Lace Basics
Sat, 08 Mar
|Hotel Realm
Learn the basics of intentionally creating holes in your knitted garments to craft beautiful and intricate lace patterns.
Time & Location
08 Mar 2025, 12:30 pm – 2:30 pm AEDT
Hotel Realm, 18 National Circuit, Barton ACT 2600, Australia
About the event
Lace is about intentionally creating holes! Lace looks fantastic from light weight fluffy to chunky yarn. Lace can be worked as a repeat for shawls and throws, or into vertical patterns into garments. The class includes a knitted sample; this will be worked from a combination of written instructions and graphs.
This workshop is for knitters who are confident in stocking stitch but are yet to work in lace stitch.
What you will learn
The foundations of lace knitting
Materials and tools
20g x 8ply yarn in a single solid colour
Needles to match the yarn
Cable needle
Scissors
Notebook
Pen or pencil.
Pre-requisite skills
Confidence in stocking stitch
What's included
2 hours of expert instruction from internationally renowned workshop facilitator Jane Slicer-Smith of Signatur Handknits in a class of a maximum of ten participants
Afternoon tea including a light snack and tea and coffee
VIP 2-day pass to the Australian Yarn Show from March 8th to 9th at Hotel Realm including:
Australian Yarn Show 2025 Show bag
One coffee voucher per day (Saturday and Sunday) for barista coffee cart
One digital access pass to all the talks on the main stage
Please note that the digital access pass will not be activated until a couple of weeks after the conclusion of the Show.
About the facilitator
Whilst still a student studying Fashion & Textiles in the UK, Jane’s early love of hand-knitting saw her working in London with Debbie Bliss and Patricia Roberts. In the early eighties, while living in Sydney and designing handknit patterns for a Japanese yarn company, Jane started Signatur Handknits at Paddington Markets, Sydney.
Signatur Handknits finished garments soon evolved into Signatur Knitting Kits since markets and shows allowed knitters to try a design before even casting on. This interaction with knitters allowed Jane to tweak patterns and personalise the design so each knitter achieved a perfect fit.
Personalising designs for kits and finished garments completely changed her approach to designing and writing patterns and taught her that the key elements of fit and ease are what create your style.
For 15 years, Jane enjoyed winters in each hemisphere between Australia, the US and England, teaching at retreats, on cruises, with guilds and at hand-knitting events. She had a fabulous time designing for yarn companies and knitting magazines, amongst them Vogue Knitting International and Knitters. It was the publishers of Knitters, XRX, who produced her first book of designs: Swing, Swagger, Drape – Knit the Colors of Australia.
Over the last three years, she has been teaching mainly American knitters on ZOOM with XRX/Stitches at Home. Her technique classes include Intarsia, Mitres, Textures and button-making.