Welcome Lorilee Beltman!

Lorilee happily sees no end to where knitting curiosity can take you, so she loves to help knitters make new discoveries. For the past fifteen years she has enjoyed her students at over one hundred national events and fiber tours abroad. She looks forward to meeting you in class! Lorilee is patient with every student and packs her classes with content and lots of extra tips you can really use.

Her articles and designs have been published in books, magazines, and online mags. She is a 2018 Knit Star teacher, the former techniques columnist at Knitty, and an online instructor at Interweave and at Craftsy where her classes are consistent best-sellers.

Tent-camping with her husband and boys has brought Lorilee to over twenty National Parks. She grew up in Pittsburgh, spent thirty years in west Michigan, and now calls the Seattle area home. There she cultivates a vegetable garden and plays lots of pickleball.

Website http://LorileeBeltman.com

IG @lorilee.beltman

FB Lorilee Beltman Knitting Enabler

Colors that Climb

Stranding color vertically in your knitting offers new possibilities where many colors can be worked at once! We will learn how to introduce strands of contrasting color to our work, how to work with them so they are user-friendly, and how to adequately anchor the stitches without overdoing it. 

Once you learn the tricks in class, the technique is easy to execute and repeat. Everyone can do it.

The beauty happens in creative applications. We will work the technique into a colorful cable to make a pair of wrist warmers or a phone/glasses case. The handout includes a different lace option if you don’t like this cabled piece.

Class demonstrations are done in both English and Continental styles.

Magic Loop for Open or Closed Start

Learn how to knit in the round on a small circumference without double pointed needles using a technique called Magic Loop Knitting. This is accomplished as if by magic on one long circular needle! 

We will learn best practices for best results, and we will practice two applications. One is for a closed start, like the toe of a toe-up sock. The other is for an open start, like the cuff of a mitten, sleeve, or top-town sock. You will understand how to use your one needle to create any knitting in the round from the size of a finger on a glove to a hat, and everything in between. Lorilee will include lots of tips for ease of execution and for tidy-looking results. Class handout includes patterns so you can practice your skills right away.

New Beginnings with Magic Cast On

Estonians have been using it since the 1970s. Americans were turned on to it when Judy Becker taught us via Knitty in 2006. If you haven't learned it yet, here's a perfect opportunity to learn and apply the Magic Cast-On. What's exciting is all the possibilities it offers to knitters! It’s not just used for a cast on edge, not just for socks. We will learn it, then work our way through ways to apply it.

Symmetrical lace scarves? You don't have to use and pick out waste yarn. Shawls that start with a garter-stitch tab? You don't have to pick up icky stitches on that cast-on edge. Toe-up socks? You don't have to tighten up loose stitches from Turkish or figure-8 cast-on, plus we will learn a wedge-toe and a rounded-toe version. Infinity loop cowls? You don't have to pick out the waste yarn of a provisional cast-on. Hems? You don't have to sew down, and you don't have to pick up bumps of a long-tail cast-on and wonder if you're in the right column. This is general knitting knowledge you will apply to many projects in your knitting life. 

Lorilee can work with conventional knitters, combination knitters, and mirror-image left-handed knitters.