Intarsia is generally considered to be more difficult than stranded knitting, but once you get the basics down, a lot of knitters find this technique to be more fun. That's because intarsia is picture knitting on a much bigger scale than is possible with stranded knitting; you can make big blocks of color to make a face, an animal, a monogram or just about anything else you can dream up.

Intarsia is the method to use if you want to knit blocks of color. © Sarah E. White.

Intarsia is a knitting method by which each block of color is worked with a different strand of yarn. That means no strands running across the back of the work to make it tight (yeah!) but it also means lots of ends to weave in (boo!). There are no limits on the number of stitches you can work in a particular color as there traditionally are in stranded knitting, because you're working with a different yarn each time. This is the anything goes style of color knitting!

The one thing you really need to remember when knitting intarsia is to twist the yarns when you change colors. There's nothing to "link" the two colors together if you don't do this. Without a twist you're just knitting a bunch of different pieces of knitting on the same needle at the same time.

Do you love intarsia? Or are you a Fair Isle fan? I'd love to hear which technique is your favorite and why.

One problem I have pretty much constantly is that I have way too many needles -- particularly double-points and circulars -- and I have yet to come up with a good way to store and organize them. Right now I have a whole filing cabinet drawer dedicated to needles and crochet hooks, and it's a perpetual mess. In addition to that, there's a basket on my desk that has all the random DPNs I've found here and there (my daughter loves to play with them) that have yet to make it back to the drawer.

The Crafter's Tool Butler by Jordana Paige. Photo © Sarah E. White.

I have a needle roll, but I'm really bad about not putting things away after I use them. So my storage solution really needs to include someone who will put things back where they go when I'm done!

Unfortunately, the Crafter's Tool Butler by Jordana Paige is not a real butler; it can't help me with my picking-up issues. But it is a big, roomy storage pouch with room for a bunch of DPNs, circulars and other knitting tools. (There's no such tool that's big enough for my whole stash, but for a normal knitter this would probably provide plenty of storage space.)

It has six flat pockets for DPNs and four zippered mesh pockets for circulars, which also have spots for labels so you don't have to dig into the pouches to see what's in there. There's also a needle inventory so you'll know exactly what you stored inside.

I think this bag is probably too big for most people to want to carry around with them, but as a storage solution that gets a lot of needles into a compact space, it's a great choice.

I don't know how many of you out there are designers, but here's an opportunity to show off your designs on a small scale for a chance to win yarn.

Juniper Moon Farm is hosting a design contest that requires participants to make an original project using either one or two balls of the company's Willa or Chadwick yarns. (One is a wool-alpaca blend, the other a wool-mohair.)

Participants need to enter their designs in the Ravelry database and send the completed project and written pattern to Juniper Moon by March 1. The folks at Juniper Moon will choose their four favorite designs in each yarn, then the public will be invited to vote on the winners. The designs from each yarn with the most votes will receive $300 of Juniper Moon Farm (second will get $200, third $100 and fourth $50 of yarn). The winning designs will become property of Knitting Fever and may be used in future projects.

If anyone here enters this contest, I'd love to hear about what you made! Or, if you have entered design contests in the past, I'd love to hear about your experience.

This yarn pretty much has nothing to do with color knitting, though the colors are all pretty natural and harmonious in this line, so you could certainly do color knitting with it. Knit Picks Andes del Campo is a 100 percent wool in an aran/heavy worsted weight that has a cool tweedy effect for subtle coloration even in a solid color project.

Subtle coloring in the yarn makes this one fun to look at and to knit with. © Sarah E. White.

This yarn is exactly what you'd want to be knitting with and wearing on a cold winter's day (and we're having a cold week where I live, so I'm kind of wishing I had more than one skein of it!). Knit Picks describes it as rustic, and I do, too; the stitches are slightly imperfect, but the yarn is also super-soft and lofty, making it a great choice for a simple, slouchy boyfriend sweater or a more structured cabled number.

Given that I only have a little bit, I'm sure it would be great for mitts, mittens or a warm and cozy hat, too. But that doesn't mean I don't want to explore this one in a sweater some day!