Last year we explored the myriad variations of lace. This year, P3 is all about texture. After all, when it comes to knitting traditions in the United Kingdom, richly textured sweaters come to mind. So we think it’s only natural to draw inspiration from the textile heritage of the UK as well as the landscape of Pembrokeshire, Wales, to make beautiful knitted things using the easy to learn, fun to apply Plug+Play design principle.

What is Plug+Play? It’s intriguingly simple: you plug carefully chosen stitch patterns into a user-friendly recipe and create a result that’s uniquely yours. Keep it simple or build something more challenging – it’s up to you.

This long weekend workshop takes the Plug+Play principle in a whole new direction. We’ll learn about textural patterns you can apply to your knitted designs – some you may never have thought of – and the unique challenges involved in designing with texture.

We’ll offer guidance on both a shawl and a customized-to-you sweater pattern and coach you as you work through your ideas. You’ll leave the weekend inspired, with your designs well underway and ready to work the techniques you’ve learned into new designs created by you.

Experience level: “I can knit, purl, increase and decrease with confidence and I want to make friends with charts.” No previous design experience is necessary.

Our 2011 P3 feedback was truly a joy to read. Here is a small sample of what last year’s participants had to say:

“This retreat was just what I needed to give me more design confidence and a community of peers who are also interested in design. I also appreciated how accessible you two were – the “down time” with you and the other participants was as important as the sessions themselves.”
- Kathleen Lawton-Trask, Oxford

“I had a really amazing time this weekend. I’ve never been to a knitting workshop before so I had no idea what to expect. I’ve afraid you’ve set the bar rather high.”
- Karen Radcliff, San Diego

“Thank you! I’ve had a lovely time. The goodie bags were fabulous, the teaching clear and easily understood and the networking great. I never swatched or thought too much before beginning a project (I’m too impatient!) but I found this process fun for the first time ever – as opposed to a chore.”
- Catherine Hopkins, Somewhere in England

I feel excited and inspired to try all sorts of things. Being in a group of talented and skilled knitters has allowed me to learn so many new things. Having meals together was a wonderful multi-cultural experience.
- Karen Wolthuis, Somewhere in the USA

What’s different in 2012?
Based on last year’s feedback, we decided we needed one extra day to more fully explore the possibilities of the Plug+Play principle, and perhaps get a little more time to play, too. We’ve added spaces for a few more participants, and we’ll have sole use of the hotel and grounds. So this year we’ll enjoy three full days of learning, laughter, leisure and, of course, good food!

Last year, we focused on lace. This year, it’s texture. Those who attended last year will have a little head start on the process… but only a little! We want this to be fresh and fun for everyone attending.

What’s the same?
We loved Beggars Reach Country Hotel, located in Milford Haven, Wales. It was the perfect place to learn, relax, dine and get a good night’s sleep at the end of a long, full day. Nothing was to much trouble for the helpful staff, and it was an easy decision to plan a return visit. This time, Amy’s having the Pavlova. Don’t try to stop her.

Goodie bags will return this year, but with different insides and outsides. You’ll just have to wait and see. Both Amy and Brenda are obsessed with good shwag, and want you to have nothing less than a goodie bag worth squeeing over. (Yes, there will be yarn.)

Our fabulous, tiny Marketplace debuted in 2011, and we’re going to do it again. Who will our vendors be? Watch our Ravelry page for updates.

The Weekend

Day 1 – Friday, October 12
Check-in to your room by 1pm, then meet us in the Orangery for a get-acquainted lunch. Let’s get this party started!

This year our group will be a little larger, so we’re splitting into two teams to start with. Team A will go with Amy to get an overview of Plug+Play design, how it works and why we think it is, hands down, the best way to apply stitch patterns to knitted fabric. Starting with shawl design, we’ll discuss a number of different shawl construction methods, and talk about the benefits and challenges of each. We’ll make friends with stitch pattern books and use some of the new toys you’ll find in your goodie bag. And we’ll start to get a handle on how to put the patterns you’ve chosen into the shawl shape that suits them best.

