Who is Kate Atherley?
Kate Atherley is a well-known teacher and designer based in Toronto. She’s Knitting Editor for A Needle Pulling Thread magazine and Technical Editor for Knitty and Knitty Spin. Kate has been published in many books and magazines across North America and the UK. Her book Beyond Knit and Purl is being praised as a revolutionary new approach to learning knitting. wisehildaknits.com
Mad About Mittens: Trunk Show
Summer is an excellent time to knit mittens! They’re small projects ideal for road trips to the cottage and they’ll be ready whenever the first snow flies! Kate provides tips for making warm, comfortable and long-lasting mittens. She’ll talk about the pros and cons of different mitten constructions and demo the different types of needles used for making them. Get tips on yarn choices and how to ensure the wearer is warm and comfortable no matter how cold it gets. Learn where to find good patterns for everyone from beginner to experienced mitten-knitters.
Media Room – Fri 10:30
*****
Colourwork: Fair Isle & Intarsia
Learn all you need to know to successfully work with multiple colours in your knitting. Kate helps you understand the differences between Fair Isle and Intarsia and demonstrates the different methods and techniques required for both. Learn to work from charts and how to ensure your success with them. Kate dispels some common myths and shares tips to reduce or even eliminate the tangling, plus tips for better stripes too!
Knitting Nook – Fri 12:30
*****
Cast-ons (hands-on for 25)
There are five commonly used cast-on methods for basic knitting and more than a dozen speciality ones beyond that. Expand your knitting repertoire with this overview of key methods for casting on. Kate talks about the pros and cons of each and share tips for deciding which is best for your project. Plus she’ll share a no-fail method for ensuring you have enough yarn for working the long-tail cast-on!
Knitting Nook – Fri 4:30
*****
Increasing & Decreasing (hands-on for 25)
There are significantly more ways to increase and decrease in your knitting that most people know. There are 6 basic increases and more than 10 basic decreases, with even more specialized methods beyond these. There are visible and invisible methods, left-leaning and right-leaning methods and centred methods. There are increases and decreases to be worked on the knit side and ones for the purl side. Expand your knitting repertoire with this overview of key methods for increasing and decreasing as Kate covers the pros and cons of each and share tips for deciding which is best for your project.
Laurentian B Room – Sat 11:30
*****
Mad About Socks: Trunk Show
Toe-up or Top-Down? DPNs, Magic Loop, 2 Circulars? Plain or patterned? Hand-dyed or solid-coloured yarns? So many choices for sock knitting! In this mini trunk show and demo, Kate will give you a tour of the wide world of sock knitting. She’ll demo the three types of needles used for sock knitting and explain the two main construction methods, provide pointers to patterns for both beginners and expert sock knitters and show off a few from her 50+ pair collection. She’ll talk about her favourite yarns for sock knitting, give you tips to help you choose a good hard-wearing sock yarn and explain how to figure out what a multicoloured yarn will look like knitted up by examining the skein!
Laurentian A Room – Sat 4:30