and its not going to be intarsia, despite what I have come to believe. This is my father’s Christmas present: (yes, just a tad late…)
The back is done. It is going to grow up and become this:
But it’s intarsia and so I want to poke my eyeballs out. Last night I started the front with the diamonds and had to wind a bunch of hanks of Vintage but was already home (where I have no ball winder). I asked Phil to hold the yarn and be a swift for me, which he did reluctantly with minimal eye rolling. He then told me that “this whole yarn storage thing is all wrong” and that he was going to “invent a new method for storing and winding yarn” that would “fix this whole mess.” I asked him if he was going to make lots of money with his new invention and he pointed out, “no, there doesn’t appear to be any money in this yarn thing.” Thanks Phil.
So anyway, I then pointed out that the “husband swift” was a great way for him to exercise his arms and that he didn’t get much exercise anyway. So then he decided that surely my death would involve a hank of yarn (and might come sooner than I thought) and asked what kind of yarn I most preferred so that he could be better prepared for my ultimate demise. (I decided merino, by the way)
hrm
So anyways. Here is my preferred intarsia method:
Yes, this mess. Each section of the pattern has its own long strand. No bobbins or balls, just a really long strand (about 2-3 yards). If they get tangled, I can just pull one of the strands and it comes right out of the tangle created by wrapping the yarns around each other for intarsia knitting. This method means that I will have more tails to weave in but I find it much faster than the bobbin method or the ol’ yarn ball in the jars method. What you see in the first photo is how far I got before I had to add another strand for each section. Not too bad.