Conveniently, Team B will go with Brenda and spend the afternoon learning the secrets of knitting a top-down raglan sweater that fits perfectly the first time and every time, no matter what. Comprehensive worksheets make it a snap to plan a raglan sweater, regardless of size or gauge. By the end of the session, we’ll have measured ourselves (and each other), completed our worksheets, and have a good idea of where the sweater is heading, design-wise.

Mid-afternoon, we’ll have a brain break with coffee and tea and delicious biscuits, before diving back into swatches and worksheets.

In the evening, we’ll meet in the dining room for our first dinner together and we’ll get to know each other better. After dinner, we have a bonus recreational lesson planned that involves your goodie bags, after which those who wish can meet up for a relaxing evening of knitting and chat. The inn has a licensed bar and serves real ale.

Day 2 – Saturday, October 13
After a good night’s rest and a hearty breakfast, Team A will plan their raglan sweater with Brenda and Team B will swatch their shawls with Amy. By noon both teams will be on the same page and, after a tasty lunch, we’ll all be together for the rest of the weekend. Call us Team P3!

The afternoon’s lesson will be focused on applying your chosen texture pattern[s] to the Raglan-with-a-Difference template you built with Brenda, finishing up your worksheet and swatching.

Saturday night after dinner, back by popular demand, Today’s Sweater! This show and tell evening [bring your favorite FOs!], is hosted by Brenda as only she can. You can count on a little ukulele accompaniment from Amy, and much cheering for your knitted work from all assembled, as well as the risk of a singalong. Let’s blow the lid off this inn!

Day 3 - Sunday, October 14
This morning, our focus is on charts and everything that goes with them. Since charts are the key to the Plug+Play system, we’ll talk about how to read them more easily, follow them more painlessly and create them more fluidly. Charts, once you get to know them, are a knitter’s BFF!

After a brain break with morning coffee, tea and biscuits, you’ll continue to develop your designs – shawl or sweater — with Amy and Brenda close at hand to help guide your choices and work through any challenges.

At lunchtime, we’ll enjoy a traditional British Sunday roast dinner. This quite substantial meal is, as we learned last year, made even more enjoyable by having a bit of downtime afterwards. Following lunch, we bring back our beloved tiny, perfect Marketplace! Our vendors will be bringing their best wares to share with you – solids, semi-solids and variegated yarns in fibers and blends of all descriptions!

After the fun of the Marketplace we’re leaving the rest of your afternoon and evening free to spend as you choose. This is a great opportunity to explore the beautiful Cleddau Estuary, go for a drive in the country, nap, or knit on the porch or in the lounge – whatever you wish!

And because we know some of you can’t put your needles down, Brenda and Amy will be available from 3-5 Sunday afternoon to answer questions, bounce design ideas off or just chat with.

By the way, dinner fare Sunday night will be much lighter than usual [think buffet vs sit down], since we’ve just had the feast of the ages at lunchtime. In the evening, should the BBC treat us to a Sunday evening costume drama, everyone is welcome to cram bodies and knitting into Amy’s sitting room, to watch and gasp at the frocks together!

Day 4 – Monday, October 15
For our last class together on Monday morning we’ve planned something very special. We don’t want to give away all our surprises at once, but we promise it’ll be memorable.

We’ll meet for a farewell lunch in the dining room and, if you wish, you can add your contact details to our class roster, so we can keep in touch, and share photos of our FOs when they’re complete.

Questions? Visit our forum!

Our Sponsors

Our 2011 workshop was sponsored by some of our very favorite small companies producing great products for knitters. This year we’re adding a few new faces. We’re busy behind the scenes preparing good things for you, and we can’t wait to reveal our exciting P3 sponsors.

The Price

Cancellation policy: If you cancel your reservation by 15th August 2012 you’ll receive a full refund. Cancellations received after this date will incur a £100 handling charge. No refunds will be given for cancellations after 15 September, 2012, unless participation has reached maximum capacity, and we are able to fill your spot from our waiting list. In this instance, you’ll receive a full refund, less a £100 handling charge.

