Tracing Back to Trace Forwards – Knitting, Craft , Design and Me

Rose Sinclair is an author and textile enthusiast who teaches textiles and design at Goldsmiths, University of London, where she looks at how technology plays a part in crafting and making. Her doctoral research focuses on Black British women and their crafting design practices with textiles, through which she discusses migration, identity, and settlement. Rose is also interested in the use of textiles networks as a form of participatory craft practice and public engagement in crafts. Rose explores her textiles practice through participatory immersive workshops in localized pop-up shops, installations, and presentations in museums and diverse spaces. She co-curated of the first retrospective of the work the first textile designer of Caribbean heritage to achieve international recognition, Althea McNish, in 2022. This exhibition is part of a three-year research, exhibition, and archiving project titled “Althea McNish: Beyond Golden Harvest.” Find her online @dorcasstories.Access to the keynote is included with all class, lecture, package, or Marketplace ticket registrations. 

Daily, 9:30–9:45 AM Eastern
Bryoni Lawrence will lead 15-minute meditation classes every morning before the start of the day’s classes. 

Bryoni is a yoga and meditation teacher based in the Bay Area. She is also the Director of Mindfulness at Kinema Fitness and Spiritual Advisor at Northeastern University. Her mindfulness training includes over 1,000 hours in Tibetan Buddhist meditation, vinyasa, yin, and traditional Chinese medicine techniques including acupuncture, cupping, herbalism, and gua sha. The practice of mindfulness has taught her to always be a student first and to begin over and over again. She hopes you leave her all-levels classes feeling a little more grounded, centered, and refreshed. 

This session has been prerecorded and available all weekend long on the Event Hub

Join Suzan Colón as she takes us inside Patty Lyon's book! 

Do you wish your knitting was better and that you had an expert knitter by your side to help you when it goes wrong? Then this is the book for you - it even has a special lay-flat binding so you can keep your hands on your needles. 

Patty Lyons is an expert in all things knitting related - she will help you sort out your gauge, unpick problems like twisted stitches and generally spruce up your knitting know-how in this pocket-sized reference book packed full of her purls' of wisdom. 

Thursday, November 10, 12:30–1:30 PM Eastern

Curious about tarot? Come learn about tarot and how it works, and get to know our new tarot deck for fiber artists, the Yarn Tarot with VKL instructor and tarot teacher Ana Campos from Circle of Stitches and and Rochelle New of Home Row Fiber Co.

Ana Campos was born in São Paulo, Brazil, and now makes her home in Salem, Massachusetts. She is passionate about all things handmade and learned to knit and crochet as a child. Ana brings more than 20 years of knitting experience to her yarn shop, Circle of Stitches. She also has a line of hand-dyed yarns, Toil & Trouble, and teaches workshops throughout New England. Her focus is on the technical aspects of knitting, and she particularly enjoys teaching Portuguese knitting in honor of her Portuguese ancestors. Ana is fiercely committed to intersectionality and diversity, which she seeks to promote within her own business.

Rochelle New is an artist, animal lover, and disabled maker who’s passionate about the feelings of alchemy and self-empowerment that accompany crafting things by hand. Rochelle believes there’s real magic in the act of creating and strives to encourage fellow makers to harness this magic for themselves. Inspired by this concept, and her rural New York surroundings, Rochelle designs her own fabrics for handmade project bags and hand-dyes yarn using earth-forward materials. Living with a rare skin disease, Lamellar ichthyosis, as well as an endocrine disorder, PMDD, Rochelle shares candidly about her challenges in hopes of encouraging others to feel more comfortable as their true, authentic selves. When she’s not running her online shop, Home Row Fiber Co., Rochelle enjoys knitting, bird-watching, playing Dungeons and Dragons, gardening, and hanging out with her pets. She’s been volunteering at a special summer camp for children with chronic skin diseases since 2004.

Thursday, November 10, 10:30–11:30 AM Eastern

Make a mini shawl with ash alberg of Sunflower Knit! by the end of our hour together, you’ll have the perfect-sized shawl for swatching with a new-to-you yarn, stashbusting, or decorating a well-loved teddy bear.  Please have about 20g of fingering-weight yarn, 3.75mm/US 5 needles, and stitch markers. Visit the Teacher page to learn more about ash alberg. 

Thursday, November 10, 11:30–12:30 PM Eastern

Join Suzan Colón, author and teacher of MedKNITation, for a special book preview and interview with knit designer Dee Hardwicke and publisher Sini Kramer about Dee’s gorgeous new book, The Knitted Fabric: Colourwork Projects for You and Your Home. Event included with any class pass! 

