THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT
The Lancaster Knitter's Retreat 2024 takes place in an inspiring rural setting with excellent teachers and in the good company of knitters from near and far. We will gather at the at the beautiful Amish View Inn in Bird-In-Hand, Pennsylvania, April 5 - 7, 2024. We are so pleased to welcome Sarah Solomon, Lorilee Beltman and Alasdair Post-Quinn as this year’s featured teachers!
Friday begins with LKR2024 check-in starting at 3:00. CLASS 1 is from 6 – 9, followed by a casual knitting reception in the Great Room.
On Saturday, CLASS 2 is in the morning, CLASS 3 is in the afternoon, followed by dinner, dessert, and Keynote speaker, and then more knitting in the Great Room.
On Sunday morning, join us for The Knitting Salon! We’ll spin a yarn or two, share songs and ideas and projects and learn from each other – all to inspire you and your knitting. Think Hand Knit Runway, special guests, live music, and more!
LKR2024 Classes - all attendees take all three classes!
Best Yarn for the Job – Sarah Solomon
Selbu Knitting – Lorilee Beltman
Introduction to Double Knitting – Alasdair Post-Quinn
LKR2024 $ 495.00
The cost includes three class sessions, Friday night reception, Saturday lunch and banquet dinner* followed by a dessert party with a Keynote speaker, and the Sunday Knitting Salon. Tea, coffee and refreshments will be available throughout the weekend.
*New this year: we will have dinner in a private dining room next door at Plain and Fancy Restaurant! Enjoy a delicious buffet style meal and cash bar.
LKR2024 refund policy: NO REFUNDS AFTER FEBRUARY 2, 2024
Please note any refund will be less a 15% administrative fee.
You are responsible to book your own lodging. There are many hotels and inns in the area. All classes and included meals will take place at Amish View Inn & Suites/Plain & Fancy Restaurant. A block of rooms has been reserved at a special rate for this event. Please CALL Amish View Inn & Suites and mention Lancaster Knitter’s Retreat to receive this special rate: (866) 735-1600.
CLASS DESCRIPTIONS
Best Yarn for the Job
Sarah Solomon
In this class, we will discuss the properties and sources of both animal and plant fibers, then talk about the processing that goes into making these fibers into specific types of yarns. We will discuss the differences between worsted and woolen yarns and how plying affects yarn behavior by looking at examples of knit/purl textures, lace, cables and colorwork. We’ll take a closer look at fibers and yarn with the ultimate goal of deeper understanding and making better, more-informed choices for our knitting projects.
Selbu Knitting
Lorilee Beltman
It’s rare that a knitting tradition can be traced back to a known person— Marit Gulsethbrua Emstad, an exact time— 1857, and an exact place— Selbu, Norway. Young Marit knitted three pairs of striking black-and-white mittens with bold rose designs (which look like snowflakes) on the back of the hands. She showed them off at church, and the garments became a hit. By the 1930s, Selbu townsfolk were knitting 100,000 pairs annually, selling mittens to France, Austria, and the rest of Europe. In class we explore the traditional mitten components- the motifs found on the back of the hand, the smaller “wallpaper” designs of the palm, and the edge pattern, all while making two-sided coasters instead of mittens.
Introduction to Double-Knitting
Alasdair Post-Quinn
Double-knitting is a unique method of making a fabric with no “wrong” side and a built-in reversible colorwork pattern. In this workshop, you'll learn my 2-color cast-on for double-knitting, get comfortable with the techniques involved, move into colorwork, and then finish with a bind-off that mirrors the cast-on. At the end of the workshop, you should have a motif swatch and be confident that you can tackle a larger standard double-knitting pattern.
TEACHER BIOGRAPHIES
Sarah Solomon is a knitwear designer, writer and teacher based in New York City. Her patterns and articles have appeared in Interweave Knits, Knitscene, knit.wear, Pom Pom Quarterly, and Vogue Knitting, and more. In addition to her self-published work, Sarah has worked as part of the editorial team of Vogue Knitting Magazine and as Director of Knitwear Design for Harrisville Designs, a historic woolen mill in Harrisville, NH. Sarah is also an avid sewer and spinner and loves handwork in many forms. Find Sarah’s patterns on Ravelry or her website, sarahsolomondesigns.com and follow her work on Instagram as @intothewool.
Lorilee Beltman is a knitting designer who happily sees no end to where knitting curiosity can take you. For the past fourteen years she has enjoyed working with her students at over one hundred national events, and her articles and designs have been published in books, magazines, and online mags. She has been a Knit Star teacher, is the former techniques columnist at Knitty, and a best-selling online instructor at both Interweave and Craftsy. Lorilee grew up in Pittsburgh, spent thirty years in west Michigan, and now calls Edmonds, Washington home. Recently, she has become a certified pickleball instructor. For more about Lorilee, go to lorileebeltman.com
Alasdair Post-Quinn is a computer technician in the Boston area who spends much of his spare time as a knitting designer, focusing specifically on double-knitting, a technique that creates a fabric with no wrong side. Over the past few years, people here and there have been pushing the boundaries of double-knitting to include more complex color and structure variations, and Alasdair is among those on the forefront of innovation in double-knitting. His books, Extreme Double-Knitting and Double or Nothing, document his repertoire of esoteric double-knitting techniques. Alasdair has been teaching double-knitting around North America since 2005, and he adds new techniques to his workshops regularly so that even experienced double-knitters or veterans of his previous workshops will have something new to learn. Visit his website double-knitting.com for more info.
"What knitter doesn't want a weekend surrounded with their passion
and their people? Sign me UP!”
--Laura Nelkin on the Lancaster Knitter’s Retreat