The Venue

Nestled in the heart of Pembrokeshire, near the beautiful Cleddau estuary, you’ll find AA Three-Star Rated Beggars Reach Country Hotel. This intimate, white-washed hideaway features everything you’d expect of a place that dates from the 18th century. Thick stone walls, old beams, a graceful staircase, and cozy nooks and crannies combine with beautiful views across gardens and fields, to create a warm, welcoming and rustic farmhouse feel. Traces of the building’s former life as the local vicarage are still apparent in well-appointed rooms, tastefully decorated to a high standard, with traditional furnishings and private baths that compromise nothing to comfort. Contemporary additions to the building are a skillful blend of old and new, adding modern comforts while retaining the building’s magical atmosphere. The workshop will be held in the light and airy Orangery, a new and spacious room, with views of the manicured lawns through walls of windows, and an enormous skylight overhead to provide excellent light for knitting.

Outstanding food was a major consideration when selecting the venue for our workshop, and the restaurant at Beggars Reach does not disappoint. A true destination restaurant, it draws visitors from miles around, and has earned its well-deserved reputation for tempting menus, featuring skillfully prepared fresh local ingredients, and simple but elegant home cooking.

Your Workshop Leaders:

Amy Singer is the editor of the online knitting magazine Knitty.com which has had more than 120 million site visits since its launch in 2002, and is celebrating its 10th Anniversary this September! A grandma-taught knitter since the age of 6, she champions the joys of mindless [think relaxing] knitting. Amy has taught classes at yarn shops and knitting guilds all over North America and in the UK and Europe, as well as Sock Summit [2009 and 2011] and VK Live in Los Angeles in September 2011.

Brenda Dayne has won international respect and acclaim for her innovative work as the creator and host of Cast On – a podcast founded on nothing more than the desire to talk about knitting to people who get it. Since 2005 the podcast has evolved to focus on finding inspiration in the ordinary, using it to kick start the process of making, and inventing ways to carve out the creative time and space that allows you to work your ass off on the projects that matter most to you. Like knitting a sweater. Or saving the world.

Have questions? Just pop in to our Ravelry forum here and take a look around. Many of your questions have likely already been answered (things like exchange rates, sharing rooms, travel to and from), and if you’ve got a new one, just ask it there! We’ll do our best to get back to you asap.

Geometric panels create a softly pleated fabric with lacy holes that spiral around the neck and shoulders, while gradual decreases hidden within the stitch pattern narrow the tube from bottom to top. A picot bind off at the top is repeated on the bottom, as provisional stitches are picked up and cast off to complete the cowl. Silk yarn creates a versatile garment perfect for wearing from spring into summer and from summer into autumn.

gauge
20 sts/28 rows = 4”/10cm in stockinette stitch

materials
Blue Moon Fibre Arts Silk Thread
100 silk; 1125yds/1028m per
3.5 oz/99g skein
Color: Raven Clan, “Thraven”

1 24-inch US #6/4mm circular needle

Extra circular needle a size or two smaller than working needle, for working provisional cast on
Darning needle

PRICE: £4.00

Frivolous and flirty little top-down summer socks let the sun shine on painted toes. Designed to keep feet warm while your toenail polish dries, they also protect delicate skin on the top of your foot from the cruel summer sun, or show off your pedicure when it’s too chilly to wear sandals alone. A simple stockinette thong helps keep the socks in place and makes wearing thonged sandals just that little bit more comfortable.

gauge
28 sts/36 rows = 4” in Stockinette
using 2.25mm needles

materials
Malabrigo Sock 100% Merino Wool
402 metres (440 yards) per 100g
Colour – “Lettuce”
Set of five 2.25mm dpns
3 stitch markers in different colors
Darning needle

PRICE: £3.00

Our Sponsors

Our workshop is sponsored by some of our very favorite small companies who are producing great products for knitters. We are proud to be associated with, and very grateful for the support of these businesses:

Alisha Goes Around
Anzula
Indigodragonfly
Knitifacts
Search Press
SOAK

The Workshop

Amy Singer’s Plug+Play design principle is intriguingly simple: carefully chosen lace patterns are plugged into a user-friendly recipe and the result is unique and stunning. This weekend Workshop takes the Plug+Play principle and goes wild with it! We’ll start with a shawl, as simple or complex as you can dream up. Once you’ve mastered the P+P principle, we’ll apply it to a top-down yoked sweater design, created just for this class by Brenda Dayne. You’ll leave the weekend inspired with your designs well underway, and ready to work the techniques you’ve learned into new garments that are uniquely your own.

