Knit Nation 2010

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You may know Shirley Paden from her designs which are a regular feature in Vogue Knitting & Interweave Knits, or you may know Shirley Paden from her exclusive Design Masterclass which is currently taught at her New York studio (and now Knit Nation along with a Colourwork Masterclass for Fair Isle & Intarsia). Or you may have seen/heard of Shirley’s new book Knitwear Design Workshop recently published as a partner to her Design Masterclass.  

However you may know Shirley, we are totally over the moon that she is coming to Knit Nation to teach her knitwear Design Masterclasses.  Her knowledge of custom fitted knitwear is incredible (you just need to flick through her book to see the depth of knowledge and her talent of being able to take you through design complexities with clarity and ease) and she has been teaching her skills for the past 18 years.

Shirley’s designs have an architectural purity of precise measurements and a ‘2T’ approach  – Trend with Tradition – using traditional stitch patterns overlaid onto fashionable shapes.   As with cloth designers, Shirley follows the various trend reporting agencies and reviews the reprints from the 5 major worldwide runway shows for Fall and Spring. She tracks both color and shaping forecasts 1 to 2 years ahead.  Shirley tells us, “From what I have seen, I think the trend is going to continue toward more structured, form fitting garments. I also think we will continue to see dresses and skirts in hand knitwear.”

It has been 18 years since Shirley’s last visit to the UK, having visited many times previously (including spending her honeymoon here), and she is  looking forward to seeing how the city has changed. The V & A, the  Tate, Kensington Palace, the Tower, and a tour along the river are all on her sightseeing list, including the requisite visit to a yarn shop! As a a vegetarian Shirley remembers having some of the best vegetarian Indian cuisine here in London and is looking forward to trying more.

Class Spotlight

Shirley has  always loved garments and has been fascinated by garment construction techniques for many years. As a young girl she loved to sew and also learned to knit the basic stitches.  Shirley put down her knitting needles for many years and was not reacquainted with them until she was an adult whereupon she promptly developed a passion for it and began to knit every chance she got.

Her interest from the very beginning was always garments. After feeling comfortable with understanding patterns and schematics she progressed to designing, taking a year to practice and learn various construction techniques (knitting 30 garments in the year!) before launching her own line of custom knitwear.  After 4 years of constantly designing patterns for her clients,  Shirley began working with the American Knitting magazines.  She also developed her Design Masterclass, essentially a couture knitwear class, sharing Shirley’s in depth knowledge of hand-knitwear garment construction and tailoring.

Shirley’s full day Design Masterclass is being offered on Thursday and Friday.  This class is designed to walk you through all of the various elements involved in constructing a garment based on body measurements, ease and a pattern stitch. Using a series of worksheets, Shirley walks the students through the 2 most common garment shapes, i.e., the “Classic Body” (worked straight to underarm) and Double Tapered (hour glass) body. For both the students plan a round neckline and a set-in sleeve. Everyone leaves the class with a profound knowledge of how to use the design techniques to alter parts of commercial patterns or to design their own garments.

Favourite Technique

Shirley’s favorite knitting technique is the sloped bind off technique. It is a simple matter of slipping (not working) the last stitch of the row before a bind off row and the first stitch from the LHN on the bind off row. The stitch from the previous row is then bound off over the stitch slipped on the bind off row. Because the slipped stitches are edge stitches the columns of rows draw up close to one another. This really neatens the edges of your work giving it a more professional finish. This technique can be used when binding off at the neck or armholes or when shaping a sleeve cap or V neck. This eliminates stair-steps and the visible shaping elements caused by the decrease stitches as one is placed on top of the other when the decrease is formed.

Fly On the Wall

I’m really curious as to what classes our teachers would take if they had the time. Shirley wanted to take them all!

A Little Story…

Shirley shared with us a story about lessons learned through knitting.

I never visit any city anywhere in the world without looking for a yarn shop. It can be located in the most remote area. That would never stop me from planning a visit. Once when my husband and I were traveling in the south of France my husband saw beautiful hanks of yarn billowing in the wind from what appeared to be a shop at the top of a rather steep hill in a small town. Only minutes earlier I had been asking to return to our hotel after walking up and down the hilly terrain all morning. However, the moment I saw the yarn my energy was instantly replenished. There was no way we were not going to scale that hill. When we reached the top and entered the shop we found ourselves surrounded by the most beautiful, elegant hand knit clothing I had every seen.

The shop had 2 very nice owners. They were knitting those beautiful garments on old plastic needles in pastel colors. I was amazed. They were clearly experts. I thought, “where are their Addis?” While browsing, I spotted a beautiful, very heavy antique book. As I turned the pages I saw one beautiful pattern stitch after another. I appeared so captivated until they directed me to the bookstore down the hill to make copies of any of the pages. It was a long since out-of-print book that had been handed down; a real treasure.  When I declined, they insisted. As my husband lugged the book down, then back up the hill in the hot sun with me walking beside him, he grumbled about what had ever possessed him to bring the yarn shop to my attention.

