Shirley Paden's Craftsy Class, Handknit Garment Design

Shirley was kind enough to send me a discount link to her Craftsy class early in September that I shared with my readers. She gave me access to the course so I could ensure I was passing a valuable resource to you. 

I've already read her book and knowing her long history of teaching I expected the class to be very good and it is. I particularly like the beginning of Shirley's class. She walks you through the process of developing a concept for your design by examining your objectives of the who, what, where and why of the project.

She also spends time on the very important topic of yarn choice and how to work with that choice, matching the yarn to specific stitches and results. 

The balance of the lessons deal with the nuts and bolts of the design process. The students really have an opportunity to get into the mind of a designer. You will get all of the information on how to go about developing a custom fit garment. I was especially impressed with the sections on the The Magic Formula. It's the kind of knitting math that scares many knitters off but is very helpful in working decreases and increases in a balanced manner. I've taught it before and I can see this is one place that a video class excels by allowing the student to replay segments as required and work through real sweater numbers for themselves. 

You get about four hours of video class time, as well as materials you can download to work through. The class is meant for an individual knitting their own garment not for someone looking to learn how to write patterns to sell. I realize that many knitters don't want to design from scratch, however the real advantage in taking a class like this one, is you will learn the necessary skills to take any existing pattern and customize it to your individual measurements.