Dee Hardwicke (www.deehardwicke.co.uk, @deehardwicke) is an artist, designer, knitter and knitting book author who lives and works in the beautiful Welsh countryside. Dee trained in fine arts, studying painting and sculpture, before establishing her studio. She’s passionate about adding joy and color to everyday life, whether that’s by creating nature-inspired designs for knitwear, ceramics, flooring collections or stationery.

 
Dee celebrates her love of the British landscape with designs steeped in the artisan traditions of the Arts & Crafts movement. Each of her hand knits is inspired by a watercolor in her sketchbooks, and Dee describes the process of knitting as being similar to painting in yarn, with each stitch being like a brushstroke of color. The author of several knitting books, all of which celebrate her passion for color and the natural world, Dee is also renowned for her much-loved knitting design and color workshops. Dee's latest book, The Knitted Fabric: Colourwork Projects for You and Your Home (Laine Publishing, Winter 2022), is a celebration of the way that knitting brings us together. As Dee explains, “as stitches loop together they form a knitted fabric, a kind of handmade narrative of art and the people and landscapes that inspire me.”

Thursday, November 10, 5:30–6:30 PM Eastern

Friday, November 11, 10:30–11:30 AM Eastern

This is a beginner stranded colorwork class with emphasis on continental-style knitting colorwork, and some throwing method. We will explore how to swatch a colorwork pattern, how to hold yarn for two- and three-stranded colorwork, plus discuss issues that may arrive, including tension and when to trap floats—all you need are needles and yarn (two or three colors), and know how to knit and purl! We’ll also explore the possibilities of adding stranded colorwork to your knitting repertoire.

Jacob Anaya grew up in a small farm town in New Hampshire, which instilled in him an appreciation for the slower things in life. Living in a small town made him feel like he needed to fit into a mold, and he has found ways to explore and break out of this mold through fiber arts. He now lives in the Witch City in Massachusetts, where many oddballs come together, and he feels free to explore the many facets of his identity. Jacob is a creator and cohost of From Salem, with Love, a podcast on knitting and life in the Witch City.

Friday, November 11, 12:30–1:30 PM Eastern

Learn to make a quick, cute little garter stitch flower! Worked flat and quickly, you will want to make a bunch and add them to knitted or non-knitted accessories as a splash of fun color. Bring any weight yarn in two colors (one for the petals and one for the center), appropriate-size needles, a tapestry needle, scissors, and, if you want, something to sew the flower to. Visit the Teacher page to learn more about Margaret Holzmann.

This session will be prerecorded and available the entire weekend 

Join Felicia Eve of String Thing Studio for a conversation with Modern Daily Knitting's co-founder Kay Gardiner

Saturday, November 12, 10:30AM-11:30PM

Nara Takeda is a Brazilian tax lawyer who discovered knitting during the pandemic. In order to share her learning experiences and build her own fiber family, she created her profile @knit.nara.knit on Instagram and then her YouTube channel Knit Nara News. Today she is known in Brazil, Portugal, Spain, Finland, Germany and Italy as the "Fiber Journalist", as she broadcasts news, covers events, festivals and craft related initiatives in Brazil and abroad. Since June 2022, she is doing a 12-month knit tour across Europe to cover yarn festivals, fairs and events related to the fiber world.

Marie Castro is a Brazilian DIY content creator and entrepreneur. At just fifteen years old, she began her studies and experiments in the world of fashion, textiles, and craftsmanship, and after spending some months working as a stylist for boutique department store Daslu, she went on to enter her textile collections in both Fashion Rio (Rio Moda Hype) and Dragon Fashion Brasil. She also participated in the touring exhibition Movimento Hotspot, which passed through a total of thirteen Brazilian cities, and her pieces have been sold across Japan, Brazil, and Europe.
She was one of the winners of the YouTube NextUp Rio 2017 contest, an initiative to boost the platform's most promising channels. She is recognized worldwide among the crochet community and has over 800K followers between Instagram and YouTube. She continues to grow her business as an entrepreneur in the world of tech+craft, exploring new methods for creating artisanal clothing.
 
