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Workshop descriptions:
Beyond Basic Buttons…And Other Excuses for Playing With Yarn
Beyond the Pattern: Knitting "Purls" of Wisdom
Bridging the Gap: Knit Weaving
Color Rhythms: Kids Play for Grown-Ups
Crayon Box Jacket
Day with a Designer
Design in a Day
Deliberate Drops: The Benefits of Those Oops! Dropped Stitches
Delicious Soul Food for Knitters: The Coloratura Jacket
Eight Empowering Edges
The Joy of Finishing
Madly Plaid Vest
Neckline Love
Pocket Possibilities—Before, During and After
Savvy Solutions
Stashology 201
Steeks to the Rescue
Summer Hours Jacket
Yarn Personalities, Pairing and Substitutions
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Fine Print:
Costs include fee and travel expenses plus any material or pattern fees. A two-day minimum is preferred. Fees and references will be provided upon request. Great fun and ideas guaranteed.
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Beyond Basic Buttons…and Other Excuses for Playing with Yarn
Can’t find the perfect buttons? Great! Come play with yarn and discover there are many different types of buttons and closures you can create yourself for that perfect finishing touch. Covered, woven, balled, fringed, finger-cording knots and swirls—explore them all, plus half a dozen unexpected closure options. You’ll even learn to rethink how and when to use basic buttons. Bring your sense of adventure.
Beyond the Pattern: Knitting “Purls" of Wisdom
Long before "cast on" and even after "sew seams," there are numerous details, tricks and techniques that can make knitting easier and look better that are never spelled out in a pattern. These are a dozen of my most essential "purls" of wisdom for knitting success—from winding a pull skein by hand to wearing the garment out the door. Each nugget of information can make knitting more enjoyable for you, with more professional results.
Bridging the Gap: Knit Weaving
Explore combining basic knitting and dropped stitches with the wonderful fibers and textures of novelty yarns, ribbons and more to create fabulous—and easy—wearable art and home décor. Adapt an existing pattern or create without—you are the designer!
Color Rhythms: Kids Play for Grown-Ups
Lots of yarn but not much of any one thing...sound familiar? Not a problem, in fact an opportunity. Learn some of the basics of Mother Nature's Fibonacci or Lucas rhythms in this hands-on exercise that's as much fun as finger painting without the mess. Gain insight and confidence in your ability to combine fibers, colors, and variegated yarns as we explore a myriad of rolling, random and natural eye-pleasing rhythms and repeats. Your inner child will have great fun!
Crayon Box Jacket
Learn how to knit a one-of-a-kind designer jacket in an endless combination of colors, fibers and textures. The ability to decrease and pickup stitches and a sense of adventure are the only requirements. The entire body is knit a square at a time but without any seams. The class includes sizing, choosing colors, the dos and don’ts of combining textures and fibers, style options, finishing tricks, care and more.
Day with a Designer
Spend the day with Chris Bylsma, an unconventional and creative yet practical designer, who has honed her skills through 'experience'(compared to being an 'expert'). Get help choosing, starting, understanding or completing your project. Deal with sizing, shape or gauge questions. How do you get rid of that annoying loose stitch on the edge? Can the neckline be changed? How? Ask any and every burning question you have. Learn all the secrets of the (knitting) world that can make your knitting projects more enjoyable and successful. Laughter, tears and revelations included.
Design in a Day
Want to turn that idea floating around in your head into a functional pattern with stitches on your needle by the end of the day? Or maybe you just wish you could change the neckline or sizing or… You CAN do it! Learn the practical, perhaps unconventional, ways to demystify gauge, sizing, style, measurements, swatch and yarn choice. The result is a personalized pattern for you and a new sense of empowerment. Whether you are adventurous or never ventured from a pattern before, learn to take control of your knitting.
Deliberate Drops: The Benefits of Those Oops! Dropped Stitches
Dropped stitches can be a wonderful asset, not a liability, in your knitting. This class will explore how to incorporate dropped stitches in traditional designs and how to rewrite patterns accordingly. We will also explore combining a wide mix of fibers, textures, novelty yarns and colors with dropped stitches to create fabulous artwear projects that will excite beginner and experienced knitters alike.
