. I don’t know if I like the way it’s coming out though. The stitches are uneven because of the fair isle. I’m thinking of frogging it and starting over with intarsia. It’ll hurt, but I’m thinking its for the best. I’d also use less yarn (I’m carrying yarn all through the blanket so it has the same thickness). Also, if it’s intarsia I may not have to back it like I was planing to do before. It also won’t take as long to knit. What do you think I should do?
I just realized another downside to starting over. I’ll have to redo the pattern (not the dogs but the blanket as a whole). The intarsia blocks will be bigger than the fair isle, and the way it’s going, when it’s finished it’ll be too big anyway. So I’ll definitely have to use less blocks. But I can also resize them from rectangles to squares like I’d originally planed. So there are many pro’s and con’s to go through.:think:
I think the pictures look great!
If you work intarsia, you will have to do something on the back, too, since it never looks very neat. There will be a lot of ends to weave in, too.
It seems a shame to redo everything that you’ve done so far–but you would save a lot of yarn doing intarsia vs. stranded.
Maybe blocking will even out the parts you’re not happy with?
The one I’m most unhappy with is the double merle (all white) sheltie. I don’t like the stitches at all, it looks sloppy. Plus the dog’s shape is different from the others (the dog itself is bigger and the chest is broader) even though I looked at every stitch over and over and couldn’t figure out what I did differently. Maybe I’ll do one dog and see how I like it. If it’s better I may redo it, if not I’ll keep going. I’ve done 16 out of 100 blocks, so I haven’t gone TOO far.
Maybe the white is an optical illusion?
Definitely try an intarsia dog–see if it makes enough of a difference for you to start over.
The bottom line is that if you are putting in that much effort, [I]you[/I] have to be happy with the end result. 100 squares of “good enough” probably won’t be good enough.
I’m a colorwork idiot so I can’t help there. If you do start over, keep the squares you’ve made, they’re really nice IMO and would be great for a pillow or something. You could consider them on-the-project training and still have something to show for your time and effort.
Nice work!
I can’t really help you on the decision of Fair Isle vs. Inertia as I have no experience with either.
I think the problem with the white dog isn’t your knitting, but just the fact that it is all white - as Ingrid says it is probably an “optical illusion”. Maybe it will look better if you show (by sewing f.ex.) with black or grey a line where on the other dogs the white “collar” starts. That way you might break the big white head a bit. I do not know whether it will look better or not, but it won’t be too much work and will be easy to undo so maybe it is worth a try 
This is such a wonderful project. The squares so far look perfect to me. I think it’s a very good idea to try out an intarsia square so that you’ll have an idea of what it looks like and you can see if you prefer it over fair isle. Looking at the squares, any uneveness seems like part of the sheltie’s coat pattern, a knitting feature, but as Ingrid suggested, blocking may soften some of that.
Thanks for the update on this fascinating project.
Ooh Tab, big decision to make here! I love the little panels though so maybe keep them for something else as GG suggested if you do decide to rip it all.
Unfortunately the white dog is bigger, it’s not an illusion.:pout: From the chest to the back of the neck of the bi color (b/w dog) it’s 3 1/2", from the chest to the back of the neck of the double merle (white dog) it’s just over 4". Since the problem seems to be around the double merle I’ll knit it in intarsia first. Right now I’m knitting a solid green square to see how many rows there’ll be so I’ll know where to put the dog.