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.

For well over a century and a half, dressmakers have had access to a body of techniques that allow them to create garments of uncommon refinement, detail, and craftsmanship. Catherine’s Couture Method for handknitting offers a similar option to knitters.

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 Coututre Method, we begin with the knitted fabric—its structure and characteristics—and focus specifically on how to create a fabric that is both stable and appropriate to the design. From there, our attention moves on to the garment itself and to those techniques related to fabrication, construction, and finishing. In order to explore the fabrication and construction techniques, we’ll complete a small project that incorporates all of the most essential of these techniques and provides a practical example of how they are integrated into an actual project. With each technique, we’ll be concerned with the “why”—the theory behind its inclusion in the Couture Method, its role in a handknit project, and what to expect from it—as well as with the “how”—its application and execution.

You’ll 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 your own 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 classes previously taught at VKLIVE, notably The Basics of Couture Knitting. However, it gathers the disparate techniques into a single, coherent approach to and method of garment fabrication with an emphasis on their sequence and integration into this method.

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.
• 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.