There’s been a lot of anticipation and excitement but finally the tickets for this year’s Perth Festival of Yarn are now on sale. I’ve known a lot about the classes, events and vendors on offer for some time but now all the secrets are finally out of the bag so you’d better be quick if you don’t want to miss out.
I’ve never been to PFY before but I’m making up for that by taking on two very important roles. First and perhaps most nerve wrackingly I’ll be there as Keynote Speaker to talk about BIPOC representation in the knitting community; why it’s important and how the community needs to change to make it more truly diverse. The website describes this as a lecture but I hate the idea of ‘lecturing’ people although having been married to me for years my husband Sam would no doubt disagree.
‘BIPOC and the need for representation in the Knitting Community’ at 1:15pm on 7 September at the Dewars Centre. For more details click here
I’ll also going be teaching a class where you can learn the technique of ‘dipped stitches’. This is a really interesting and unusual technique that explores working through the knitting to create dense, squishy fabric textures with exciting surface effects. As a designer I’m excited by any technique that makes me question how it might done so I’m really looking forward to teaching this class. In it you’ll learn the basics, learn how to read dipped stitch charts and start to create your own dipped stitches.
You’ll nee to bring along a few basic materials such as 4.00 mm needles, a could of balls of DK weight yarn and small amounts of DK / fingering weight in contrasting colours as well as scissors, notebook and pen.
Dive Into Dipped Stitches 2:30pm – 5:30pm on 8 September in the Methven Room, The Station Hotel, 1 Leonard Street, PH2 8HE. For more details click here
I’m not going to list everything else that’s happening as you really should visit the website for all the details but I will just add that as well as me the other tutors are Francoise Danoy, Steve Malcolm, Beverley Dott, Karina Westermann, André de Castro, Julie Dubreux and Lyndsey Roberts. There’s also a Gin Flight Night (I think tickets may have sold out for that, oops) plus a fantastic marketplace full of incredible vendors including the amazing Lady Dye Yarns from Boston, MA USA who I worked with earlier this year for one of their Craft Club Collaborations.
One of the major issues in the continuing conversations about lack of BIPOC representation, diversity and racism in the knitting community was the call for organisers of fibre festivals to step up and be much more intentionally inclusive when planning their events. Well having contacted me back in October last year Festival Director Eva Christie was already ahead of the curve when the discussion set social media alight at the beginning of January this year. Having had the pleasure of getting to know Eva over the last 5 months I know how carefully she’s curated this event and the lineup of tutors and vendors shows how diversity can be thoughtfully realised when it’s always at the heart of what you do and not simply a just knee jerk reaction.
Roll on September!
J x
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