My Battle with Intarsia

Intarsia. No, it's not a disease, an eating disorder or a small Eastern European country, it's the lovely colorwork technique which involves using different little "spools" of yarn for each patch of color. I've done some stranded work before which I really enjoy, but have just this week started my first piece that involves intarsia. Let's just say that intarsia was not originally my friend. In fact, first impressions were not very good at all.

The piece is a little giraffe pillow for my newest neighbor, our good friends' first baby. I altered the pattern slightly so I could put his name on it. Anyway, after multiple tries with the first stupid letter (I think I frogged those 9 rows at least 5 times), I had gotten this far:

Unfortunately, due to lack of sleep and the fact I was watching the horribly long, yet surprisingly uneventful, 2nd movie of the Pirates of the Caribbean threesome, I thought that I was doing a good job. But as you can see from the picture, I was NOT.

So I frogged back until all intarsia was removed and started yet again. With much better results.

So happy I took the time to redo. Intarsia and I might be friends yet.