I was so happy that he had pointed out the shop because my life lessons were many that day. First, if you really are an expert knitter it doesn’t matter what needles you are making your stitches with. It is the skill that will be reflected in the final piece. Those women had such confidence, incredible skill and a total lack of pretense on every level. Second, the kind and giving nature of most who are involved in needle arts is not simply legend.

I have pondered many times how they could have trusted me so completely after a few minutes of conversation to encourage me to walk out of their store with such a treasure. They trusted that I would care for it and return it. The answer has to be that they recognized a kindred spirit. Whenever I recall that story I always think of the famous XRX poster that said, “Knitting spoken here. Ours is a universal language.”

Our next teacher to be featured is Merike Saarnit on Tuesday 20 April.

We are very sad to say that Anna Zilboorg will be unable to join us for Knit Nation due to health reasons.  We wish her the best and thank you for your patience while we contact each person signed up for Anna’s classes.

Students signed up to Anna Zilboorg’s classes will be offered a full refund, or a credit to be applied against another class of their choice, subject to availability.  We apologise for the inconvenience and appreciate your understanding.

Over the course of the next few months, we will be introducing you to the wonderful teachers, vendors and sponsors that have made Knit Nation possible.

Wendy Johnson is a lifelong knitter who has since April 2002 chronicled her adventures with ’sticks and string’ at WendyKnits.net.  I am really looking forward to meeting Wendy – by all accounts she is a lovely person, and a great teacher.  She is the author of Wendy Knits: My Never-Ending Adventures in Yarn, Socks From the Toe Up, and Toe-Up Socks for Every Body.

Some of the heel constructison in Socks from the Toe Up are unusual and very interesting –  the short row heel was the first one Wendy learned when she started knitting socks – but the other two are her own creation. She has worked out and deconstructed them to be able to work them top down as well.

We asked Wendy whether she’d been to the UK before and found that as a child Wendy lived briefly in Pinner, a small village in northwest London and became a lifelong Anglophile as a result.  She hasn’t been back for over 10 years, so we are really thrilled to be welcoming her back to London.

One of my standard questions for anyone coming to London is what foods they are looking forward to eating – normally I expect fish & chips/bangers & mash as an answer.  But I was intrigued to find that Wendy practices clean eating which has meant she has been able to shake off her allergies – something I really must look into.  Thank goodness there is alot of choice for food around London and near Imperial College.  Ranoush Juice on the Old Brompton Road has great fresh lebanese salads, Rotisserie Jules for chicken and fresh juice on Bute Street.  There are also a couple of supermarkets nearby including Waitrose by Gloucester Road tube, Tesco on Old Brompton Road and Wholefoods Market on Kensington High Street, so plenty of clean eating choices!

Since we’ve got alot of knitters travelling from abroad, the question of airport security & knitting needles is a common one.   Again Wendy suprised us –  she told us that she almost never knits while in transit on a plane or train – she prefers to read!

Class Spotlight

Wendy taught herself how to knit cables when she was 18 years old after many painful and frustrating hours of trial and error, and out of that experience she developped her class Cables With and Without a Cable Needle to save others from a similar experience.

In her cable class you can learn to cable with or without a cable needle – whichever you are more comfortable with, but Wendy encourages everyone to try without. The students work a cabled swatch that has a variety of different techniques on it. The swatch is large enough (well, depending upon the yarn you use) to be used as the front of a very small pillow or half of a little purse.

Favourite Technique

Wendy’s favourite knitting technique is cabling without a cable needle which she learned at a Knitting Guild of America convention about 10 years after learning how to cable.  She said it was an epiphany – saving hours of knitting time by reducing the number of steps needed to make a cable (not to mention reducing the frustration from dropped cable needles and ensuing stitches!).

Fly On the Wall

I’m really curious as to what classes our teachers would take if they had the time.  When asked, Wendy responded with “I’d like to take all of them! But having to narrow it down to one, Shirley Paden – because I’ve never seen one of her designs I didn’t love!”

A Little Story…

We asked each of our teachers to share a funny knitting story. This is Wendy’s:

The funniest knitting story I have to share just happened recently. I had my car in for routine maintenance and was in the waiting room, knitting away. An older gentleman came in and sat down opposite me. He watched me knit for a while and finally said “That’s interesting.” When I looked up, expecting the usual generic comment about knitting, he continued “You don’t often see Americans knitting continental.”

Our next teacher to be featured is Shirley Paden on Thursday 15 April.  See you then!