Name
Garment Fabrication: The Couture Method of Construction and Finishing (NEW!) (Part 1 of 2)
Date
Sunday, February 12, 2023
Time
9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Photos

Session Type:
3-Hour Class
Skill Level:
Experienced
Teacher
Catherine Lowe
Category
Knitting, Tips & Techniques
Class Details:

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

Garment Fabrication: The Couture Method of Construction and Finishing is a two-part class that takes the garment from finished pieces to finished garment, with particular emphasis on the preferred Couture construction techniques that use joinery rather than seaming. We will explore the options these techniques offer for either all-but-invisible construction or for joins that introduce decorative details into the finished garment. We will look at how these construction techniques are set up during the fabrication process and how they are worked to join the finished pieces so as to give stability to the finished garment as well as to introduce design details when desired. We will also consider Couture options for garment edgings, finishing details, buttonholes and closures. While in class, students will work a small set of reference samples using the swatches prepared as homework.

This is the third in a three-class exploration of garment fabrication within the context of the Couture Method. The class relies significantly on in-person demonstration and hands-on practice of the construction and finishing techniques that are its focus. This material has not been previously offered in Catherine’s virtual VKL classes, but some of the individual techniques have been presented in two of her VKLive classes: Basic Techniques of Couture Knitting and Re-think Your Knitting.

Technique Requirements: You should be comfortable with the following:
• The structure of knitted fabric: how yarn moves through the fabric; identifying rows and columns of stitches; locating the running threads in a piece of knitted fabric.
• Stitch and row gauge: able to determine these gauges accurately.

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)
• open running thread increases; raised and slip raised increases; k2tog and ssk decreases; 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

Note: While Garment Fabrication: The Couture Method of Project Preparation, Garment Fabrication: The Couture Method and Its Fabrication Techniques, and this class all build on each other, it is not necessary that you take each one.

Homework:

Please see the homework file here.

Materials Fee (to Be Paid Directly to the Teacher):
$0