Beginnings and Endings: Virtual Workshop with Patty Lyons

How to start and end a knitting project are important decisions. In this amazing workshop, renowned teacher Patty Lyons will dig into the practice swatches from her brand-new book: Patty’s Knitting Bag of Tricks: The Official Workbook—and show us brilliant ways to start and end. The little light bulbs in our brains will be popping!

We will go over the best-looking cast-ons and bind offs for lace, rib, and more. We will learn how to pair cast-ons and bind-offs that look great together. We will also fix some problems and bust some myths, and learn the perfect jogless start and end to working in the round—no more annoying nubbin at the end! 

At the end of these two hours with Patty, we will be better knitters—guaranteed.

Details

Date: Friday, January 10, 2025 

Time: Noon-2:00 p.m. Eastern time

Location: Zoom. This is a virtual event.

Our Workshop Leader

Patty Lyons is a nationally recognized knitting teacher and technique expert. In her pursuit of training the mindful knitter, Patty is known for teaching the “why” in addition to the “how.” She specializes in sweater design and sharing her love of the much-maligned subjects of gauge and blocking.

Wherever knitters are gathered, there is a good chance of finding Patty. She teaches all over the United States at guilds, shops, and knitting shows, and at retreats and trips. You can find Patty on the regular at her website and on Ravelry, and on her popular YouTube channel.

Patty’s two latest books are the instant classic Patty Lyons’ Knitting Bag of Tricks, now in its fourth printing, and its brand-new companion: Patty Lyons’ Knitting Bag of Tricks: The Official Workbook.  The books are not required for the workshop, but we highly recommend them to you; they are solid-gold knitting wisdom. Both books are available direct from Patty via the links given, or from your bookseller of choice.

What You’ll Need

There is no kit with this workshop. To work along with Patty, gather up:

A half-skein (or so) of worsted to chunky weight, non-splitty yarn in a light color

A few yards of a contrasting color yarn of similar weight

A set of needles in appropriate size for your yarn (can be straight or circular) to knit flat pieces

A set of needles in appropriate size for your yarn to work a small circumference (your choice of: 36-40″ circular for magic loop, 2 circular needles, or double-pointed needles)

One double-pointed needle in a small size (US 1 through 4 would be fine)

Scissors or snips

Tapestry needle

Stitch marker

Tiny Homework—You’ve got this!

Cast on 30 stitches on the circular knitting needle of your choice (see above). Do not join.

Inquiring Minds Want to Know

How will I get the Zoom link? When you purchase the workshop, your order confirmation email will contain a link to a PDF with the Zoom link. Save it so you’ll have it on the day of the workshop!

What level of knitting experience is required for this workshop? Only basic skills are needed to get a lot out of this workshop: You will need to know how to knit, purl, bind off, and work a long tail cast on in slingshot position. You can review that long tail cast on with Patty here. 

How should I get ready for the workshop? Gather the things you’ll need above and do the tiny bit of homework. We will send out a reminder email the morning of the event with the Zoom link.

What’s the format? With Patty’s instruction and an overhead camera focused on her hands, we’ll learn the techniques as described above. Participant mics will be muted most of the time due to the size of the group, but we hope you’ll ask questions in the chat, which we’ll monitor constantly during the workshop and answer as possible during the workshop.

What if I want to work at my own pace? That’s perfectly fine. After the event, participants will receive a link to the video recording to watch and re-watch at your convenience. The recording will be available to participants indefinitely, but we highly recommend that you watch it as soon as you can—this is good stuff! 

I can’t make it to the Zoom session. May I still participate? Sure! Everyone enrolled in the workshop will receive a link to the recording and all resources we share.