Encouraged by the recent interviews, I turned the intarsia owl pattern into a stranded colorwork one.
I picked the brightest, happiest colors I could, because I’m going for color cred with my boys. Also, these swatches are going to wind up in a scrap blanket, and I might as well include happy colors that they like. As always, that foot on the perch is a problem, and getting the face right (I’m not sure I did, but oh well). I found it tricky to balance the realism of the outline with the abstract patterns that are easier to knit.
The Stitchmastery notations feature was helpful for seeing where my floats were getting too large. Maybe in a few years Cathy will add layers so I can indicate which sections are which pattern and adjust them all at the same time.
So, if I were actually going to publish this version of the owl, I’d do another iteration. If you want to adapt it for your own pattern, go ahead! In fact, if you want the Stitchmastery file, give me and e-mail and I’ll send it to you.
2 Responses
I think the face is reading “cat” rather than “owl” – what about trying something with a different stitch gauge / row gauge to get a different shape to the colorwork areas – more rectangular on the horizontal scale rather than square?
Hmm, good thought. the feathers radiating from the eyes were harder to do in stranded color work. Maybe this does need an iteration 2.