Bohus Stickning
The best class I took was Bohus Stickning. For those who are not familiar, Bohus was a group of women who designed, knit, and sold very complex and distinctive sweaters and accessories from the 30's to the 60's in Sweden. They are somewhat like Fair Isle, except can have as many as 5 colors in one row (stranded) and use purl stitches here and there on the right side to add texture and depth of color. The teacher was Susanna Hansson who knew what she was talking about. We had a great slide show, a lecture, and got to see and touch her collection of Bohus sweaters, hats, gloves, and scarves. These were knit in fine gauge yarn (usually angora/merino blend- yum!)with little (think size 0) needles. We made a swatch of one of the designs at 9.5 sts/in. Yes, my hands were cramped. I have pictures!
And finally, I present the Bohus swatch I knitted. The design is called "Scilla." For availability and cost's sake, we used regular old Shetland Jumper Wt. (very stiff at this gauge) and a bit of white angora.
Designer Irish Knits
The other class I took was with Maggie Jackson. Once I was able to understand her (being Irish and all, it took a minute!) it was great. We learned how to knit in her style, with the "splits and tubes" and had fun playing with her linen yarn and a variety of "fancies" (as she called them). Here's what I finished in class, bear in mind it hasn't been blocked or anything so it might seem a bit misshapen.
5 comments:
The Bohus class seems like it would have been fascinating. Maybe I'll take it next year. I never cease to be humbled at others' knowledge and experience at Stitches. There is so much to learn!
Holy Cow, Amy! That Scilla is beautiful! I want to see the back.
And, OH, your poor hands! My fingers are cramping in sympathy.
And, hey, check out those Freddie Mac stats! LOL!
Stupid spammy comments! Grr... at least I finally noticed the little garbage can to delete them. Sorry Laurie, I won't be showing the back- I didn't weave in the ends and I'm not planning to, either, since it's just a swatch and that Shetland is like velcro anyway! (It looks like the back of Fair Isle, but with more strands since you're stranding more colors at a time.) Glad you like it!
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