Filipa Carneiro E Liliana Carvalho is a knit designer and teacher based in Lisbon. Today she´s head designer at the most important Portuguese yarn brand and she’s an expert in Portuguese knitting. She has a consistent presence in knitting festivals around Europe, giving lectures and teaching classes in multiple languages (Portuguese, Spanish, and English), multiple knitting styles (Portuguese, continental, and English), and multiple techniques. During the pandemic, the Portuguese-speaking knitting community grew and got stronger; as a way to keep their minds strong and focused, Filipa started the weekly podcast Knit for a Happier World with Liliana Carvalho (below). They host knit-alongs, charity campaigns, and even an “influence for a happier world” movement to inspire a more kind and friendly environment on social media.
 
After more than ten years working with several brands at an advertising agency, Liliana Carvalho decided to dedicate her time to only one brand. Being a knitter, she chose a yarn company, and she since 2016 she has been the marketing manager at Rosários4, a Portuguese yarn producer.
Strengthening the crafts community has been one of Liliana’s goals, and starting the podcast Knit for a Happier World with Filipa Carneiro, broadcasted for the first time in the beginning of a lockdown, helped her achieve that goal. “Keeping our hands busy to quiet our minds” was the motto for many, not only then, but also today. Liliana is also the creator of Malharia, a boost for the knitting, crochet, and other crafts community. The project focuses on facilitating the meeting of crafters in public and cultural places, gathering people from all ages who share knowledge, stories, and the love for crafts.

Soraya García @yedraknits is a textile designer, teacher of two-needle knitting techniques, and independent editor. Born in Madrid, she now lives in Amsterdam. Her designs are based on different constructions, and she always takes care with the details so that they fit like a glove. As a designer, she has had the opportunity to collaborate with international brands such as La Bien Aimée, PomPom Mag, and The Knitter magazine. Since 2008, she has been directing the editorial project Yedraknits, an indie magazine of knitting and crochet patterns. This year she decided to start an audio podcast and is doing live videos on YouTube!
 
Kimberly Bremer has always been creative, as a professional dancer, restaurant owner, fitness instructor, nursery-school teacher, gardener, and knitter. Whether pursuing a profession or hobby, she has always drawn from her creativity to excel, inspire, and achieve any goal she set before herself. Kim learned to knit thirty-plus years ago while living in Europe and has been knitting for family and friends, and more recently for herself, ever since. In 2017 she met Jonna (below), and as they began to knit together, and talk endlessly about knitting, they came up with Knit Together with Kim & Jonna, at first an in-person knitting group, then a YouTube channel once COVID hit and everything shut down. Kim & Jonna published their first episode in November 2021 and have been overwhelmed by its success. They still love talking about knitting, but they also love inspiring others to keep knitting as they share about their successes, failures, favorites, and finds.
 
Jonna grew up in Northern California and currently lives in Westchester County, New York, with her husband of thirty-seven years. They have three children and five grandchildren. She loves to sew, bake, read, grow veggies, and play games. She remembers her grandmother teaching her how to hold knitting needles, but she didn't officially learn how to knit until many years later. After a career in academic publishing, writing and editing math textbooks, she learned how to knit at the shop Pick Up Every Stitch in Mount Kisco, New York. She quickly became hooked and hasn't set her needles down since. That same year, she met Kim (above). They became fast friends who loved to knit “together." Now they do so with thousands of others on their YouTube channel, Knit Together with Kim & Jonna.

Sunday, November 13, 10:30–11:30 AM Eastern

A cup cozy is the perfect way to elevate a dollar-store mug to the perfect teacher or host gift. This is an easy project for anyone who can chain and single crochet. You’ll need a mug (in order to assess its size), 50 g worsted-weight yarn, H-8/5 mm hook, 2 locking stitch markers, 1-inch button, yarn needle, scissors. Visit the Teacher page to learn more about Julie Desjardins, ACCROchet.

Sunday, November 13, 11:30–12:30 PM Eastern

Join Ana Campos and Louis Boria of the DAC for a panel discussion with fellow Latines in the fiber community as they discuss Latine visibility in the fiber world and the influence of heritage on their work. 

Sunday, November 13, 12:30–1:30 PM Eastern

Join Vivi Basile, designer, teacher and yarn shop owner of Casa da Vivi (a yarn shop in Brasília) for a conversation with some teachers that will be teaching at the in-person NYC February Knitting LIVE! show. They will talk about all things knitting, crochet and NYC! Visit the Teacher page to learn more about these inspiring teachers! 

Sunday, November 13, 2:15–2:45 PM Eastern

Join Marcelo Martins as he chats with David Lord and Kathy Chapdelaine, makers of precision knitting machines for working tubes (think: socks!). Find them online at www.chambordcsm.com.