Intarsia vs. Duplicate Stitch

When you want to add a “blob” of color to your knitting, especially circular knitting, duplicate stitch is an easy way to add the design after-the-fact. In this video I demonstrate both intarsia and duplicate stitch.

heart chart

Information on things you’ll see in the video:
The yarn I used for demonstration is Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Bulky.

The needles I used are Knitter’s Pride Bamboo DPNs.

The nail polish I’m wearing is by Julep, color “Janie”.

9 comments on “Intarsia vs. Duplicate Stitch

  1. A recent post elsewhere (I can’t re all the site) recommended using a slightly lighter weight yarn for duplicate stitch, but doubling it to get better coverage. I haven’t tried it, but considering that sometimes the coverage is not perfect, it makes some sense to me.

    Thanks for another great video!

  2. Would the duplicate stitch work for argyle socks? I made my son a pair last year, but stitching up the back seem was a pain not to mention the intarsia technique.

  3. Yes – duplicate stitch will work for argyle. I’ve also. knit argyle the traditional way, then used duplicate stitch to add the single line of stitches that run diagonally through the triangles.
    S t a c i

  4. An intarsia question from a newbie… why wouldn’t you just carry the yarn from the grey section on the right along while knitting the pink section and then carrying on with the grey? That could help with knitting intarsia in the round, I think!

    If you are knitting something that can’t handle the bulk of the floats across the whole piece (if in the round) or just the design (if flat) then it would be an issue, but with a hat where extra thickness might be beneficial, it could work!

  5. What does the back of duplicate stitch look like? I’m thinking it’s not reversible like intarsia?

  6. Fern – correct. The designs created in duplicate stitch are only one-sided, and don’t really appear on the back of the work. That said, intarsia sort of shows the design on the wrong side of the work, but it isn’t a clean color-break around the design. Since the wrong-side is reverse stockinette, there isn’t really a way to make this perfectly double-sided.
    S t a c i

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