Karie Westermann’s Classes: Knitting the Landscape – Get Published – Lace Traditions

Make your choice of Class with Karie, please ensure that you are aware of the time and location and specific details for the class.

Karie Westermann is one of the UK’s most sought-after workshop tutors and regularly teaches internationally. Currently living in Scotland’s biggest city, Glasgow, with inspirational nature on her doorstep, she is originally from Scandinavia which informs a lot of her work.

Karie’s own work combines her twin loves of storytelling and craft. She is a big believer in textiles being more than just something that keeps us warm.

Her portfolio of esteemed clients and collaborations keeps changing and expanding but includes Rowan Yarns, Eden Cottage Yarns, Malabrigo, Blacker Yarns, Susan Crawford Vintage, In The Loop, Kettle Yarn Co, Knit Now Magazine and LoveKnitting.

Knitting the Landscape – £60

Psychogeography is about seeing your local environment in a new light: bike lanes, paths worn by human feet, and old forgotten rivers. It is about wandering about your home town and looking closer at things you pass every day.  This class will be an exploration of how to express your memories and thoughts of a specific place using knitting as a medium.

Knitwear designer Karie Westermann will talk about her own experiences designing knitwear inspired by specific landscapes – from shawls mimicking submerged beaches to hats taking visual cues from her Glasgow cityscape.  Then, together, you will begin to explore your own landscapes on the needles. What is the fabric of your own place? How can you translate the way you navigate the City into a wearable piece of knitwear? Karie will guide you in thinking about textures, stitch patterns and colours – and make you look at familiar streets in a new way.

Level: Beginner & up.

Materials: Bring yarn that you associate with the place you want to explore. Scraps are great — bring a selection! Bring appropriate needles. Pen & paper.

Lace Traditions – £60

From Iceland to the very heart of Russia, Northern Europe has some very distinct lace traditions. Together with shawl designer Karie Westermann, you will spend the workshop looking closer at these traditions and how they influence each other. You will look at the traditions found in Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Shetland, Estonia and Orenburg (Russia) before knitting a sample shawl – you will have a choice between working a traditional Shetland hap shawl or a Faroese shawl.

Materials: 50 g of 4ply yarn (at least 50% natural fibres), 4mm needles (straight or circulars – if circs, 24″ cable recommended), stitch markers, pen and paper.

Get Published – £60

If you harbour a desire to see your name in print and maybe even on the cover of your favourite knitting magazine this workshop is for you.

Karie Westermann will take you through how to answer magazines’ call for submissions. This is a hands-on workshop where you will learn to work with mood boards, figure out how to format eye-catching submissions, and gain insight into what commissioning editors look for. We will also talk about how to find your audience and how to tailor your ideas to different magazines.

Homework:  Students will be given a PDF approximately 4 weeks before the class & will need to bring one basic design idea & a related swatch to the class. The swatch should be at least 4″ x 4″ /10cm x 10cm and blocked. The type of yarn used does not matter.

Materials:  A blocked swatch (see homework), Pen and paper

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