Colorwork Knitting Resources

Do you want to learn how to knit colorwork patterns? We've got all the resources you need to get started! 

A great beginning pattern is A Precious Resource, a free pattern on our site. Designed by Michael Harrigan, this cowl is the perfect project to build your skills. Check out the photo below from carolmcq on Ravelry—it's her first colorwork project!

We'd like to inspire more of our wonderful fans to give color work knitting a try, so we've rounded up some of our favorite resources for learning and perfecting the art of knitting with more than one color of yarn. Enjoy!

Colorwork Knitting at Your Fingertips

If you're totally new to colorwork knitting, get your feet wet with Stranded Colorwork 101 from Brooklyn Tweed. This comprehensive introduction to Colorwork knitting covers chart reading, techniques for maintaining even tension, and guidelines for maintaining color dominance in your work.

Confused about the difference between stranded, fair isle, mosaic and intarsia? Our blog The Secrets of Colorwork Knitting introduces you to each technique. If you're new to both Colorwork knitting and working from charts, don't miss this fabulous blog tutorial from Kelbourne Woolens.

Visual learners will want to watch this video from Staci Perry of Very Pink Knits, which shows how to work with multiple colors of yarn in your knitting project. Staci draws on her many years of colorwork knitting to share tons of tips and tricks that even experienced knitters will find helpful.

Knitwear designers, especially those who specialize in colorwork knitting patterns, are great resources for tips and techniques. Vickie Howell shares her favorite colorwork knitting tips in this episode of Ask Me Monday. LaVisch designs helps you pick out colors, manage tension and fix mistakes in this helpful blog post. Miriam Felton also shares her top colorwork knitting tips in this blog post.

Once you're perfected stranded colorwork knitting, why not give Fair Isle a try? Check out this great blog post from Tin Can Knits to get you started.

You can also work on refining your skills with Andrea Rangel's 7 Tips to Improve Your Colorwork and this post from Handmade by Stefanie, which shares three tips for quicker colorwork knitting.

Got a colorwork knitting tip or favorite tutorial not listed here? Share it with us in the comments!

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Free Knitting Pattern & KCAL: A Precious Resource Colorwork Cowl

Our next Charity Craft-along for 2020 is here! Many of us are spending more time at home, and we invite all of our fans to give color work knitting a try using this new free pattern from designer Michael Harrigan!

About Our Featured Designer

Michael Harrigan is a knitwear accessory designer based in Bangkok, Thailand. He enjoys traveling the world for inspiration for his designs and specializes in lace knitting and stranded colorwork.

Over the past several years he has designed patterns for accessories, such as scarves and cowls, shawls, other types of wraps, and hats. Many have been self-published, several have been produced for major yarn companies, and others have featured in online and print magazines.

Michael has been certified by The Knitting Guild Association as a Master Knitter, Knitting Technical Editor, and Knitting Judge.  If you'd like to learn more about Michael and his designs, visit his website or view his Ravelry page here.

Explore more of Michael's designs during this KCAL with coupon code Rainforest150, giving you $1.50 off any single pattern until June 30, 2020 - click here to shop Michael's Ravelry store.

Free Knitting Pattern: A Precious Resource by Michael Harrigan

A Precious Resource is knit in the round and is suitable for anyone with basic colorwork knitting skills – as only two colors are involved on any round. This cowl / neck warmer features stranded colorwork patterns inspired by the world’s endangered rainforests - in fact, one of Michael's favorite charities is The Coalition for Rainforest Nations, which is dedicated to helping tropical governments and communities responsibly manage their rainforests to combat climate change and incentivize conservation. 

Click here for a free PDF download of Michael's new colorwork cowl pattern, A Precious Resource.

Please note, you will be subscribed to the Knitter's Pride newsletter; if you already get our emails, simply enter your address to confirm and download the pattern.

How to Participate

• Knit ANY of Michael's colorwork patterns or Crochet a colorwork design of your choosing during the course of this KCAL, which takes place Friday, May 8 through Friday, June 26, 2020. 

• Share your finished photos here in our Ravelry group, or post them on Facebook or Instagram using the #knitterspride and #KPCharityKCAL hashtags to be entered in our prize drawing (more on that in a moment!).

