I began working a pattern out of my new knitting pattern book: Knitted Toy Tales. I decided to make a toy fish, as it involved some colourwork, which I am not very familiar with. I find small projects great for learning new skills as you can see your results (and learn from your mistakes) quickly.
The tail fin of the fish used a technique called Intarsia. With intarsia, if there are multiple colours to be used throughout a row of knitting, each colour will have its own ball to work from. The fish toy didn't require very much yarn, so I placed my colours on bobbins. I didn't have enough 'real' bobbins for this pattern, so I made my own using some cardboard.
Following the pattern, I started with blue and knit in stockinette stitch until it was time for the colour changes. Because the fish would eventually be folded in half and seamed, the tail went from blue (colour A) to pink (colour B), to blue, to pink, to blue, to pink, to blue, to pink, to blue.
It took me a few rows to get used to having all the bobbins hanging off the work, but it eventually felt comfortable. I also had to make sure I crossed the yarns properly when changing colours, so I didn't leave any holes in the work. Once I learned the process, it actually started to be a lot of fun and I got into a pretty good rhythm of knowing what colour came next.
That rhythm helped me to (almost) notice a mistake in one of the rows of the written pattern. I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't quite figure out what was supposed to be right, and I wasn't 100% confident that I was right in thinking that it was wrong. So I knit it as it was written, thinking that seeing the result would let me know for sure if there was a problem or not. There was.
Once I was sure it was a mistake, I was able to figure out where the pattern went wrong. It is a little out of context, but I will try to illustrate the difference between the written pattern and what I believe should be the correct pattern. For the pattern blue is A and pink is B.
Original Row 9: [A k2, B skpo, k1, k2tog, k2, A skpo, k1, k2tog, k2] rep to end of row.
Corrected Row 9: [A k2, B skpo, k1, k2tog, A k2, B skpo, k1, k2tog, A k2] rep to end of row.
The original pattern had all the right knitting, but the wrong colour indicated (the original said to change the colour 3 times, the corrected changes the colour 5 times).
I knitted the mistake into my project, and didn't bother pulling back the rows of intarsia to get it out. I was using this toy to practice skills, so I didn't need it to be perfect. When the knitting was complete, I used duplicate stitch to cover the wrong blues with pink, and the wrong pinks with blue. The mistake is barely noticeable in the finished fish tail.
The main body of the fish uses Fair Isle colourwork, which I'll post about next week.
The tail fin of the fish used a technique called Intarsia. With intarsia, if there are multiple colours to be used throughout a row of knitting, each colour will have its own ball to work from. The fish toy didn't require very much yarn, so I placed my colours on bobbins. I didn't have enough 'real' bobbins for this pattern, so I made my own using some cardboard.
Following the pattern, I started with blue and knit in stockinette stitch until it was time for the colour changes. Because the fish would eventually be folded in half and seamed, the tail went from blue (colour A) to pink (colour B), to blue, to pink, to blue, to pink, to blue, to pink, to blue.
It took me a few rows to get used to having all the bobbins hanging off the work, but it eventually felt comfortable. I also had to make sure I crossed the yarns properly when changing colours, so I didn't leave any holes in the work. Once I learned the process, it actually started to be a lot of fun and I got into a pretty good rhythm of knowing what colour came next.
That rhythm helped me to (almost) notice a mistake in one of the rows of the written pattern. I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't quite figure out what was supposed to be right, and I wasn't 100% confident that I was right in thinking that it was wrong. So I knit it as it was written, thinking that seeing the result would let me know for sure if there was a problem or not. There was.
Once I was sure it was a mistake, I was able to figure out where the pattern went wrong. It is a little out of context, but I will try to illustrate the difference between the written pattern and what I believe should be the correct pattern. For the pattern blue is A and pink is B.
Original Row 9: [A k2, B skpo, k1, k2tog, k2, A skpo, k1, k2tog, k2] rep to end of row.
Corrected Row 9: [A k2, B skpo, k1, k2tog, A k2, B skpo, k1, k2tog, A k2] rep to end of row.
The original pattern had all the right knitting, but the wrong colour indicated (the original said to change the colour 3 times, the corrected changes the colour 5 times).
I knitted the mistake into my project, and didn't bother pulling back the rows of intarsia to get it out. I was using this toy to practice skills, so I didn't need it to be perfect. When the knitting was complete, I used duplicate stitch to cover the wrong blues with pink, and the wrong pinks with blue. The mistake is barely noticeable in the finished fish tail.
The main body of the fish uses Fair Isle colourwork, which I'll post about next week.
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My aunts would know these terms. Admittedly, I'm lost!
ReplyDeletehaha! Well I appreciate the comment anyway! Thanks for stopping by. I'm only just learning some of this knitting stuff myself. There is lots to learn! :)
DeleteI love learning new stuff, too. Glad you're having fun.
ReplyDeleteI am having so much fun! I keep starting new projects. Making toys is super fun.
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