What to Know About Intarsia and Fair Isle Knitting

So you’ve gotten the gist of knitting, understanding stitches and feeling proud about completing a scarf or hat. Along with the basics of maybe adding some stripes, you picked up a simple start of color changing in your knitting. Alternating yarn colors at the beginning of a row is the easiest introduction to color working. The next advanced step would be more detailed and elaborate. That is where Fair Isle and intarsia knitting come in. Each style hones in on different techniques that this article will dig further into. In the end, you’ll know the differences between each color working technique.

Intarsia and Fair Isle both have their own limitations and parts that you will favor over the others. Some designs can be made using intarsia and not with Fair Isle, and vice versa.

The Pros and Cons of Intarsia Color Work

Intarsia has not been known as the go-to or popular knitting technique compared to Fair Isle, which the workings of the latter has been around longer with a steady tradition within fiber arts. Also, intarsia is a more complicated method than Fair Isle. This is because of the technique involves knitting color blocks using different yarns on bobbins and joining them together in a specific joining process. Intarsia can be used when making a project that is meant to be stretchy and allows for many colors to be used in a row.

When working with the bobbins, you will need one for each color block, and once you’re working with five or more bobbins in one row, it is a task within itself to keep the bobbins from tangling. It can be easy to confuse the bobbin joins and end up with a disjointed and hole-filled knitted fabric in the end. To ease this process, intarsia would be a better technique for larger color changing blocks and not working each stitch in a different color (example: one stitch red, next stitch blue, third stitch black).

Going further, let’s look at the pros and cons on intarsia knitting:

PROS:

• Can take any image and turn it into a knitted version
• You can work with more than three colors in each row
• The final result can create a stretchy or dray fabric, the ease of movement flows like a stockinette stitch-made item
• Any kind of stitch can be implemented into intarsia knitting. You can make cables, ribs, create lace patterns, the ideas are endless
• Color blocks can be made anywhere in the knitting fabric. You can start, create in the middle or add at the end.

CONS:

• Can be complicated and confusing with the numerous bobbins to keep straight from tangling
• You can replicate an image with the range of colors you can use per row, but it still won’t be intricately detailed.
• Not the best choice for knitting in-the-round. It can be done, but very complicated.
• Involves frequently weaving in the ends.

The Pros and Cons of Fair Isle Color Work

Fair Isle is the popular method and age-old technique of color changing knitting. It is known as knitting with two strands of yarn at the same time, alternating colors as dictated in the pattern to achieve colored rows or a particular motif. Since Fair Isle is still knitting without any accessories like using the bobbins in intarsia knitting, there are some obvious limitations.

Since you are working with two strands of yarn, this method is also known as stranded knitting, involves knitting one or more stitches in one color and then dragging the additional color along the wrong side of the knitting to continue the stitches meant for that color. When it comes to switching up the colors, you need to cross the two strands and continue with the next color change (in this case, going back to the original color strand you were working with).

Fair Isle knitting allows the repetition of alternating stitches in two colors, unlike intarsia. So as you go along a row, you can knit one red, knit one black and continue the pattern across the row without twisting strands. However, when changing colors, each strand is overlapping over the other on the backside, so the fabric become thicker. More yarn is being used here, basically becoming a double-knitted piece. Also, staying on top of tension and keeping stitches even will prevent puckering of the fabric.

The limitations of Fair Isle knitting means that the max of colors can be up to three colors per row and color blocks should be limited to at least 8 stitches. Since you are dragging strands across to change colors, you can end up with large puckers and dips when the tension is much tighter when stitching along.

Fair Isle is best known as the method for being knit in-the-round for striped and color-blocked hats and socks. It is easily interchangeable for flat knitting, put since the color changing pulls at the fabric, the ends tend to curl. When making a flat piece, you can always stitch up edges or keep your Fair Isle practice to sweaters, where pieces are attached together or simply make colorful hats.

It is best to remember that when you’re knitting in Fair Isle, the double-knit fabric will look inconsistent against parts where you are knitting in single strand knitting. To steady the consistency, you can always knit this portion with needles that are one size smaller to make that study fabric that aligns with the Fair Isle thickness.

Let’s look at the pros and cons of Fair Isle:

PROS:

• Very easy to learn.
• Can achieve small repeats of color, looks clean and neat on the right side. Easy way to knit multi-colored small repeats with a neat finish on the right side.
• Will result in nice abstract designs and traditional motifs.

CONS:

• Limited to use 2 or 3 colors per row.
• Knit in small blocks only, not the best choice to make images out of knitting.
• Results in a thick fabric.
• Wool and other natural fibers are best used for in-the-round knitting due to the constant strand changing. Fair Isle is very sensitive to higher-friction yarns.
• Takes up quite a bit of yarn.

Fair Isle or Intarsia? What to Use

Let’s say here that one method is not better than the other, but they are best used for different purposes. Fair Isle is great for designs that call for a monochromatic or limited color scheme. Intarsia knitting has the ability to recreate an image or photo to close detail. You can always take the time to learn both and work with what you favor and feel most comfortable with.