Progress is being made on my "end of summer" projects. The large bag portion of McKayla's backpack will be finished tonight…..leaving only the straps, assembly and finally felting it.
Can I tell you a secret…..I HATED every minute of working this flower. Now, had I done some reading on Intarsia, I would have realized that I made this flower MUCH harder than it really needed to be….aggh!
I carried the main colored yarn across the back of the flower as though I were doing fair isle knitting. What I should have done was work the flower back and forth in the purple and work each side of the flower with 2 separate balls or bobbins in the main color. It makes complete sense!
Having never done any real intarsia, nor reading anything about it in the past, it wasn't until I read Beth's comments mentioning Intarsia that I did some research on it. As I said…..I made this flower much harder than it really needed to be….sigh.
I am going to have to try another project soon and use the Intarsia method. I think I know exactly what I will try :). I will share soon….
" Hey Teach" is moving along, but slower now that I have been focusing on getting McKayla's bag ready for the end of this week and school.
I have also been absolutely smitten with dyeing up these rovings. I swear, they are like potato chips…you can't just do one.
When I get my website updated, I will continue to offer my saturated Luxury rovings, but I will be doing all of my superwash rovings in this Splish Splash fashion. I am working on spinning up some to make sure that they look as nice in the finished yarn as they do in the roving.
So as summer is winding down and school is starting tomorrow, I am looking forward to a few free hours each week to work on some new things…
The Woolen Rabbit 
that backpack is going to be adorable. can’t wait to see it felted.
Splish splash, I’d like to take a bath in those rovings!
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We live and we learn…but that flower is gorgeous and looks perfect. 🙂
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The flower may have been a PITA but it looks perfect. Love those rovings and can’t wait to get my hot little hands on some!
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Unventing is hard work. But it does look great.
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The back pack will be worth your hard work! Intarsia is a PITA but the results are worthwhile. LOVE Splish Splash rovings!
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Kim- She’ll love the backpack, and be totally unaware of the angst that goes into a piece of knitting.
I avoid intarsia like the plague.
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The roving dyeing is crazy addictive – yours look lovely – can’t wait to see them up close.
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Too bad about the intarsia, but now you know, right?
I can’t wait to see how the rovings spin up!
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The flower on the bag looks great, but I hate Intarsia myself, but I’m still going to make the bag. At least you’re almost done, and your granddaughter will love the bag, and that’s all that matters. Good Grandma.
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Well, it looks good, even if you didn’t enjoy it. Maybe next time will be better.
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Goodness, you are certainly being productive!! I’m looking forward to seeing how those SplishSplash skeins spin out – I suspect they will be nearly as fun to spin as to dye!
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I think your intarsia looks fine. If you would like to have an instarsia resource I can highly recommend the booklet:
Intarsia, A Workshop for Hand & Machine Knitting by Sherry Stuever & Keely Stuever. I believe Elann.com sells it but you may also find it in a LYS.
I’m not affiliated with the booklet or the authors but I purchased it and worked the practice mini-sampler from the book before I started my own first intarsia project. I’m really glad I did. Most intarsia tutorials seem to cover how to start a new color and how to do an interlock on the knit side and the purl side and that is about it. The Stuever & Stuever booklet covers so many more little details to help prevent stitch distortion….including those situations that are so tempting to strand (but why you shouldn’t 🙂 )
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Can’t wait to see that finished backpack. That flower looks really nice.
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Your splish splash looks yummy! I’m sure your daughter will love all the work you’ve done on the bag.
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It looks pretty fine to me. Bet it looks even better felted. Hey Teach is now my favourite thing and I can’t wait for warmer weather to get more opportunities to wear it.
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How cute! My daughter would love to have one of these – time for me to learn how to knit intarsia!
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New roving looks great. Any chance the Tupelo Honey will be available again?
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