Colour Knitting Workshop with Sue Grandfield

We are very excited that we are going to be hosting the talented Sue Grandfield for a two-day colour knitting workshop in Melbourne on Saturday 29^th and Sunday 30^th of June! Sue is an expert colour knitter, with her own designs on Ravelry, where she is known as RiotousAssembly. Just take a look at these examples from Sue’s Ravelry page – aren’t they incredible?!

You can learn all sorts of colour knitting techniques in this workshop including slip stitch colourwork, “faux isle” mosaic, colour stacking and pooling as well as Fair Isle, intarsia and duplicate stitch. Not only that, you will learn how to use colour picking tools and charts and other ways to arrive at stunning combinations!

Learning these things will set you up for life when it comes to colour knitting, but you’ll also have the immediate satisfaction of creating your own hat, like these:

 

The workshop costs $240, and for that you get tuition between 10:30am and 4pm both days, yarn, notes, knitting graph paper and lunch is even included! You will need to have some experience in knitting, and knowing how to knit in the round is desirable (though not a prerequisite).

You can book in online or in store, though be quick – there are a limited number of spaces and some are already filled!

Lastly, we encourage you to visit Sue’s blog – she has some really interesting posts. Her blog post from yesterday (June 5^th) includes a picture of 17 of our colours of Morris Maya baby alpaca wool in an attractive arrangement, ready for colourwork!

A Whole Spectrum of Possibilities

What’s the colour red to you? Is it anger, passion, danger, excitement, love or something different again?

Colour goes beyond just what we see to being something that can evoke emotion. Colour can take a drab scene and turn it into something stunning. So it’s quite natural that colour knitting can produce beautiful results – like this gorgeous jumper from the most recent Rowan magazine:

If you want to learn or expand your colour knitting skills, it helps to have a good guide. Color Knitting the Easy Way and Mastering Color Knitting by Melissa Leapman are fantastic for getting into colour knitting and will see you reach a stage where you’re confident in many colour knitting techniques.

These books not only teach you how to colour knit, but include projects based on the techniques in the book that you’ll actually want to knit! They also include sections on design and explain how theory about colour itself applies to knitting; helping you to chose yarn colour combinations that will look great knitted up!

More than that, the books include pattern treasuries of stitches, patterns and motifs that form a useful resource to apply to your pattern of choice.

Color Knitting the Easy Way

With everything you need to know to get started, this book is perfect for knitters who want to make a break into colour knitting. In addition to the content mentioned above, it also features a handy glossary of chart symbols and many different stitches that reinvent the humble stripe. Who knew stripes could look so complex and impressive and yet be so easy to knit?

 

Mastering Color Knitting

This book takes colour knitting to the next level. Fair Isle, intarsia, knitting using the double knitting technique that gives you a double sided stocking stitch, 100% reversible result… There’s nothing you won’t be able to tackle after going through this book!

The best part? You can pick up this book and your needles and get to work without having gone through the other one; the instructions are nice and clear. Saying that, there are a lot of helpful tips and techniques in Color Knitting the Easy Way that will come in handy regardless of which book’s projects you’re working on!

 

The last thing to mention is to do with an essential part of colour knitting: colourful yarn! These are just some of our 57 colours of Morris Estate 8 ply, which is 100% Australian wool. It’s great for colour knitting, and you’re sure to find the perfect colour combination you’re looking for.