• Donate your finished project to someone in need! If you need a few suggestions, try checking with local organizations such as hospitals, shelters or hospices, or you can send your donations to Wool Aid, where they will be given to those who need them most. 

Colorwork Charity Craft-Along: Prizes

We have 3 great prizes up for grabs: a Deluxe SmartStix Interchangeable Set, a Size 12 Rainbow Row Counter Ring, and a set of Nirvana Pom Pom Makers. 

All projects meeting the requirements above which are finished between May 8, 2020 - June 26, 2020 will be eligible in our prize drawing. We will randomly select our 3 lucky winners from those who have shared their finished sock projects here in our Ravelry group, or on Facebook or Instagram using the #KPCharityKCAL hashtag. We will notify the winners via direct message after June 26. 

We can't wait to see what you make!

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The Secrets of Colorwork Knitting

Have you ever wanted to knit an amazing colorwork yoked sweater? Or mittens with fun geometric patterns? Or some of those fun multi-colored shawl projects? Even if you’re a new knitter you can make ALL of those things - it just takes time and practice. Today’s post will discuss the different kinds of colorwork knitting you can do and some tips and tricks to help you get started or improve your technique.

Intarsia Knitting
Intarsia is a technique used to create anything from simple shapes to intricate pictures in your knitting. With Intarsia, different sections of each row are worked in different colors. Intarsia is different than stranded knitting in that the knitter doesn’t carry the unused yarn behind the work, but instead drops the old color, brings the yarn for the new color up under the yarn of the old color, and then continues on knitting in the new color until the next color change or the end of the row. This method twists the yarns to close any gaps between the old and new colors.

There are a few different methods for twisting your yarns, depending on if the gaps are vertical or diagonal. A good photo tutorial for these methods can be found at Vogue Knitting. One of the most difficult things to conque in knitting intarsia is the issue of yarn management; that is, how to keep your yarns tangle free as you twist them while knitting. There is a great article on Mason Dixon knitting - Intarsia: 7 Decent Tips that you might find helpful as you tackle your first intarsia project.

Fair Isle and Stranded Knitting
Stranded knitting is created when you carry two or more yarns with you as you work to create patterns in your knitting. The unused colors are simply carried behind your work when not in use, creating floating strands which can be seen on the wrong side of the work. Stranded knitting is how those gorgeous yoked sweaters and colorwork mittens are created. Stranded knitting tends to produce a very warm fabric, because each stitch is essentially two layers of yarn thick.

Fair Isle knitting is a specific kind of stranded knitting where only 2 colors are worked per row, and the yarn is only carried behind the work for a limited number of stitches. Fair Isle knitting originated in the Shetland Islands. Today most knitters use the terms Fair Isle and Stranded Knitting interchangeably, although they are distinctly different. Kelbourne Woolens features a great article describing the differences between the two.

One of the most difficult things to conquer in stranded knitting is to keep your floats (or strands) at the right tension. Too loose and your stitches look messy. Too tight and your knitting puckers. They key to this is practice, but we have also found learning to knit with a two-handed Fair Isle technique (that is, knitting with one yarn held in each hand) makes this easier. Check out this video from Very Pink Knits to learn the technique.

Photo credit: Knitty, Design: Three Tams, Angela Wu (Designer, model, photographer)

Mosaic and Slip Stitch Knitting
Mosaic knitting is probably the easiest of the colorwork techniques to learn. In mosaic knitting, you work with two colors to create intricate designs - but you only knit with one color at a time! This technique is a lot like knitting stripes, only you'll just slip certain stitches on a row as you work.

For example, if you are knitting with a light and dark color, when you work a row or round in the light color, you will be slipping the dark stitches. And when you work a row or round in the dark color, you will be slipping the light stitches. Easy, right?

Because you are slipping the stitches, there is a limit to how many slipped stitches can be worked consecutively (usually only two or three maximum). This means that mosaic knitting often ends up looking very geometric, like mosaic tiles. If you’re looking for more information about this technique, check out this article about mosaic knitting from Knitty.

We hope that this post has helped define the different types of colorwork knitting and give you a few tips and resources on how to conquer each technique.

We can’t wait to see what colorwork projects you create. Please share them with us on Instagram - be sure to use #knitterspride in your posts!

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