What is intarsia knitting?

Intarsia or picture knitting is a colourwork technique which is popular for creating vibrant designs in knitting. It saw a huge popularity in the 1980s with licensed character jumpers for children by the likes of Alan Dart as well as striking adult garments by superstar designer Kaffe Fassett.

Intarsia knitting is seeing a big resurgance in popularity now, with lots of new and modern designs being published, as well as intarsia jumpers being popular again on the high street.

Free intarsia knitting patterns

You can find lots of free colourwork knitting patterns here on CraftWorld, including:

Sooty jumper :: Polar bear jumper :: Charlie Brown and Snoopy Christmas stockings

What is the difference between intarsia and fair isle or stranded colourwork in knitting?

If the pattern has large blocks of colour, whilst stranded knitting will have bands of colour, with a short distance between each colour change.

In the examples above, take a look at the polar bear jumper. The bear's head is big blocks of colour - these are worked in intarsia. His jumper has short colour changes with only two colours per row - this is worked in stranded knitting.

You can often tell the difference by looking at the back of your knitting! Intarsia knitting uses colours in blocks, so the back of the work will probably look similar to the front, if a little bumpier. In Fair Isle or stranded colourwork knitting you carry two or more colours along the back of your work.

When changing between colours in intarsia, you should twist the yarns so that you don't get any holes. However, in stranded colourwork I never twist my yarns as this will make the fabric stiff and will sometimes make it pucker.

Usually the pattern instructions will tell you whether to use the intarsia or the stranded knitting technique.

You can find our step-by-step guides to intarsia knitting and stranded colourwork here on CraftWorld for free.

What is the best intarsia knitting pattern chart maker?

Chart Minder
It's free to sign up for this clever website which lets you convert images to charts and also draw your own charts. You can take any photo or image and turn it into a knitting chart online for free. You can save them to your library or download to use offline. I find this is the easiest to use for intarsia.

StitchFiddle
This site has a lot more options, including crochet charts, cross stitch charts and more. It feels like a more advanced tool - there are options for lace, cables and other textured stitches as well as creating your own intarsia and stranded colourwork charts.

Stitchmastery
For professional knitting designers, I honestly think that StitchMastery is the best investment you can make. We've been using this to create the charts in Knit Now magazine for over ten years and Cathy, who is the developer behind the software, is just so clever and so helpful. This tool doesn't have a function to convert images to charts, but it lets you draw your own so easily. The best thing about StitchMastery is that at the click of a button, it will generate written instructions for any chart. It also produces high-quality charts which are more than good enough for professional use.

Intarsia Inspiration

When it's done right, intarsia is an incredible technique! Knitting designer and intarsia enthusiast Sylvia Watts-Cherry recorded the progress of one of her designs on instagram - it's a fascinating insight into how intarsia patterns like this come together, and she also shared some advice along the way.

At the start of the process, Sylvia shared this photo of how the yarns are twisted at the back to avoid holes.

The next update showed how the hand-drawn chart was translating into the final knitted piece.

A few days later, Sylvia shared a video showing the ends she'd woven in so far. I love what she says about enjoying the process - so often it's easy to see this as a chore, but she's right - it's a fantastic little job to do whilst chatting with friends or watching TV.

And here's the fantastic finished cardigan! I love how the design and the photos capture Sylvia's gorgeous personality. This design really captured the imagination of the knitting community and it was so wonderful to see folks sharing these beautiful images all over the web.

Sylvia went on to collaborate with Lady Dye Yarns to create a kit so that knitters could make their own versions of the pattern.

When she was knitting up her own version of the design in her Lady Dye Yarns kit, Sylvia shared this video, showing how to weave in yarn ends into ribbing.

If you've been inspired to try intarsia, you can buy this pattern from Sylvia on Ravelry.

CLAIM TWO FREE PATTERNS FROM SYLVIA WATTS-CHERRY

Sylvia is our CraftWorld Knitting Designer of the Month for July 2021. To celebrate, we're offering two of her patterns for free to CraftWorld Premium members. Find out more here

More tips & advice!

I love this blog post from The Woolly Brew, which is packed with helpful advice for intarsia knitting.

Does your intarsia look messy at the join between two colours? Check out this super helpful blog post by YarnSub.

Looking for more inspiration?

Knit Now 142 is full of patterns to put your skills to the test, including this adorable Day at the Beach sweater. Download your copy today!