New Classes

I've got a couple of classes coming up at Lincoln Land Community College here in Springfield in case you're in the area and interested.

The first one coming up on October 18th is Knitting Jewelry with Jewelry Wire and Beads (click on the Lincoln Land link above, choose Fall 2008 Community Learning Schedule and then go to page 10 of the booklet). We'll be making a bracelet or necklace fob with, as it says, jewelry wire and beads. It's a great technique for quick, unique Christmas gifts. I'll post some sample tonight so you can see the sorts of things you can do with this simple technique. The great thing is that you only use the knit stitch so I've even had people who've never knitted before finish a project during the class.

The second class is 3 Saturday mornings of Beginning Lace (page 11 of the booklet). The first class is November 8th and then we'll also meet for the next 2 Saturday mornings. The project is going to be a sampler lace scarf which will give you the chance to try out a few different lace patterns, getting used to working both from charts and from written directions. We'll also talk a bit about the special characteristics and techniques of knitting lace and take a bit of the mystery and intimidation out of it.

The Springfield Flock Fiber Arts Guild will also be doing a beginning knitting class this fall so you might want to check that out. The project will be a teddy bear-size sweater introducing the knit and purl stitches, increasing and decreasing and casting on and binding off. They're working from my curriculum so I'm quite excited to see how it goes. That will be 3 sessions starting September 27th. The sweater really will be doable for everyone and can be finished by the end of the class. It was originally set for a 4-session class but I'm still confident it can be done in this time. It's also a great chance for beginner knitters to take the step from basic projects to learning the techniques and steps to knitting a sweater. Everything you learn can be translated into making any size sweater. The Guild has deemed this the year of the sweater and challenged Guild members to make at least 1 sweater this year so this seemed to fit right in.