I have two exciting announcements and I don’t know which is more so — but an announcement about workshops is more time-sensitive so I’ll put it in first.
As the last post about workshops ended with March 7th, it’s about time I updated the list. So, without further ado, here it is:
Saturday, March 13th, Sunday, March 14th and Saturday, March 20th, 3-5pm: Stitches at Home: Design your own Double-knit Hat (3 2-hour sessions) (yes, this starts tomorrow so get in now if you want to!)
BuildingBlox workshops (3 hr sessions)
Saturday, April 17th, 10am-5pm: Double-knitting Entrelac
Saturday, April 24th, 1-4pm: Marling with Double-knitting
Sunday, April 25th, 2-5pm: Intro to Double-knitting
Virtual Knitting Live (2 hr sessions)
Thursday, March 18th, 7-9pm: Intro to Double-knitting
Friday, March 19th, 7-9pm: Multi-color Double-knitting
Saturday, March 20th, 7-9pm: Intro to Double-knitting
Sunday, March 21st, 2-4pm: Two-pattern Double-knitting
Presentations
Friday, March 19th, 4:30pm: Swatch What Happens Live at VKL with Lucy Neatby and Josh Bennett!
Tuesday, April 6th, 7pm: London (Ontario) District Weavers & Spinners Guild
Wednesday, April 14th, 8pm: Fox Valley Knitters Guild
A few items of note:
Double-knitting Entrelac is the highly-sought-after 2-session workshop that I almost never get to teach. This will be my first time teaching it in the virtual environment, so I hope it’ll be a success.
Marling with Double-knitting is a brand-new workshop which I have taught for Stitches but never to “my own” audience. It’s an intermediate-level workshop which is easily done having only taken the intro class.
Patrons of the Extreme tier of my Patreon now get their choice of one BuildingBlox workshop per month (alongside all the other perks), so keep that in mind if you’re interested in taking a number of my workshops!
Now, to the patterns!
By a coincidence, both of these patterns are based on the classic Falling Blocks hat from 2010. One is a pattern I designed in 2013 for the Willow Colorwork Club; the other is a new design which is a simpler rendition of that pattern. They are both “new” (in quotes) because one was previously available through Willow Yarns but I have reformatted and updated the pattern slightly; the other is merely a derivative pattern of an even older one.
Falling Blocks Redux simplifies the two patterns of the Falling Blocks hat to two colors rather than three. It occurred to me, while I was doing a workshop on two-pattern double-knitting, that all of the samples I had to show in two colors used lettering to show off the two-pattern properties of the fabric. I have three-color patterns that use two-pattern concepts for more complex patterning, but not in two colors. So Falling Blocks Redux fills a gap in the world of two-pattern projects — and is a great place to start for people who loved the Falling Blocks hat but didn’t want to deal with three colors. The crown on this is just stunning, so have a look at its pattern page on my website. Thank you to Holli Rossum for knitting up the sample!
Shadow Boxes further simplifies the tumbling blocks pattern; there is no second pattern on the other layer — it’s just standard double-knitting — and I’ve removed every other diagonal strip of cubes to create this shadow effect. Due to Covid and the shortage of available models, I’m making a rare selfie appearance in this pattern. Thanks to Denise Palmer for knitting up the sample!
Stay tuned for more news soon!