need Argyle Help please

CamilleV · 03-16-2010, 04:35 PM

I am trying to knit an argyle golf vest of my own design (since I could not find a suitable pattern) but I have never argyled before. I watched the intarsia video and searched through all my knitting books, but not one shows me how to start the bottom of the diamond, the first new color stitch. In my 3 or 4 attempts on my own I haven't gotten it right yet. Can anyone help? Thanks!

Jan in CA · 03-17-2010, 12:10 AM

I swear someone asked this already... but I can't find the post?

Anyway, just start knitting with the new color. Each point will have it's own yarn. It will be loose at first, but you can tighten that up when you weave in the ends.
I found another video maybe it will help.
http://www.berroco.com/video/intarsia_basics.html

And this
http://www.knitpicks.com/tutorials/Intarsia__D11.html

CamilleV · 03-17-2010, 06:11 PM

After this post I made another practice square, see attached picture. This one came out better than previous efforts but it is still not quite right at the start of the diamond. (It looks okay in the picture but not in real life.)

I found that controlling tension in the just completed knitted stitches at the color changes is critical, though quite difficult to do. Too tight and the stitch disappears, too loose and it bulges out of proportion with its neighbors. You have to keep tweaking each color yarn until it stays just right.

The other thing I learned was about tying the knot at the beginning of the new color. At first I was leaving it loose and tying later which was not possible with nothing to tie to and my attempts created a bulky bulging mess. A tight and tidy square knot with the new and old colors after completing the very first stitch worked well.

This argyle is a true diamond, not a square which requires a little more thinking. I made color changes on the WS/purl side. I could not figure out how to do it on the RS though surely it is possible?

CamilleV · 03-17-2010, 06:16 PM

What I mean in the last paragraph is tying in new yarn on the RS. Seems easier to do on the WS.

Jan in CA · 03-17-2010, 06:20 PM

It looks great on the photo!

I almost never use knots...but it does look like an effective way to keep it tight at the beginning. I wonder if it's always done that way..

I've always done color changes on the RS, but I've never done argyle. If it works for you and you like the result it doesn't matter how it's done.

CamilleV · 03-17-2010, 08:20 PM

I have a commercially made argyle sweater to look at how they did it and they tied knots at the new yarn colors. Not sure how else you would get them to stay put. I did notice that because they cut the ends quite short the knots have come unraveled in a couple of places. So I would leave a short tail on my sweater.

CamilleV · 03-19-2010, 01:23 AM

So after I made my full sized practice diamond, I found that my blue criss-cross stitches were not quite meeting in the exact middle as they should. So I did a color chart of the full pattern, which is actually gold and blue diamonds with black criss-cross. While tedious to do,this was VERY helpful!! It let me re-check my diamond design and get everything to work out Perfectly! I am so glad I took the time to do this or it would have been all off kilter by the time I got to the 3rd set of diamonds at the chest.

I've attached a drawing of the whole vest and my color chart. Hope that helps someone else design an argyle item of their own.

Jan in CA · 03-19-2010, 02:51 AM

Wow, that's a great! That's a drawing??! You're a good artist!

I bet it's going to be gorgeous!

BTW.. sometimes the lines running through argyle are done later with duplicate stitch so you can just knit with two colors.

CamilleV · 03-23-2010, 06:32 AM

I was about to pull my hair out from the tangled mess of yarn I had going on after the very first row! Then I came up with an idea for a way to keep them all straight. This picture shows a CD holder that I put at my feet on the floor to keep the little bobbins of yarn all neat in a row. They still get a little tangled but not nearly as bad as it was. I was spending all my time untangling instead of knitting! This is working very well!

CamilleV · 03-23-2010, 06:35 AM

It's a computer drawing--I'm actually an architect and this was done on my CAD software.
I am aware of the over-knitting technique but I was afraid it would not look smooth when it was done. Perhaps should have tried it first before disregarding. The six black yarn bobbins are making a tangled mess of things!