Throughout the pandemic Longmont Yarn Shoppe have been hosting Fiberside Chats, bringing yarn shops, designers and teachers together, for regular zoom chats and discussions.

On May 7th at 11am MDT, 6pm BST and 7pm CEST, I’ll be their special guest! You can book tickets by clicking here.

Image description: me in my studio, grinning, as our tabby cat Mina comes into the frame.

Longmont Yarn Shoppe work together with 32 yarn stores across the US and Canada for these chats. When you book tickets you can choose to buy them through your local LYS if they’re on the list, or choose another LYS to support. I think this is such a great way for yarn shops to work together and support each other!

Tickets are $20 each and the proceeds are split between the organisers, yarn stores and special guests. The more folks attend the talk, the more we each earn for our time.

The talk is held via zoom and there’ll be a recording made available for booked attendees for one week after the event, should you not be able to make that time slot for any reason. So you can book in confidence knowing you’ll still be able to watch it later.

And my talk? Sideways knit Hats!

These are my favourite Hats to design and most of my best selling patterns are sideways knits. Yet I know that many folks haven’t yet taken the leap as the construction method is a whole new thing - it may be the technical aspects, it may be that they’re a little intimidating. Or it may be that folks don’t kinda get what they’re about.

In this talk I want to demystify this construction method and show you it’s potential, why I love it, and why it’s worth your time. So many knitters have told me that they were really unsure about trying a sideways knit Hat but once they took the leap, they had so much fun and learnt so much, and went on to make many more sideways Hats. Some have even told me they wouldn’t go back to vertically knit Hats, they enjoyed my patterns that much!

I’ll talk through a number of samples, show you deconstructed Hats and how they look on the needles, and talk about the differences between the different construction methods. I’ll talk about how the stitch patterns and fabric properties change when we turn our work through 90°, and how we can use that to our advantage. I’ll also touch on the techniques used and why they’re so useful. Honestly, there’s so much I can share so if you’ve any questions ahead of the talk now would be a good time to let me know so that I can try and tailor it a little.

Fancy joining me on May 7th? You can find all you need to know and book your tickets by clicking here. Tickets are $20 each. Hope to see you there!