Welcome to the Center for Machine Knitting

After 25 years as a sweater designer, selling designs to such brands as Michael Kors, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Perry Ellis and Armani AX, Helen Sharp is putting her expertise and studio to a new use. Fashion designers, fiber artists and home knitters can come together for hands-on classes in machine knitting. The Knitting School™ offers four-week sessions covering the basics of machine knitting through advanced garment design and construction. Students will learn the basic machine knitting techniques, many advanced techniques plus how to follow a design and construct professional garments using a domestic knitting machine and linker.

Runway Inspiration Fall '09

We just had New York fashion week and I took a quick look at my favorite designers to see what they were up to. Thank-you Isaac Mizrahi for introducing some color and levity. I loved those fun and funny woven tops. Are they knit? I can’t tell. But the colors were scrumptious and the scale was larger than life and a breath of fresh air. Not sure about wearing my hand-bag on my head, though.



Proenza Schouler were showing what you might wear to attend sheepdog trials in Bryant Park, a kind of city-fied country look. Earthy, tweedy, cabled sweaters under earthy, tweedy, cabled jackets. The dark camel and black accents were popped with some shine and a touch of teal and purple here and there as a sort of palette cleanser.





Marc by Marc Jacobs piled coats on top of knits and wound long, thick woolen scarves around necks, then bundled every-one with buckles and belts and gave them a pair of stripy tights to wear. Some had contrast colored knee patches. A Babushka marathon, indeed.













I’ll take some of those stripy tights and a long scarf but maybe wear my tweed coat without a military style belt. My 5’ 2” stature can’t deal with that.

While I was in an exploratory mood, I hopped over to London to check out Paul Smith and Margaret Howell, the king and queen of British design. Paul Smith had some minutely detailed fair-isles in rich, jewel tones grounded with naturals.






Margaret had an adorable shawl collar cardi in a shaker stitch and a toggled sweater jacket that made me itch to get on the machine and start knitting and get a jump start on next fall!