Knitting - Joyful Shortrows
Short Rows are often considered one of those “serious” or more tricky techniques. Spend the morning with Georgie looking at short rows from a different perspective and how they can create shaping beyond socks and busts.
Teacher: Georgie Nicolson
Workshop Duration: Half Day
Description: Short rows are used to create wedges in knitting, and these wedges are used to shape shoulders, heels, hemlines, shawls and create extra ease in the bust area. This specialised short row class will begin by exploring a number of different short row techniques; the traditional wrap and turn, German Short Rows (a personal favourite), yarn over short rows and Sunday short rows. We will play around with decreasing and increasing short rows and look at their use can affect the final appearance of the short rows in your work. With an increased confidence with short rows, we will begin a simple mini-shawl pattern that makes the most of experimenting with short rows.
Materials to bring:
Participants will need to prepare a swatch for this class. Please knit this in a light coloured DK/8ply weight wool and bring to class still on the needles. Do not cast them off. See details below in Homework.
As well as the swatch, please bring along:
4mm/US6 needles (or size you usually get tension with for DK/8ply)
2 x 100g of DK/8ply weight yarn in two colours that contrast with each other
5mm/US8 needles (or two sizes bigger than you usually get tension with for DK/8ply)
Takeaway: A new appreciation for the possibilities offered by short rows.
Level: Intermediate
Prerequisites: Ability to cast on, knit, purl and work basic increasing and decreasing stitches.
Homework: With 4mm needles (or size you usually get tension with for DK/8ply) cast on 40 stitches. Work 6 rows of garter stitch. Then work 10 rows of stocking stitch.
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.