Classes

As we had our adventurous knits last week, today is a good time to strike some balance and have a little peek at two of our favourite Beginner Knitting patterns. You may be a regular reader of our blog, or you might just have stumbled upon this post when searching for a somewhere to start on your knitting journey.  Either...

As the winds pick up and the leaves start to turn, we find ourselves being drawn more and more to textured knits. Airy lace is being left behind for the simple comforts of garter stitch and cables are creeping in, overtaking smooth stockinette. If you too would like to incorporate more unique textures in to your projects this winter, then...

The word Brioche may get you craving the warm, fluffy, diet-crushing French bread, but today we're referring to a considerably less guilty indulgence (which is also quite fluffy in it's own way): the Brioche knit stitch. A textured stitch pattern that creates a voluminous fabric with a ribbed look, with just as much elasticity as a traditional 1x1 rib. Brioche...

We're thrilled to announce our next workshop, coming up next month. Elanor King will be here for the morning of Saturday 8th August, teaching us her amazing techniques for embellishing our knits. Elanor, who is catchloops on Ravelry, is an Irish designer based in London. With an engineering background and an artist's eye, she produces beautiful things using fun decorations...

What's that in the background there, behind the tissue paper pompom? It's the newest edition to our garment display in the shop: Jacqui's Lush cardigan (boy, she's a fast knitter)! Lush is Tin Can Knit's beautiful design, and it's the pattern Emily Wessel will be using for her cardigan workshop at the end of June. (There's still places left for...

If a small someone in your life needs a bear (or if you need one yourself!), we can help. These two characters are the project for Colette's two-session Toy Knitting class which we recently started offering. On the way to having your own wee bear, you learn useful toy-making skills: increasing and decreasing for little arms and legs, embroidering those...

It's the time of year when taking up a new skill or perfecting an old one comes to mind, so this month we're concentrating on equipping you with the best possible expertise! We've revampled our schedule a bit this autumn. In addition to our very popular beginners' courses, we're offering a Level 2 course both for knitting and for crochet,...

Last Saturday's Shawl Design workshop with Ysolda was a huge success, we're happy to report - we were very sorry to let her go! But we've perked right up, because there's another exciting visitor on the horizon: in July, Woolly Wormhead is coming back to give us her Hat Design workshop. We've had the privilege of hosting this class before,...

Saturday 15th February is going to be rather exciting at This Is Knit. We're very happy to announce that Carol Feller will be teaching two workshops with us that day! In the morning, she's offering her Sweater Surgery class. Imagine if you were able to fix the parts of a project that didn't come out exactly as you wanted (and...

With the Yarn Tasting over, the shop stuffed with Autumn/Winter stock and with winter opening on Sundays starting this week, we've got an exciting range of classes coming up over the next few weeks. You can see the full range on our booking page at this link. Fancy learning how very easy socks are? Then our two-session sock knitting class...

We've talked here before about the fun of diverging a little from the written pattern, and of the loveliness that can result. Well, here's another example. This is an Ashton Shawlette - a pattern by Irish designer Dee O'Keefe and a free download on Ravelry. Our version has a little variation, and we love it as much as the beautiful...

What a snug little centre that crochet circle has! It's far tighter than you could ever get by making the familiar few chain and slipstitching to the first of them, and sometimes you want the gap in the middle of your circle or square just to disappear. It's called a Magic Circle, and here's how you do it. As well...

We've had this beautiful shawl on display in the shop for a little while, and it's attracting a huge amount of admiration. It's AoibheNí's Bel, the final shawl in her Legendary Shawls series (our Crochet-A-Long pattern, Venus, came from there too). Made with her signature Tunisian lace crochet technique, it's clever and charming. The yarn's Coolree Yarns Alpaca/Silk/Cashmere 4-ply, and...

Spring officially started on Friday last, and it's really beginning to feel like it. There's light in the sky after five, there's daffodil leaves poking insistently up from the soil, and we're starting to think of new season colours and yarns. So the timing of yesterday's delivery from Hedgehog Fibres couldn't have been better timed. It was a big box...

One of the best things about the Autumn/Winter season here at This Is Knit is discovering how well the new yarns work with well-loved existing patterns. So imagine how delighted we were to make this connection: our Glenties möbius cowl and brand-new Mirasol Api. We've added a few stitches to the pattern (it's free with the purchase of the yarn)...

Are you passionate about fibre crafts and enthusiastic about sharing your skills with others? Here at This is Knit we're on the lookout for new teachers and workshop leaders to host classes with us this coming Autumn/Winter. If you'd like to join us then please contact us with the following details: Which crafts would you like to teach? How would...

On Saturday, the most charming testimonial was delivered to the shop. It's in the picture above - a crocheted postcard from a recent attendee at the Beginners' Crochet course. It made our day. It was also really fortuitous, because we were just about to announce the class schedule for November and December. The full schedule is now up on the...

The September/October class schedule has been announced, so we thought we'd talk about some of the skills we're offering. We've got new shiny things! One addition is the new booking system, which has been in operation for a while but which hasn't been mentioned here yet. All our classes and events are now bookable online at this link. You can...