Classes from Beth Brown Reinsel
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Knitting
I have so much to tell everyone I learned about knitting, the knitting tradition, history of knitting, etc. from my trip that I don't know where to start.  I took two 6 hour classes from Beth Brown Reinsel.  http://www.knittingtraditions.com/  Beth's first book, Knitting Ganseys is a step by step guide to learning the traditional techniques of creating ganseys, the British fishermen's working garment.  By knitting a small scale sweater which features these many techniques, the reader can acquire the  necessary skills in a short time. Beth's second book, Knitting Scandinavian Sweaters, is being published by Nomad Press. 

In my two classes Beth taught us a mini red and black Swedish pullover called the North Haaland Men's sweater. The next class was a classic Norwegian Mitten.  Beth is steeped in the tradition of this knitting and the classic designs.  Her hand outs were great and she spent a lot of time explaining yarn dominance in stranded knitting.  By keeping your hands consistent in the way you use your main color and other color you avoid those distinctive change in look half way through a garment.  She also explained that in North Haaland they didn't use steeks much because they were always thinking about the next use of the yarn.  I learned to effectively purl in stranded knitting without going crazy (a first for me).

 She also taught a style of continental purling that keeps the yarn at the back all the time which is ideal for seed and ribbing. She calls this Norwegian purling.  This is the style she was taught as a youngster.   I had several projects half done to knit on the trip, so I couldn't change to this version of purling in these projects because of change of guage.  I did use it in both of Beth's classes and I really liked it.  Can't wait to cast on something new to really get this technique in my head.

Neither my mini-sweater or my mitten are done yet, but I will post them when I have made more progress.  When I  signed up for these classes months ago, I wasn't sure how interested I was but knew I'd learn a lot from Beth.  In the meantime, I've started working on designing Fair Isle patterns and this two color knitting primer couldn't have been better timing. 

Beth also taught a class on twined knitting which I couldn't take because I was in a Nancy Bush class (poor me).  I did hear from others and confirmed with Beth that yarn for twined knitting often should be spun s and plyed z.  Normally yarn is spun z  and plyed s.  Twined knitting adds more and more ply twist and gets the yarn quite tight.  Beth says she uses regular yarn as well.  I'm not very knowledgable about twined knitting, but if you are interested keep that in mind.

Beth and Sally Melville are teaching on a cruise that goes to Scotland, Ireland next year.  I almost signed up while on the boat to get their discounts.  But reality set in.  I'd definitely go cruising again and I'd definitely take more classes from Beth but might have to wait awhile for all that.

Linda

 Linda