Delicious Soul Food for Knitters: The Coloratura Jacket
Learn the thrill of combining colors, gauges and fibers to create something completely new as you choose yarns for your own designer Coloratura Jacket, created in panels of varying yarn pairs. An ample yarn supply in class will allow you to choose your own colors. Then sample all your yarn pairing choices, learn how to determine your measurements and jacket size, make modifications to customize the pattern to you and practice the seaming that adds the finesse to the finished jacket.
Eight Empowering Edges
Ribbing and garter stitch edges are usually reliable choices for edges, but not all edges are equal. Learn eight hard-working edges (and maybe a few more) that empower you as a knitter to create beautiful, professional details, provide the control needed for various edges and give you the option of making your own design decisions in a project. Add these trusted friends of mine to your bag of tricks for future projects or even to solve an existing problem.
The Joy of Finishing
Ok, it may not be a sexy subject, but knowing the secrets of finishing can be pretty exciting and downright empowering. Learn the joy of sleek shoulder lines, invisible seams, picking up the perfect number of stitches without counting, beautiful buttonholes, “shortening” sleeves, taming sleeveless armholes and other touches. It it’s worth knitting, it’s worth finishing beautifully—and easily.
Madly Plaid Vest
Colorful yarns that stripe offer a wonderful opportunity—and challenge—to make the most of the striping and try your hand at several fun techniques at the same time. We will create bear-size vests in class (won’t they be well dressed) with a crochet cast on, shaped points, and plaid without carrying colors, while knitting the whole vest in a tube to the shoulders. We’ll finish with a never-fail, no-machine steek for neck and armholes and I-cord bind-off for the edges. A great learning experience—and great results!
Neckline Love
You love the sweater, but not the neckline. So change it! Learn to design your own crew, funnel, V-neck, scoop or any shape neckline, in any gauge, that fits YOU. Finish it with perfect picked-up edges for flawless necklines you will absolutely love, love, love.
Pocket Possibilities—Before, During and After
Knitted-in pockets are so convenient, beautiful and yes, easy! Learn where to place pockets and how to determine the correct size for you as we explore several patch, slit and slash pockets that can be added at any stage in the knitting, even after the garment is done. Then add the secrets to linings, edgings and avoiding sagging and “grinning” pockets for your own pocket perfection.
Savvy Solutions
We all have one…the dream sweater that turned into a dud. Bring your garment that’s too big/small/short/long, short of yarn or suffering from some other malady. Learn to assess the problem and determine the appropriate solution. In addition to learning some quick and easy remedies to control those annoying rolling edges or a sagging neckline, we’ll practice techniques for some more major, but masterful solutions to give your garments new life.
Stashology 201
Stashers Unite! An “adequate supply of yarn” is nothing to be ashamed of —it’s a true art and science. You already understand “archiving” (Stash 101), now explore “retrieving,” “feeding” and “creating” from your wonderful treasure trove. Learn to release your own creative powers to combine fibers, textures, colors, and varying weights to create many different types of “stash fabric.” Explore how to use your stash fabric to turn the ordinary into extraordinary as you choose and begin the garment of your choice. Recommended for stashers of all quantity levels.
Steeks to the Rescue
Knitters often think scissors are the enemy of yarn, but actually they are the great enablers. Learn three different non-machine ways to anchor and cut your knitting (yes!) to change a pullover to a cardigan, shape a neckline, re-size a garment, add armholes and put you in charge.
Summer Hours Jacket
The Summer Hours Jacket is a tour de force of cables, textures, shaping, dropped stitches and details, details, details. Each piece even has different combinations of patterns. Learn the construction of each piece, reading and compiling the charts, custom sizing, working with dropped stitches, finishing details and many secrets along the way as you create a fabulous jacket of your own.
Yarn Personalities, Pairing and Substitutions
So much wonderful yarn, so little time…. How do you choose? Wisely. Ever substitute a yarn in a pattern and wonder why you had a disaster on your hands? Learn how fiber content, ply, construction, weight and yardage determine a yarns behavior and when you can—and can’t—make substitutions. Explore the rules of pairing yarns to improve behavior, change gauge, stretch yardage and create fascinating combinations with an endless range of design options. Plenty of opportunity for hands-on playing.
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