Experience level: “I’ve never designed anything lacy before, but I love knitting lace, and I’m totally up for the challenge.”

Day 1
Check-in to your room at 2pm, unpack and meet us in the Orangery. Let’s get this party started!

We begin with an overview of Plug+Play design, how it works, and why we think it is, hands down, the simplest, easiest way to apply lace stitch patterns to knitted fabric. Starting with shawl design, we’ll discuss a number of different shawl construction methods, and talk about the benefits and challenges of each. We’ll start making friends with stitch pattern books and get to use some of the tools you’ll be provided in your goodie bag and we’ll begin swatching. Next we’ll start to get a handle on how to put the lace patterns you’ve chosen into the shawl shape you think suits them best.

In the evening we’ll meet for our first dinner together and we’ll get to know our classmates. After dinner, those who wish can meet up for a relaxing evening of knitting and chat.

Day 2
After a good night’s rest, we’ll pick up where we left off yesterday. We’ll explore different ways to modify a lace stitch pattern to make the knitting more enjoyable. We’ll talk about lace patterns, and where to find them. We’ll also learn how to chart lace patterns from written instructions, since some wonderful designs can be hiding in older reference books where lace was rarely written in charted form. After a brain break with morning coffee, tea and yummy biscuits, you’ll continue to develop your shawl design, with Amy and Brenda close at hand to help guide your choices and work through your challenges.

We’ll pause for a delicious lunch, and then in the afternoon we’ll turn our hands to designing and charting our own unique lace sweater, using the Plug+ Play techniques we’ve already learned. Don’t worry. It’s easier than you could possibly imagine. Brenda has written a top-down yoked sweater pattern perfectly suited for the application of Plug+Play lace, and this will be your template. Brenda will walk us through the design decisions for the yoke, sleeves and body, discuss different ways to apply lace patterns to each area of the garment, and share several methods for maintaining the integrity of a lace pattern through garment construction. We’ll fuel up on coffee and tea and yummy biscuits during a brain break, and the rest of the day will be spent working on your designs with Amy and Brenda close at hand for advice, guidance and moral support.

In the evening we’ll enjoy a traditional Sunday roast dinner, with all the trimmings, and after dinner, those who wish may order a refreshing beverage from the bar, and meet in the Orangery for a Today’s Sweater show and tell, followed by relaxing knitting and chat.

Day 3
Our workshop continues with things every designer should know. We’ll talk about some of the things that can help total strangers knit your patterns successfully, such as charts, and the software that helps create them, as well as readability of the printed pattern. We’ll talk about originality, and briefly discuss copyright issues. We’ll also share the top five things that every knitter should know about photographing their work for publication, or posterity. Finally, Amy will share her top tips for creating the kinds of patterns that excite editors, and generate buzz in the knitting world.

We’ll meet for a farewell lunch in the dining room and, if you wish, you can add your contact details to our class roster, so we can keep in touch, and share photos of our lovely lace garments when they’re complete.

The Venue

Nestled in the heart of Pembrokeshire, near the beautiful Cleddau estuary, you’ll find AA Three-Star Rated Beggars Reach Country Hotel. This intimate, white-washed hideaway features everything you’d expect of a place that dates from the 18th century. Thick stone walls, old beams, a graceful staircase, and cozy nooks and crannies combine with beautiful views across gardens and fields, to create a warm, welcoming and rustic farmhouse feel. Traces of the building’s former life as the local vicarage are still apparent in well-appointed rooms, tastefully decorated to a high standard, with traditional furnishings and private baths that compromise nothing to comfort. Contemporary additions to the building are a skillful blend of old and new, adding modern comforts while retaining the building’s magical atmosphere. The workshop will be held in the light and airy Orangery, a new and spacious room, with views of the manicured lawns through walls of windows, and an enormous skylight overhead to provide excellent light for knitting.

