New Technique In My Bag Of Tricks

When did you last add a new technique to the "list of things I've done at least once"?  I am in the midst of just such an experience.  Intarsia is not a new skill for me.  That little trick of controlling multiple colors - sans floats - to achieve pattern on the public side and no mess on the private side is one that works well. 

But what if, like yours truly, you suddenly have a desire to cast on for a top down summer shirt that is enhanced by three colors playing about in blocks of unplanned placement?  Sort of like this. 

If you know intarsia, you are aware that the method works because the end of the next working color is always where you need it.  Well, it is there assuming that you are working flat.  One right side followed by a wrong side.

When working intarsia in the round there is a major hiccup.  Think it through,  you knit, change color, knit, change color (repeat per pattern) and when you get back to the beginning of the round, the yarn for the next color is way over yonder where you finished using it.

What to do?  Fortunately for all of us there are instruction videos to be had.  A quick search put PlanetPurl's great video right there at the table with all of my yarn bits.  You know what?  Sometimes the solution is so simply obvious that one can feel stupid for not figuring it out without help.

Now, the technique that allows knitting intarsia in the round is a valuable part of my personal bag of tricks.  Hmm.  I wonder what will be next?