Intarsia is inevitable. If you knit long enough, if you crochet long enough, you will end up doing intarsia. You can’t avoid it. I’ve tried. I’m always promising myself that I will never do intarsia again. I usually make that promise when I’m in the middle of an intarsia project with fourteen colors dangling off the wrong side of the work and two very interested house cats watching my every move. I get the project done; I weave in all the ends; I tell myself never again. Then in a few months I find myself with another intarsia project. Why? Because with intarsia, you can re-create any picture, any image, in yarn. Its a very powerful technique.
All you need is a chart. Knitwit has an online free app that will turn any image into a chart for you. If you dread intarsia as much as I do you should stay away and never click this link.
But you will. Intarsia is inevitable.
Maybe you have a Batman fan that needs a Batman knit. Maybe you have an Ant Man fan who needs an Ant Man crochet. Now there are hundreds of charts available online for the Batman logo but none, that I could find, for Ant Man (why Ant Man gets no knit/crochet love I don’t know but then I never watched that movie and I’m never gonna). No problem Ant Man lover! Just find the logo online, copy/paste that image’s URL into Knitwit’s app, and follow the steps on the site.
This app will let you crop the image, set the colors you want to see in your final chart, set the width (in terms of stitch count) for the chart and it even accounts for your gauge.
So you can take this…
and turn it into this. It takes less than a minute.
Now there are other apps and websites that offer to turn images into charts but I find Knitwits to be the best. Not only does it let you crop and adjust the size of your chart, but it lets you flip individual stitches in the chart. Just click any box and flip through the colors. So you can fine tune your color chart before you save/download/print it. That’s a very handy feature, especially when you are working with a photograph of an actual object (and not a silly superhero logo).
And here is the Cowardly Boy Cat in a knit chart.
Pretty amazing right? Right. I do love this program. It goes in the Stuff Jenn Likes pile. But I’m not knitting my cat’s face. Nope. There is less chance of me knitting my cat then there is of me going to see that Ant Man movie.
Need some more encouragement to take on an intarsia project (that will cost you some sanity)? I thought you might.
Enjoy!
"There is no failure. Only feedback." - Robert Allen
9 Comments on "From Image to Intarsia With a Few Clicks"
Don’t worry, I won’t get sucked in! I’m not the biggest fan of intarsia. I knitted an awesome face warmer for my husband last year, & had to grit my teeth to finish it. But I’m told that colorwork in the round is fun, so I’m going to try that!
Here’s my project: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/Laurpud/the-skullkerchief
Colorwork in the round is less of a hassle that is for certain. I applaud you for your abstinence! Don’t think about all the decorative washcloths or sweater panel inserts or baby blankets you could make with a digital picture. And don’t think about how intarsia is great for using up half-balls from the yarn stash.
I’m certainly not.
Can’t wait to see your knit version of cowardly boy cat. You know you’re gonna do it!
Nope. I’m strong! I’m also buried in other knitting I’ve promised to do.
But he would make a wonderful blanket right? A kitty blanket of him for him. And what a waste of time! A complicated inatrsia knit that you make for a cat to lay on and shed all over.
Nope. I’m not even thinking about it.
You find such cool stuff to share. Thanks
Anytime! I’m happy to enable.
OK, I followed the link and read the instructions. I says, “To make a knitting pattern, upload an image from your computer…” Upload to what? I can’t find any reference to a URL for uploading.
[…] In recent years, something I’ve taken an interest in is designing my own patterns. The first of these that I’ve gotten around to testing is my Heartagram chart, and I’m so pleased with how it turned out. But making a pattern, or transferring something into a pattern, can be difficult and time-consuming. I was stumbling around the reader taking a mental break from calculus when I stumbled across the post Turning Any Image to Intarsia With a Few Clicks. […]