Outstanding food was a major consideration when selecting the venue for our workshop, and the restaurant at Beggars Reach does not disappoint. A true destination restaurant, it draws visitors from miles around, and has earned its well-deserved reputation for tempting menus, featuring skillfully prepared fresh local ingredients, and simple but elegant home cooking.

Your Workshop Leaders:

Amy Singer is the editor of the online knitting magazine Knitty.com which has had more than 108 million site visits since its launch in 2002. A grandma-taught knitter since the age of 6, she champions the joys of mindless [think relaxing] knitting, helping knitters worldwide create beautiful things without tearing their hair out. Amy has taught classes at yarn shops and knitting guilds all over North America and in the UK and Europe, as well as Sock Summit [2009 and 2011] and VK Live in Los Angeles September 2011.

Brenda Dayne has won international respect and acclaim for her innovative work as the creator and host of Cast On – a podcast founded on nothing more than the desire to talk about knitting to people who get it. Since 2005 the podcast has evolved to focus on finding inspiration in the ordinary, using it to kick start the process of making, and inventing ways to carve out the creative time and space that allows you to work your ass off on the projects that matter most to you. Like knitting a sweater. Or saving the world.

Life is a mix tape. We have always said this.

Remember mix tapes? Those lovingly hand-crafted cassettes full of music; each track selected with care, compiled by someone who knew you well, or who maybe wanted to know you better? With hand lettered track lists, and covers collaged, stamped or embellished, a handmade mix tape was something pretty special. It said someone cared enough to hand craft a complete listening experience, just for you.

In A Knitter’s Manifesto Artist’s Edition we celebrate the hand made goodness of the mix tape. Signed and numbered to 60, each Artist’s Edition is created by hand from found, recycled and one of a kind materials. The edition includes original artwork by Brenda Dayne and Felicity Ford, is hand printed and assembled, and contains extended liner notes about the sounds of Wales heard on the CD. And because we love making so very much, we’ve created a range of assorted delightful Knitter’s Manifesto ephemera, all based on various essays on the CD. This limited edition piece contains the same compelling stories and beautifully crafted ambient audio as our digital edition, and is a unique memento of the Cast On years; a genuine work of art to give, to keep, to treasure.

Order A Knitter’s Manifesto Artist’s Edition today and you can download the digital version immediately. When the Artist’s Editions are completed, somewhere end of July 2011, your beautifully crafted, signed and numbered work of art will arrive by post.

Runtime: 65 minutes
Available Quantity: 14
Price: £35.00 shipping included
If you’d like a personal inscription to someone else, or yourself, please use the field below and tell us what you’d like it say.

Edited by Heather Ordover, host of the enormously popular podcast, Craftlit, this unique book features patterns for knit and crochet projects, directions for hand dyeing, and even instructions for creating light-up pattern pieces using state-of-art e-textiles. Accompanying essays written by the designers speak to their creative inspiration, drawn from classic literature’s best-loved characters.

We’re all very proud of Madame, and we can’t wait to share her with you.

For information or to purchase a copy, visit Cooperative Press, or the book’s Ravelry pattern source page.

You know how it is.

You’re standing there, with your camera in hand, on top of a splendid mountain surrounded by rolling patchwork hills of green. Or you’re on a cliff where sea birds wheel and cry, overlooking an impossibly blue sea. Or deep in the middle of a quiet woods, carpeted with bluebells in the spring. You’re trying to frame a shot but, everywhere you look, it’s so breathtakingly, heart-stoppingly beautiful, you can’t decide where to point the camera.

Been there? Then you understand my dilemma.

I’ve been mesmerized by the beauty of Wales for nearly a decade. It has settled into my heart, and my knitting. The Gothic windows and spires of Tintern Abbey, the swiftly flowing stream cascading past the old mill at Cenarth Falls, the joy of sheep’s milk ginger ice cream, from Shepards, in Hay on Wye, the waterlilies of Bosherston, and the unmistakable silhouette of a red kite in flight.

Now these, and many more of my favorite Welsh places and experiences are yours to knit. I can’t tell you how pleased I am to share this tiny country I now call home in a new collection of patterns and stories, Welsh for Rainbow.

