How do you do patterns on round loom knitting?

Q: I’ve just bought a kit with several different sized round looms. They work great and I’ve got the whole knitting thing figured out. But here’s the issue. I’m bored of single colored and striped things. I want to do little patterns like hearts and polka dots and little moose eventually. Is there any possible way to do that? ((Btw, if you could put this in as simple terms as possible, I would be so happy. :] Im still quite new and haven’t gotten the terminology down. Thank you thank you thank you.))

A: What you’re asking for (it’s called “intarsia”) is really beyond the scope of a Knifty Knitter. You’d need either a knitting frame (such as the Incredible Sweater Machine) or to learn how to hand knit. About the closest you can come is a very rudimentary Fair Isle such as this one. I suggest instead that you look into different stitches you can make on a loom. I’ve probably seen about a dozen variations. The standard stitch for a loom is a sort of twisted rib. In order to do intarsia, you’d need first to master a stockinette stitch on the loom. Intarsia in the round is a form of insanity even when hand knit, which is why it is generally done flat and then seamed. So learn to do flat knitting on a circular loom first. Perhaps it’s time to graduate from the loom and learn hand knitting which will give you significantly increased options and techniques, things you can never do on a loom or even on a frame or machine.

It is difficult to work patterns on looms. You can work hearts or polka dots on after finishing the knitting by a method called swiss darning. This is sometimes called duplicate stitch. Google in “swiss darning” and various tutorial sites pop up. Chose the one you find easiest to understand.