Been kind of in a groove with stranded colorwork recently. It’s a very happy, comfortable groove. One that I find quite satisfying. But I seem to have been bitten by the Argyle bug again.
This happens from time to time. I find argyle very appealing. So appealing, in fact, that I’ve made two pairs of argyle socks, despite generally not enjoying the process of knitting intarsia.
Fiddly, messy intarsia. Knitted flat, with lots of intersections and lots of loose ends to weave in.
But, Argyle!!
So here we go- Pluviae Vest by Bana Kavanagh
I love the classic look. And the doubleknit button band sounds interesting and looks very polished.
Inspired by a tutorial that I watched recently on YouTube, I’ve decided to approach the intarsia a little bit differently than I have in the past. No bobbins. Going to embrace the chaos and just let the yarn strands hang loose.
Also going to employ a knitting technique that I haven’t played with in quite a few years- knitting forwards and backwards across the right side of the fabric. No purling. Just knitting in my normal (backwards) mode from left to right, then knitting like everyone else in the world on the return trip from right to left.
I dashed off a sample this morning with some bits I had hanging around, not so much as a swatch for this particular project (haven’t picked out yarn yet) but rather as a warmup and “proof of concept”.
gah! the ends!!!
There are actually more ends than were strictly necessary, because I chose to work with rather short pieces of yarn. But you get the idea 😉
The main things are: 1. seeing if I can keep an even tension knitting from right to left, and 2. managing the intersections of the different colors to maintain nice clean edges on the color blocks.
I think it looks pretty decent after a quick soak and block
I’m off to the yarn stash to pull together a plan. Argyle awaits!
Have fun with the Argyle!