This is a five-part class. All sections of the class will automatically be placed in your cart when you select one of the sessions.

The Couture Method of Handknitting offers knitters an approach to garment fabrication along with a body of techniques that privilege refinement, craftsmanship and confidence in the outcome of the project.

This five-part class explores the premise of the Couture Method, takes a close, hands-on look at the essential techniques and demonstrates how they comprise a complete and comprehensive approach to garment fabrication. After a brief introduction to the Method, the discussion of garment fabrication begins with the knitted fabric, its structure and characteristics, and focuses specifically on how to create a knitted fabric that is both stable and appropriate to the design. From there, attention moves to the garment itself and follows a project through its fabrication, construction and finishing. In order to explore the fabrication and construction techniques as they are invoked by the process of garment fabrication, students will complete a small project that incorporates all of the most consequential of these techniques and provides a practical example of how they are integrated into an actual project. With each technique, the discussion will be concerned with the “why” — the theory behind its inclusion in the Couture Method, its role in a handknit project at any particular moment of the fabrication, and what to expect from it — as well as with the “how” — its application and execution.

Students will leave the class with clear understanding of the Couture Method, how it differs from a more traditional approach to garment fabrication, how to integrate it into their individual knitting practice, and what outcomes derive from this approach.

Please note that this is a five-part class with homework and a good deal of in-class knitting. Note, too, that the class revisits material from several of Catherine’s other classes, notably The Basic Techniques of Couture Knitting. However, it differs significantly from her previous classes in that it gathers the disparate techniques that are the focus of these earlier classes into a single, coherent approach to and method of garment fabrication, emphasizing their sequence and integration into this Method and the outcome produced by the Method.

Technique Requirements:

You should be comfortable with the following:

• the structure of knitted fabric: how yarn moves through the fabric creating its structure
• identifying the rows and columns of stitches and locating the running threads in a piece of knitted fabric.
• stitch and row gauge: determining these gauges accurately.
• blocking wires: what they are and how they are used..

You should be able to execute the following:

• knit long-tail cast-on
• knit and purl through the back loop of a stitch
• knit-up or pick up and knit stitches (same technique, different names)
• slip stitches, one or more at a time, through the front or back of the loop(s)
• knit and purl open running thread increases; knit and purl raised and slip raised increases
• k2tog and ssk decreases; knit and purl center double decreases
• yarnovers: from knit to knit, purl to purl, knit to purl, and purl to knit; knit or purl into a yarnover without dropping the yarnover from the needle

Please refer to the homework file here.

Please refer to the homework file here.