Welsh for Rainbow, Volume 1 – Heads Hands Feet, includes patterns for socks, mittens, scarves and hats and is available through subscription only. The publication date for the first edition is September 5th, 2011. On this date you’ll receive an email with a link to download the book. New patterns and stories will be added to the book as they’re completed, about once a month, and each time the book is updated you’ll receive an email with a secure link to the latest version. Individual patterns will also be available for purchase separately, about a month or so after they’ve been added to the book.

Price: £11.00

A journey through stitches and the turning of the seasons, Brenda Dayne breaks from her customary podcast format to bring you eight of her personal essays – some familiar, some new – and walk you through a year in the Welsh countryside. Authentic local soundscapes bring Wales to you, with Brenda as your insightful escort. A unique blend of stories about life and craft will captivate knitters and non-knitters alike.

An American expat living in the United Kingdom, Brenda’s creativity took root in the bucolic green hills of Wales, birthplace of Cast On, one of the first and longest-running knitting podcasts. Founded in 2005 on nothing more than the desire to talk about knitting to people who get it, both Cast On and Brenda, as its producer, have evolved to focus on finding inspiration in the ordinary and using it to kick start the process of making. For Brenda, and her legions of loyal listeners, what matters most is carving out creative time and space to work on the projects that really matter to you, whether that’s knitting a sweater, planting a garden, baking a cake or saving the world.

Professionally recorded at Mwnci Studios in West Wales, and featuring sound-recordings made by Felicity Ford, sound artist and feature producer for BBC Oxford, Resonance FM and Radio Reverb, A Knitter’s Manifesto is produced to the highest standard, and brings you over an hour of high quality audio storytelling by Brenda Dayne, remixed and mastered especially for this project.

As a bonus, you can also download A Knitter’s Manifesto Sound Diary absolutely free. Created for the Artist’s Edition, the Sound Diary lists all of the sounds collected for this project, and has space as well for you to list the sounds you hear when you knit. Created from just two sheets of paper, the pdf download includes the Sound Diary template, plus instructions for scoring, cutting and folding. To assemble your Sound Diary, watch the video in the sidebar to the left.

Click here to download your Knitting Sound Diary.

Runtime: 60 minutes
Price: £7.49

First published in Knitty.com, Mrs Beeton wrist warmers are the essence of romance, with soft ruffles that look ever-so charming under a jacket sleeve, and beads that catch the light and sparkle at your wrists.

Victorian England’s answer to Martha Stewart, Mrs Isabella Beeton’s massive Book of Household Management offered its readers no-nonsense, practical advice on all aspects of housekeeping, cooking, child care, dealing with one’s servants, managing one’s poultry, and the ins and outs of properly addressing dinner invitations. Of paramount importance in learning to run one’s Victorian home like a well-oiled machine, and second only to the virtues of Cleanliness and Rising Early, were the twin virtues of Economy and Frugality.

In these beaded Victorian-styled gauntlets, Mrs. Beeton’s twin virtues come fully into play. While they can be knit with just two small balls of yarn purchased specifically for the project (Economy), they are really designed to utilize those tiny bits of leftover yarn that invariably collect in a knitter’s stash (Frugality). They are especially suited to short scraps – 4 to 18 yards – of luxury yarns that are too small for most projects, too dear to just toss away.

In the spirit of Mrs Beeton, they are quick to knit, make great low-cost gifts and, as they cover a pulse point on your wrist, they actually do keep you warm. Pretty. Practical. Frugal. Economical. Oh, how Mrs. Beeton would have smiled at that.

PRICE: Absolutely free!

Click to view pattern, or…

Inspired by the beauty of Britain’s only coastal National Park, these socks for women are knit from the top down and feature columns of tiny cables alternating with panels of delicate lace. Purl stitches between the patterns creates a ribbing-like fabric that hugs the leg and helps keep these socks in place.

Though the prospect of working hundreds of tiny cable crosses per sock may seem daunting, there is a faster, easier way. If you’ve not yet mastered the technique of working cables without using a cable needle, you’ll get in lots of practice while knitting this pattern, and have a fabulous pair of really well fitting socks to show for your efforts.

PRICE: Absolutely free!

Click to view pattern, or…