Picking out a new project is hard. Never mind picking a pattern from all the beautiful choices available to you. You could knit a sweater, weave a shawl, crochet a blanket, or something else entirely. With so many options, it can often come down to what your skill set is. Or rather, what you think your skill set is (hint: it’s probably more than you think). That means it’s time for a learning goal.
Are you a beginner, advanced beginner, intermediate, or advanced (and what do they all mean)? Do you have all the skills or techniques listed in the pattern? What if you don’t? Can you learn them? Yes! Writing out the skills needed to make the dream project will provide you with a learning goal that will show you that you can make it. Let me show you how I set up my learning goals for a knitting and weaving project.
Knitting Learning Goal
I’m starting off with Tabetha Hedrick’s pattern, the Autumn Dahlia shawl.
With this shawl, I’m going to work backward to see which individual techniques I need to learn to make the shawl:
- Reading charts*
- Reading written patterns*
- Lace stitches*
- Mosaic technique
- Decreasing*
- Increasing or yarn overs*
- Maintaining gauge*
- Colour management
- Picot bind off
- Blocking to set the project*
*Watch the Become a Lace Knitter course at the School of SweetGeorgia to see these lessons.
Weaving Learning Goal
Using Felicia Lo’s pattern, the Triple Check scarf, here are the techniques I need to learn for the four-shaft pattern:
- Warping a four-shaft loom*
- Reading a weaving draft*
- Working with multiple shuttles & colour management**
- Twill weave structure**
- Floating selvedges**
- Making a balanced cloth**
Watch the *Multi-Shaft Weaving Basics and **Handwoven Colour courses at the School of SweetGeorgia to see these lessons.
Learning the Skills
Now that I have written out the techniques I need to know, how do I go about learning each of them? Simple! Watch tutorials online or take classes to learn and then practice them. The School of SweetGeorgia has courses that can teach you every technique listed above. It is also helpful to give yourself a bit of structure to move through the lessons at a pace set by the maker. This will ensure that you are in fact making progress and you don’t lose focus.
I used the Epic Cloth Planning worksheet to show what that could look like. I further broke down what the weeks could look like in a weekly planner. Mondays are my school days where I watch a lesson or two each evening. I broke it down into small manageable pieces to make the large goal more attainable.
With the knitted pattern, grab some needles and yarn, cast on forty stitches and knit stockinette for 20 rows, and then try the techniques of increasing, decreasing, and making yarn overs for lace. When you have come to the end of your swatch, you can bind it off by practicing the picot edge, and then block the project as desired.
Sampling for weaving is more involved than knitting, but worth the effort. Start your sampling by placing about three yards of warp on the loom with the number of warp ends you will need for your finished scarf/shawl; this will account for loom waste at both the front and back of your loom and still give you a good length for sampling the pattern. Placing the warp on the loom will take you the longest because of the slow process of preparing the warp and dressing the loom. This process is the most important though, as your accuracy and attention to detail will make the rest of the weaving run more smoothly.
Once the loom is all ready to go, you can practice the twill pattern and not worry that it doesn’t look great, because this isn’t your final project. This is practice, and practice makes better (not perfect). Working through the process of using a selvedge and making balanced cloth in a sample means you don’t have to worry about it not looking the best. You can take the sample when you are done and turn it into mug rugs or another usable textile in your home. Once you feel you have figured out the pattern and have made a balanced weave, or you are simply at the end of your warp threads, you can now tie on to the threads you put through initially and tie on your full scarf through a technique called a dummy warp.
A weaving sample takes more time, uses more material, and takes much effort than making a knitted swatch does, but the sample will help you to practice and learn before you use precious (and maybe expensive) materials in your final project.
Now that you have practiced all the techniques, made a swatch/sample, and mastered them to your liking, use this learning goal guideline for other projects you want to make. You’ll see that you can make anything you want when you lay the pieces out and tackle them one small step at a time.
Interested in learning more about knitting, weaving, and all of the fibre arts? Come and visit the School of SweetGeorgia! Explore Felicia Lo’s free Multicraftual Maker workshop which helps lay out some strategies in how to look at your time, money, space, energy, and focus, and how we can best distribute those resources to reach the deep satisfaction that all of these many crafts can bring.
Explore our online courses and community of fibre arts makers at the School of SweetGeorgia! Use the code: EXPLORETHESCHOOL to save 15% on an All-Access monthly membership!
Original post publication: December 21, 2023. Refreshed post: July 01, 2024
