I-gyle, U-gyle, we all Gyle for Argyle

My sister wanted an I-pod cozy for her birthday, so I knit her one.  I figured, why not make a sweater-vest for the thing, and while I'm at it, I can practice some fun techniques in a smaller scale.  So, I designed and knit her I-pod an Argyle sweater vest.

For those who don't knit, or haven't used intarsia in their knitting, I'll get a litle explainy, but I'll try not to get too carried away in the little details.  For intarsia (that being the technique used to work argyle), you have a separate bit of yarn for each section of colour in the pattern as you work across it.  Each time you get to a new colour, you drop it (having twisted it with the next colour), and pick up the next colour.

Now, there were a few ways to approach this vest.  For one, you can ignore the thin little diamond-forming stripes until after the fact and embroider them on afterward using duplicate-stitch embroidery.  I ended up choosing another, rather labour-intensive version.  I decided, just for a lark, and since it was in such a small scale and therefore quicker and easier (right?), to do it all at once in knitting, and to work every section including those wee stripes with separate bits of yarn.  I knew there would be a few more ends to work in this way, but it couldn't be that much more work, could it?

I neglected to consider two things:

1. Just because the scale is smaller, doesn't mean there will be less ends to weave in afterward.  For instance, if I made a full-size sweater, but it had the same number of diamonds in it, it would have the same number of ends to weave in.

2. There were not just a few more ends to weave in.  There were lots and lots more.

Just to give you a clear notion of just how many more ends, I will tell you the difference right here.  Option A, With Duplicate Stitching, would have given me about 58 ends to weave in.  Option B, A Call to Madness, gave me about 128 ends to weave in, and made the project look like a jellyfish in the meantime.

This took very little time to knit, and a very, very long time to finish.

Inside

Outside

Next to all the trimmings from the ends.

Next time I step within range of an argyle project, I will remember that duplicate stitch embroidery is my friend.