Swiss Yarn Festival March 27 - 29, 2026

Intro to Stacked Stitches  Fri. March 27 & Sat. March 28

Level: Experts or brave beginners who can read charts

Stacked stitches are an innovative approach to striped colorwork, best known as the technique behind the Fox Paws pattern. Stacks can add shaping, create 3d texture, replace short rows, and when combined with stripes, they create intricate motifs without unsightly strands on the wrong side of your projects. You’ll never need to manage more than one color at a time or worry about bobbins because stacked stitches bend rows of garter stitch into new shapes and patterns using only increases and decreases.

This introductory class will enable knitters of all levels to try out the technique in a swatch and become confident working patterns that incorporate stacked stitches. We will focus on mastering the increase and decrease stitches and learn several strategies for avoiding problems and fixing mistakes. 

Requirements: This class is best suited for intermediate level knitters or adventurous beginners who  have experience reading patterns and working basic increases and decreases. 

Supplies: Worsted weight scrap yarn in multiple colors, circular needles with a flexible cord in a corresponding  size to your yarn and a few adjacent sizes (metal or plastic needles are strongly recommended), stitch  markers. