Tag Archives: knitting class

Steeks, log cabin knitting, and a tidy bind off

Collage of me and my Log Cabin Love steeked coasters

I’m very pleased to be teaching my second class with Modern Daily Knitting in January. It’s a workshop on cutting your first steek! We’ll be using my Log Cabin Love Coasters pattern, which also features a log cabin knitting border. That’s peak MDK. The virtual class is on Friday January 16. It will be on Zoom, and also recorded. You can register here.

While working on my log cabin edges, I’ve been annoyed by the loose stitch at the end of my bind off. It doesn’t matter in the middle of a project, because I’ll be picking up stitches all the way around the edge, but at some point there will be an outside edge that lets that loose stitch show.

I went poking around on the interwebs, and found a great tutorial by Patty Lyons on the Modern Daily Knitting site. She demonstrates five methods; some of them take pre-planning. All of them are shown with stockinette stitch, and they look great.

My favorite is the one that takes the least planning and effort. Yep, that’s me; git ‘er done. It does show a little bit more in garter stitch knitting, but I think I prefer that to having a loose stitch on the outside edge. I made a video for my log cabin knitting classes.

What do you think? Does that little blip bother you, or does the burble in the garter stitch bother you more? Knitter’s choice! I haven’t found a perfect solution, but this is good enough for me. For now. And I’ll definitely be using it for stockinette stitch.

Do you have a better way? I’d love to know that, too!

Log Cabin Knitting class giveaway

Log cabin knitting samples

I’m teaching Log Cabin Knitting for Vogue Knitting Online on Saturday April 26. And I’m giving away one seat in this virtual class!

Log Cabin Knitting blanket

Log cabin blocks are made with oodles and oodles of simple garter stitch. Sometimes you just need something soothing to knit. In this class, you’ll learn how to pick up stitches, and how to shape your blocks. A little simple garter stitch math, and you can make it work for whatever size you want.

Cherry Blossom Wrapture shawl featuring log cabin knitting
Cherry Blossom Wrapture

And you’ll be ready to take log cabin knitting to even more fun heights.

Sign up for the class at VogueKnittingLive.com and/or enter to win a seat in this class by leaving a comment on this blog post telling me that you want to WIN! I’ll choose a winner on April 14. Good luck!

Brioche Beginnings with Modern Daily Knitting

I’m extremely pleased to announce that I’ll be teaching an online class for Modern Daily Knitting. I’ll be using my Brioche Pastiche pattern to introduce knitters to 2 color brioche rib, and increases and decreases that create beautiful brioche patterning.

Screenshot from Modern Daily Knitting Website
Screenshot from Modern Daily Knitting website

The live class will be Friday April 25. It also will be recorded, so you’re covered if you can’t make it on that date. You can also just play it again and again after class if you miss hearing my dulcet tones.

A brioche knit hat and cowl in shades of blue

You can sign up for just the class, or include an optional pack of Modern Daily Knitting’s Atlas yarn, which is a lovely and squishable Rambouillet. Register here!

Brioche is my favorite kind of knitting, as you probably know. I love teaching it, designing with it, and playing with it. And I wrote a book about it! Brioche Knit Love: 22 Skill Building Projects from Simple to Sublime. It’s a teaching book, and it has related videos.

Do you knit brioche? Are you brioche-curious?

Eastern Uncrossed Brioche

I had a busy weekend teaching for Vogue Knitting Online. Sunday’s Brioche Pastiche class was particularly interesting from a teacher’s standpoint. Brioche Pastiche is a choose your own adventure pattern, good for brioche beginners and those ready for learning increases and decreases.

Brioche Pastiche options

Several of my students had tried brioche before, and wanted to review and move forward. Two had taken classes with me before. I teach brioche with conventionally mounted stitches (right leg in front), either English (right hand throw) or Continental (left hand carry, pick or throw), but the stitch mount is the same. Right leg forward.

Last February I had a student who knit using the Eastern Uncrossed style, where all stitches and yarn overs are left leg forward. I made a video for her, because it’s so different from what I usually teach.

That same student came to yesterday’s class to move forward with increases and decreases, so I had to learn that on the fly. I made a video after class, and here it is.

If you don’t knit Eastern Uncrossed, you probably don’t want to watch it because it will confuse you. But it does show that I’m dedicated to making sure my students get what they need!

How was your weekend?

Orenburg Lace class at Black Sheep Gathering

I took a little road trip down to Albany, Oregon on Saturday to visit Black Sheep Gathering. This year is the 50th year of this fiber festival, but it was my first time ever. I wanted to take a class with Galina Khmeleva, master lace knitter. We’ve been at many of the same festivals, but I’m usually teaching instead of taking classes. This was my chance!

Orenburg lace is knit with 10 different motifs, combined in many ways. It’s usually on a garter stitch background. Some motifs have patterning only on the right side rows, and some have patterning on both right and wrong side rows. All the stitches are either knit, yo, k2tog, or k3tog. There’s no directionality to the decreases; the work is so fine that it really doesn’t show.

We didn’t have time to knit through all the motifs, but the magic is really in the combining. We knit our swatch samplers with Jaggerspun Zephyr, a laceweight blend of wool and silk, 1120 yards/100g. Skinny, but not hard to knit with. I knit my swatch on US 2 needles, and I loved the stitch definition.

Handouts!

Galina gave us enough handouts to keep us busy for years to come. And she regaled us with many stories of the history of Orenburg lace, and more.

Orenburg shawl

Gossamer web, indeed!

Orenburg warm shawl

The Warm Shawl is a heavier version of Orenburg lace. Simpler patterning, but it’s not really that heavy, either. It’s knit in pieces and grafted together with a special grafting method, which was the subject of the next day’s class. Alas, I was not staying over.

I did visit with the sheep in the barn, and also viewed the fiber work exhibits.

Sorpresa, a Valais Blacknose sheep

Look at this beautiful wool! This is Sorpresa, a Valais Blacknose sheep from Honey Hoof Ranch.

Even horns are beautiful.

There was a sheep to shawl exhibit from 9 am to 2 pm.

Carding, spinning, plying
Weaving!

And the fiber work exhibits were beautiful.

This shawl by Lucy Swift was my favorite piece in the exhibits.

All right, back to knitting! I’m knitting another sample of the leafy brioche cowl now that I have it figured out. I need to decide if I want to publish an assigned pooling/algorithmic knitting version in addition to the regular one. More on that later…