Exciting news - intarsia pulling sideways DOES cancel out felting pulling up-down! The image aspect ratio remained nearly the same:

I learned something about felting intarsia - if the image is less than two stitches wide, it doesn’t show at all. All those delicate one-stitch lines I’d intended to indicate, say, the fold of a petal just made the finished object very indistinct. And in general I think the image should be much larger to catch better detail. So I’m going to need to produce a much larger set of drawings (and perhaps a larger purse!)

Another thing I learned - hubby’s beard clippers work GREAT for shaving felted swatches. Natch.

So a little research into the challenge of felting intarsia has proved interesting so far. Knit stitches are wider than they are tall, and felting shrinks work more from top to bottom than from side to side. But intarsia pulls the work inward from side to side, elongating the image - and making a simple adjustment of the pattern image much more difficult. In an ideal world, the effects of intarsia will cancel out the effect of the felting, leaving the aspect ratio at 1:1. But it doesn’t take looking at the President to know that the world is decidedly upside down. The only way to tell is going to be to swatch a pattern sample:

This is my first attempt at intarsia. The pattern needs some work - the single stitches I’d intended as fine lines get lost in the pattern (although it’s certainly helpful that they’re breaking up the work so there aren’t any really long stretches of carried yarn - any more than 5 seems terribly problematic, and I know even that is hugely pushing it.) True, it could be a peony… but it could also be a bulbous squid, or an eyeball with tentacles.

The yarn is Peer Gynt 100% wool in DK weight on size 8 needles. I want the felted fabric to be extremely dense, possibly with the ability to stand up on its own. And one thing I’ve learned about intarsia- I’m going to want to knit this sucker in the round.

The incomparable Eunny Jang recently posted a great swatch of an intarsia “brocade” pattern she whipped up for a jacket. It
inspired me to mess around with intarsia myself - hence the beginnings of a felted purse with intarsia peonies! Here are the
beginnings of the project - just a sketch to chew on while I knit up and felt a pattern swatch:

More tomorrow after I have acheived feltage!

Since there’s no photo-worthy progress to note, I thought I’d share some of my new faves with you:
- The cutest toys ever - along with free patterns! - are at Wee Wonderfuls - dig the adorable sewn bunny that looks like a bowling pin.
- How did I not know that this site existed for so long? You Grow Girl is like Gardenweb with an attitude - wonderful and not bought by some corporate giant entity (yet.)
- ThriftCraft is a girl after my own heart.

Happy Thursday people!

ellahalf
Originally uploaded by Mme. Bosanquet.

And here she is blocking out - I include this not to show you my slovenly housekeeping or my overweight cat, but to say, it’s REALLY FREAKING BIG. That’s a queen sized bed that half of it is overwhelming right there. I’m going to have to block it in stages anyway (lest I get a Hugh Hefner-sized bed) so why not satisfy the urge to see it spread out?