My first intarsia sweater! The intarsia wasn’t actually that hard. It was stranding the Pokemon logo at the bottom that just about did me in! I can see why most fair isle sweaters are knit in the round.
<li>Knit with elann's Peruvian Highland wool (worsted weight, 100m per ball):

<li>6 balls 9165 Teal (main part of sweater)

<li>1 ball 7727 Daffodil (Pikachu)

<li>1 ball 0500 Black (trim, logo and outline)

<li>1 ball 7725 Freesia (logo)

<li>scraps of red, white, brown for cheeks, eyes & tail stripe

<li>Used 4.5 mm needles for a gauge of 19 sts/4”. Could have made the gauge even tighter, in my opinion - the sweater is quite light at this gauge. And the yarn pilled like crazy after a couple of wearings!

<li> Stranded the logo, did intarsia for main part of Pikachu, and duplicate stitched much of the detail on afterward (see photo at right to see what I did with intarsia).

<li>Chose a drop sleeve style so I wouldn’t have to worry about armhole shaping while I was still worrying about the intarsia. Also, this way I can turn the sweater into a pillow very easily later, if he doesn’t want to wear the sweater.

<li>Cast on using measurements from my swatch and a machine-made wool sweater that my son already had (73 sts), and then used Ann Budd’s Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns for instructions on neck shaping and sleeves.

<li>Pikachu chart was from knitting-and.com .
<li>Colour inspiration came from this lady's work - I loved the black borders that she did on some of hers, they just frame the sweaters so nicely!

<li>If I did it again, I would add another row of black to the bottom-left of the “M” in the logo, and add a little more black to Pikachu’s left ear. I would also refrain from duplicate stitching any dark colour over the yellow, because the yellow shows through (I did this on the little teal area between Pikachu’s head and tail).

<li>Intarsia really isn’t that hard!

<li>Completed September 2005