intarsia vs. fair isle/cake/rodarte omg.

i hate intarsia:each goddamn pink and purple diamond had to have a strand hanging down because you just are not supposed to carry the yarn behind so many stitches.  the front of this looked okay, but the back is a disaster.

here’s another back of intarsia, my second attempt at this project.  i decided it would be easier to just have one center line of argyle so i wouldn’t have so many strands.  doing it this way i had only 5 strands as opposed to the 15 i had with the first try.

but it looks all gross on the back.

here’s the front of that piece:

looks nice enough, right?  but each row took so long (just doing those 3.5 argyles took a couple of weeks) and although you can’t see them, there were no fewer than 8 dropped stitches within that argyle, so i threw it away, too.

so after throwing away the back of a vest, three ruined partial fronts (forgot to take pics of try number 3)  i did this!  in 4 days!

and why did it only take four days, you ask?  well see, in fair isle, there are no more than 5 stitches in between colors so you can just switch colors without starting a whole new strand.  also, instead of being knit separately, this vest was able to be knit in the round, like a tube for most of it, most importantly all the colorwork was made this way.

look at how pretty the back is:

pardon the picture quality (iphone) but really, the back looks like it could be the front of something, sort of, it makes a nice little pattern, i think.

so i’m more proud of this project than any other i’ve done in a long time.

here’s a pic of esme eating birthday cake yesterday at grandma’s:

and finally,

OMG Rodarte, quit being so amazing!i got this pic from style.com

1.  ankle straps

2.  tights/pants or something made of tulle with embroidery for god’s sake

3.  tartan and gingham!

4.  inside out tartan cuffs!

so pretty!