Learn to Knit a Patchwork Jumper with Liz Baltez - Day Course

We are over the moon to welcome Liz Baltez back to Knit With Me this year after the success of her Natural yarn dying workshops last year at Knit With Me and her sold out Patchwork Jumper classes at Unravel Festival earlier this year,

In this four hour workshop you will learn how to turn knitted patchwork squares into a jumper or cardigan. You can use leftover yarn to experiment playfully and build your confidence in creating your own patchwork designs.

During the workshop you will go through the steps for making patchwork garments, including:

• Choosing yarn – pros and cons of working with various weights; combining different weights and fibres; colour themes
• Selecting your basic design – plain or striped garter stitch, mitred squares, log cabin
• Knitting a mitred square
• Knitting a log cabin square
• Swatching for gauge, colour and yarn usage
• Planning your design – based on a garment you love
• Making the central squares, including joining patches and managing your ends
• Making the yoke and sleeves, including short rows
• Finishing touches – knitted seams and edges

You will be given a recipe for patchwork garments which can be used to make a cardigan or a jumper with or without sleeves. During the workshop you will knit a patchwork square and use this to plan your own jumper.

Please being the following materials with you on the day of the workshop

• Leftover aran, DK or fingering weight yarn
• Knitting needles suitable for the yarn, typically 5mm for aran, 4mm for DK and 3.5mm for fingering
• If you have any garter stitch squares that you would like to turn into a garment, please bring them too.

Suitable for those who know how to knit a garter stitch patchwork square. The patches can be plain garter stitch, garter stitch stripes, mitred squares, or log cabin.

About your teacher Liz Baltez

Liz is passionate about playing with colour, both as a natural dyer and knitter. She has been experimenting with colour in knitting since the 1980s. About 10 years ago Liz noticed that here favourite yarns were often dyed with plants, so she went on a workshop at Renaissance Dyeing and got totally hooked. Since then, she has led natural dyeing classes at Unravel Festival, Wild & Woolly in Hackney. Liz loves foraging for dye plants locally, in the marshes around Walthamstow and Hackney and Epping Forest.