Fair Isle and Intarsia Workshop at Make Do and Mend, Chelmsford

Make Do and Mend is a fabulous creative space in Chelmsford, Essex. They have an extensive creative workshop programme offering classes in everything from dress making, crochet, knitting, jewellery making and much more in between! I've been wanting to go along to a workshop for some time so when I heard about the Intarsia and Fair Isle Knitting workshop I took the plunge! 

If you're a regular reader you will know that I'm obsessed with all things Fair Isle at the moment! Having created a hand knitted fair isle jewellery collection and now working on adding to this range I wanted to brush up on my fair isle skills. I have taught myself what I know about fair isle knitting from books but jumped at the chance of the workshop to pick up more knowledge from workshop leader and Make Do and Mend founder Hannah.

We were made at home with coffee, tea (Earl Grey, my favourite!) and biscuits! Hannah told us that the super cute mouse tea cosy was a handmade gift to Make Do and Mend from a lady who learnt to knit there- so lovely!

How cute is the shop front?!

Hannah supplied us with yarn, needles, a fair isle chart to follow and a worksheet to take home

We knitted this Fair Isle sample and I picked up lots of tips that I can apply to my jewellery work. I was heartened to find I haven't been going terribly wrong with the fair isle I've knitted so far and it's given me the confidence to feel I can knit more complex designs

For the other half of the workshop we focused on intarsia knitting, which I haven't tried before. Here we used separate balls of yarn to knit blocks of colour, twisting the yarn together in between to prevent holes

I'd now love to try knitting a picture jumper to these intarsia skills into practice!

The space at Make Do and Mend is well equipped and large enough to cater for groups and even crafty Hen Parties- right up my street!

I came away feeling like I'd really achieved something after a very fun and relaxing morning. Thank you to Hannah for being such a patient tutor, I can't wait to go back and do some more workshops! Check out the Make Do and Mend website here and go and be inspired!