Lorilee Beltman

Lorilee Beltman knits in Michigan with her “Yarnie” friends - customers from her former shop, City Knitting.  Providing support for a steady stream of curious knitters taught her the value of an honest answer delivered kindly.  She believes that challenging oneself is the quickest route to a happy knitting life. Her continental knitting video on youtube.com is #1 on the web with well over a half million views.  Beside teaching continental, she likes to introduce knitters to techniques that are new to them. When not entangled in yarn, she enjoys the woods, coffee, napping, being on water in any non-motorized craft, and camping with her husband and three boys.  She looks forward to meeting you in Portland.

Learn to work multiple contrasting colors into your sock by knitting strands vertically through your fabric.  Combine it with horizontal fair isle stripes, and you have a convincing knitted twill plaid.  

In class you’ll warm up by learning the Eye of Partridge slip stitch patterning used on the toe and heel of the teacher’s “Thistle and Forest” sock pattern.  Then, while working a portion of the foot, learn how to manage the vertical strands and introduce the fair isle bits.  Once you learn the yarn-management tips and a wee bit of math, the execution of the technique is very fun and not at all difficult.  After class, you’ll be able to apply the technique to other projects - hats, sweaters, mitts or anything knit in the round.

Interesting patterning effects can be created by stranding color vertically in your knitting.  During class, we will learn to prepare our yarn, read a chart, and properly manage the yarn as we work our way through two sample charts prepared for you. In our first exercise, we will shift the yarns left and right in a zig zag pattern.  In our second, we will incorporate lace.  Lastly, you will venture out to write your own chart and begin to knit it.  The design possibilities are many and can be worked easily into other knitting projects to liven up your knitting.  One sock pattern will be provided by Lorilee to use with your newly acquired skills.