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Contoured cats and diamonds

30/5/2014

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I've done a lot more swatching than 'end product' knitting over the past year. Luckily I like swatching. Clara Parkes talks about swatching as 'taking your yarn for a walk' - not just as a means to check gauge, but as a way of getting to know it, to see if you're going to get along and where your yarn might best be employed. I've been 'taking my ideas for a walk' over the past year and it's been fun - sometimes frustrating, sometimes rewarding - and there's still more exploring to do.

So I've made very little this year, apart from a big pile of colour-clashing swatches.  As much as I've loved it, I've been itching to get an actual thing on my needles, some tangible proof of my efforts with contoured intarsia. 
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A good knitting friend's thirtieth birthday gave me the opportunity, though a May birthday excluded anything too cosy and I decided on a bag.  She's a fellow cat-lover, so I wanted to incorporate a cat motif that I've been working on.
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And I used a diamond pattern on the back:
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There's a definite texture with contoured intarsia that isn't there with traditional intarsia.  I have to admit to blocking these with the quick and effective treatment of placing a wet tea-towel on the knitting and blasting it with a hot iron. The blocking works its magic, but the texture isn't completely tamed. I see it as part of the charm. 
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What do you think? I have loads of ideas for what to do next, but I'm currently doing more swatching, with cotton this time, to see if I can persuade an inelastic, less forgiving fibre to work with this technique. I'm not convinced yet, but I'll keep trying because I have a summer top in my mind that won't go away.

Wendy x
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