Handwork - Darning Your Knits
Learn how to extend the life of your knits with the wonderful Jules of Woollen Flower!
Teacher: Julia Billings
Workshop Duration: Half Day
Description: Through the use of traditional darning methods, you can not only prolong the life of your knits (and wovens) but also reinvigorate them through the addition of colour and texture. In this class, you will learn to darn holes both large and small, using a variety of knitted and woven techniques such as grafting, simple and advanced swiss darning and scotch weaving, as well as also explore ways to fix or replace worn areas, such as elbows, necks or cuffs.
Most of the workshop will be dedicated to practicing on knitted swatches but we will also spend some time looking at damaged pieces in order to assess how to deal with holes and problems in your own well-loved projects. Please feel free to bring in your damaged knits but, please, no items with moth holes!
Materials to bring:
- a stocking stitch swatch measuring approximately 25cm x 25cm. You will need to block your swatch before the class so that it lays flat and is easy to work on. Gauge is not important but Jules would recommend using smooth, light-coloured wool in 8ply or thicker to make it easy to see your stitches.
- a small amount of the same yarn or similar yarn to darn with
- the knitting needles you used to make the swatches
- two double-pointed needles (the same size or smaller)
- a pair of small, sharp scissors
- a blunt-ended wool needle.
Please feel free to bring in pieces that need repairing (but only if you are certain they are not moth eaten as they can contain eggs).
Takeaway: Students will take away the knowledge and confidence to repair holes and worn areas safely, as well as comprehensive notes on the techniques and processes covered.
Level: Beginner
Prerequisites: no knitting or sewing experience is required
So I wrote last week a post asking “Is my making fast fashion?”. And then I did a video on Instagram discussing similar topics in a slightly different way. And as always, you lovely humans have helped me clarify some of my thinking with your thoughtful, clever commentary.
And while I think there is so much more to discuss, here are four key possibly-more-meta ideas that have come up for me out of those conversations.
In using the quote last week that suggested that there was no single answer, and suggesting that this was freeing, I really did mean that we should sit in the grey. Not that the lack of “an” answer to this question should mean we get to ignore the question but rather that the lack of “an” answer means that we need to keep asking bigger more beautiful questions. And keep asking them.
Is my making fast fashion?
Am I living my values or merely thinking them?
And how can I make those two things a little more aligned in this moment?
These are my big beautiful questions.
Yours might be different.
And importantly this leads to point 2.