Art Archives - amanda schwabe

What are your knitting goals this autumn? If you’ve been thinking of signing up for fall knitting classes, I’d love to help you with your projects.

I’ll be teaching in Ottawa, Kanata, and Spencerville this fall. And I have a new knitting pattern coming out in September that’s giving me all the cozy autumn vibes. I can’t wait to share it with you!

Knit Your Own Project Classes

I host these classes on Sunday afternoons and Tuesday mornings, and anything goes! This is the class for you if you have your own projects on the go and need flexible knitting help.

Here, you can learn a new technique, get help fixing a knitting problem, and ask for tips and tricks on any knitting topic. Bring in your messes, your time-outs, or your next knitting challenge.

Located in Ottawa, at Rideau Park United Church on Alta Vista.

Vineyard Murder Mystery Knitalong Class

We’re hosting six weeks of mystery knitting with a side of whodunnit at Maker Savvy in Kanata! Our kick-off event is at KIN Vineyards in Carp, with wine tasting, gourmet pizza, and … murder. (No yarn shop employees will be harmed in the making of this event.)

Wendy of Maker Savvy is writing the murder mystery story, and I’ve designed a shawl pattern with six clues to accompany it.

We’ll reveal a new clue each week, starting Wednesday, September 4th at KIN and then every following Tuesday, until the murder mystery is solved and the knitting mystery is cast off.

Join us for fun, knitting, and a finished project of a mysteriously cozy, perfect-for-fall shawl.

Vineyard Mystery Knitalong

If you can’t join us for the in-person knitalong, you can purchase the pattern on Ravelry and knit with us from anywhere in the world.

Buy the pattern any time, and you’ll receive one clue each Wednesday, starting September 4, 2024, as an automatic pattern update in your Ravelry library.

This my first mystery knitalong (MKAL), and I’d be so excited if you joined us! I’ve designed a cozy shawl that’s all about colours and texture. (Oops. I’ve said too much already.)

It features techniques that are appropriate for adventurous beginners and beyond, and detailed instructions to support all skill levels.

There are lots of colours but no complicated colourwork techniques. One yarn at a time! And only two ends to sew in when you’re done. I have some tricks to show you. 🙂

Introduction to Knitting Class

Learn to knit with this foundational 6-week class. Beginning knitters will learn all the important basics and then some. At the end of these weeks, you’ll be familiar with

knitting’s basic stitches
combining stitches to make common patterns
troubleshooting common knitting mistakes
reading knitting patterns
sewing knitted pieces together

This knitting class is in Spencerville, ON, at Spencer Street Muse Gallery, September 25th – October 30th, 2024.

Art Workshop: Acrylic Techniques for Achieving Realism

This two-session workshop will be my first art class! I’m so excited.

Expect to learn the methods I’ve collected so far for blending and layering acrylic paints to achieve different effects. If your paints don’t always do what you want them to do, this is the class for you.

In Spencerville, ON, at the Spencer Street Muse Gallery. Sign up via their website. October 5th & 19th, 2024.

Beautiful Brioche Knitting Class

Learn the basics of two-colour brioche knitting in this 3-hour workshop.

You’ll learn how to make the brioche knit and purl stitches, how to read brioche knitting patterns, and how to fix mistakes in brioche knitting. If we have time, we’ll also cover common brioche increases and decreases.

November 2, 2024 at Spencer Street Muse Gallery in Spencerville, ON.

Virtual Knitting Classes

Last but not least, I’ve been thinking of adding an online knitting class over Zoom back into my schedule. Or offering it as an option for a one-on-one help session if you can’t make it to an in-person class.

I ran these in 2020-2021 during the stuck-at-home times, and they worked surprisingly well.

What do you think? Would you be interested in a weekly or monthly virtual knitting class? Or the chance to schedule a private session from anywhere?

If there’s enough interest, I’ll start something up.

Stay tuned for more class announcements coming up in my schedule. There are more things in the works all the time.

Until next time!

Happy knitting,

Amanda

Hello, lovely people!

My brain is so full right now, of ideas and deadlines, that I barely know what to say when I do have time to write. Let me begin in the middle.

Christmas is coming (yay!), and that means we have five little people to buy gifts for (yikes!). They are all super excited, especially since it snowed at our house overnight and they woke up to a wintery wonderland this morning. I made the mistake of taking my two oldest ones Christmas shopping for their siblings at Chapters last week, and their wish lists instantly grew by about two feet that day. Pokemon is the big thing in our house right now. I am secretly horrified, but trying to look interested in all their cards with the weird names and diverse “powers.”

I’ve been knitting up a storm, trying to make samples, figure out new patterns, knit gifts, and fulfill special orders. (I’ve recently taken up knitting for non-knitters who want hats. They can be voracious. Owl hats are a big hit, and I hope to write up a pattern for them soon, if I can ever find the time.)

I’m also an artist of sorts. I say “of sorts” because I’ve barely had a chance to draw or paint since my first baby was born nine years ago. Now that my youngest is three, I’ve realized that maybe I can get back into painting again! But first, I’m sticking with the simpler art of drawing. Pencils don’t dry out when you have to leave them to make lunch. I’ve decided to sell pencil portraits for the next little while. It’s an experiment of sorts, trying to figure out just how much creativity I can fit into my life before the dirty dishes really do begin to overtake the kitchen counters.

(This is a drawing I made of my husband and our firstborn as a Christmas present to said husband years ago. It’s actually a compilation of two photos, since neither of them had the proper expressions in one photo, of course. Husbands and children never do.)

I also received a surprise in the mail today. I had sent my sample hats to Knit Picks before they listed my Merrick hat pattern in the IDP section, and today I received them back! Eva immediately put the blue one on, and aha! — a revelation — it looks adorable on a three year old. It turns into a cute little elf-like hat. (She’s wearing the child size.)

I’m in the end stages of getting Merrick‘s close cousin, Merry, ready for publication. It’s an extended version, shall we say, with cozy earflaps and (optional) hilarious pom poms. Adding the earflaps forced me to make entirely new charts, so I’m putting Merry out as its own pattern since it took just as much work as Merrick did. I think, however, that I’ll offer it at a discount to those who want to buy both patterns.

I roped my neighbour and friend into being my model last weekend. 😀 She’s such a good sport. Here’s a sneak peak:

Last, but not least: Sunday was World Prematurity Awareness Day, and in honour of the four out of my five kids who were preemies, I’m once again offering all my preemie hat patterns for free. The coupon code is only good for a limited time (until Friday, November 22nd at midnight), so grab them quickly on Ravelry with the coupon code preemieday. Whether you know a preemie or not, sending preemie hats to your local NICU is such a nice way to encourage the families in your community. Having a child born too early can be quite nerve wracking and traumatizing. Many parents suffer from some form of PTSD afterwards. The more support those parents have, the better.

My personal favourite of my preemie patterns is the Tulip Preemie Hat. It’s so much fun to knit it up with some self-striping yarn, and it’s so tiny that you can complete one in a couple hours (or less).

Category: Art

Fall Knitting Classes 2024