Spooky season is upon us! Whether you live that #Halloween life all year round or are just looking to challenge yourself with a new skill, the beautiful stranded colourwork of the Initiation Cowl is sure to send a seasonally-appropriate chill down your spine! In this class we’ll take your established knitting skills to the next level as we learn how to juggle multiple strands of yarn.
Required Skills:
- Casting on, binding off, weaving in ends
- Knitting, purling, switching between knits and purls (aka ribbing or seed stitch, etc.)
- Comfortable knitting in the round on a circular needle (aka can put down and pick up project without reversing direction)
- Previous crochet skills are not required (but they will make the cast on easier!)
You will learn about:
- how to choose colours for vibrant stranded knitting
- the crocheted provisional cast on
- colour dominance in stranded knitting
- how to hold your yarn for stranded knitting (throwing, continental, and two-handed)
- how to catch your floats
- fixing basic stranded colourwork mistakes, adding a lifeline
- how to read a chart
- wet blocking
- grafting live stitches together and the three-needle bind off
You will need:
- Yarn:
- Small: 255 yds/233m of DK or Sport weight yarn EACH in Main Colour (MC) and Contrast Colour (CC), wound and ready to knit before class
- Medium: 390 yds/357m of DK or Sport weight yarn EACH in Main Colour (MC) and Contrast Colour (CC), wound and ready to knit before class
- Our sample is the Small size knit from Tosh Woolcycle Sport in the colourways Dubrovnik (MC) and Glazed Pecan (CC) (1 skein each)
- Colour:
- We will talk about picking colours for stranded colourwork in the first lesson. In the meantime, if you’re feeling nervous about colour choice we recommend checking out this clever blog post from TinCanKnits (especially the part about value!)
- Needles:
- Small: two pairs of 3.75 mm (US 5) 16” (40cm) circular needles.
- Medium: two pairs of 3.75 mm (US 5) 24” (60cm) circular needles.
- If using Sport, consider going down to 3.5 mm (US 4)
- The second needle is used for grafting at the end of the project. If you don’t want to purchase two needles of the same size, you can get away with the second needle being one size up or down.
- Notions:
- At least one stitch marker that will sit comfortably on your needle (optional: 20-25 extra markers in a different colour if you would like to use stitch markers to keep track of your pattern repeats)
- Darning needle
- Crochet hook (3.5-5 mm) for the provisional cast on
- Scrap yarn for the provisional cast on (we recommend a smooth yarn like cotton in a contrast colour)
- Pattern:
- A copy of the pattern, available for purchase through Ravelry.
A list of our class policies can be found here.
Minimum registration is 3. Maximum is 6.
This class is being taught by: Emily
Emily loves anything and everything knitting! She is so excited to help you face your next great knitting challenge!