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How to Knit Intarsia Without Bobbins or Butterflies

September 25, 2018 1 Comment

This tutorial is part of our Read Along Knit Along series & is brought to you by LoveKnitting, Eucalan & Knitter’s Pride. Learn about our sponsors and enter to win the RALKAL prize pack here. 

Learn how to knit intarsia patterns without using bobbins or butterflies, and check out the case for disorganized intarsia knitting with two great video tutorials.
A lot of intarsia tutorials & books might lead knitters to believe there’s only one way to knit an intarsia pattern successfully. In reality, as with any knitting, the choice for how to work your own work is up to one thing only: you. If you’re someone who prefers their WIPs (works-in-progress) to look immaculate and tangle-free as you go, that’s fine! If you’d rather get on with your knitting, tangles be damned (i.e. dealt with later), that’s fine too! In today’s intarsia tutorial, I’m going to walk you through how exactly to work an intarsia pattern without bobbins or butterflies, as well as the case for letting your intarsia look a bit disorganized as you go.

How to knit intarsia without bobbins or butterflies

First up, let’s take a look at some ways to knit intarsia without bobbins or butterflies. In particular, this video covers how to work from opposite ends of the same skein of yarn, as well as letting your yarn tails fly free as you knit.

If you’re more into tidy work as you go, here’s a tutorial for how to work intarsia using bobbins & butterflies, including how to estimate your yarn tails for each color and how to wind butterflies. 

Learn how to knit intarsia patterns without using bobbins or butterflies, and check out the case for disorganized intarsia knitting with two great video tutorials.

The case for disorganized intarsia knitting

Wondering why you’d want to deal with the inevitable tangles that happen as a result of bobbin-free intarsia knitting? I’ve made a little video to explain why you might want to give it a go.

My two cents: Personally, I’m a big fan of this style of intarsia knitting, thanks in part to a workshop I took at Vogue Knitting Live with Julia Farwell-Clay this year. She’s a brilliant intarsia pattern designer, so I figured I’d listen to her when it came to honing my intarsia knitting skills ahead of releasing my Intarsia Mountain pattern design. In the workshop she talked about simply (and I’m paraphrasing) getting on with it when knitting intarsia. This concept was a total game changer for me. Before, the idea of militantly estimating and bobbin-ing my tails seemed counter-productive to the goal of actually finishing a knitting project. With inspiration from Julia giving me the confidence I needed to just go for it, I’m now full-on obsessed with intarsia as a technique from a knit design perspective.

Do you have to knit “disorganized” instarsia? Not at all.

I’ll say this again because it bears repeating: your knitting is your own. If you think knitting intarsia in a more disorganized style isn’t your cup of tea, you go ahead and make those bobbins. But if you want to give his approach a try to see if it suits your personal knitting style, do it! There’s a great (and free) practice swatch in this post if you want a low-risk pattern to try out organized and disorganized intarsia for yourself.

Learn how to knit intarsia patterns without using bobbins or butterflies, and check out the case for disorganized intarsia knitting with two great video tutorials.

This tutorial is part of our Read Along Knit Along series & is brought to you by LoveKnitting, Eucalan & Knitter’s Pride. Learn about our sponsors and enter to win the RALKAL prize pack here. 

Filed Under: Knit Along, Knitting Tagged With: disorganized intarsia, how to knit intarsia, intarsia, intarsia bobbins, intarsia butterflies, intarsia mountain, intarsia tails, intarsia without bobbins, ralkal, read along knit along, video tutorial

About Heidi

Heidi Gustad is a craft book author & content creator in love with primary colors & vintage vibes. She specializes in knitting, crochet, latch hook and macramé, and her first book, Latch Hook: 12 Projects for the Modern Maker, is out now!

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Comments

  1. Louise

    September 29, 2018 at 9:33 am

    Thanks, Heidi, for the best-ever demo of interlocking. I’m definitely giving this method a try. I knit Portuguese-style, so instead of turning the work I stay on the right side and knit backward for the wrong side row! Oddly, while my purl stitches would have been a tad looser than my knits, my backward knitting matches the regular perfectly!

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Heidi Gustad from Hands Occupied / Craft Book Author and Knitting, Crochet, Latch Hook and Macrame Designer

Hi! I’m Heidi (she/her/hers), a craft book author & pattern designer specializing in knitting, crochet, latch hook & macrame. Really anything with yarn! ❤️  My work combines vintage and modern design elements, featuring bold colors and graphic motifs.

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If you look closely, you’ll see I’m casually k If you look closely, you’ll see I’m casually knitting from one sweater into another here, no big deal. (What can I say, I lost a game of yarn chicken. 😂) I almost didn’t post this because I was worried someone might have some nonsense to say about my ability to knit. Then I remembered I can’t care about that. Silly me, I almost forgot myself! 
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Speaking of which, dang it’s good to have my mental health back consistently after the past couple of years. The anxious parts of my personality are just chilling, rather than constantly screaming that my work isn’t good enough to share. The confident parts of me that matter have me creating (and starting to share my creations & process with strangers and friends) again! 
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Anybody else feel like they are beginning to return to themselves, so to speak, this spring?
I’m feeling better, & all my [big, bad bug] proj I’m feeling better, & all my [big, bad bug] project needs is a couple of short sleeves! I’ll be finishing this sweater *just* before it gets too warm to wear, but isn’t that always how it goes? 🫠🧶 
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Just divided the sleeves on this quick sweater, wh Just divided the sleeves on this quick sweater, which has unsurprisingly turned into a love letter to primary colors. ❤️💛💙 The heart stripe is a wee tweak I incorporated, and I don’t regret it! 
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I am unfortunately home bound for the near future I am unfortunately home bound for the near future thanks to the big, bad bug. So far I’ve knit half a sweater, consumed about a gallon of ginger tea, & plowed through 3 seasons of Pit Bulls and Parolees. 
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June doesn’t understand why I’m suddenly so boring, but she seems to like watching animal planet. 🤷🏼‍♀️
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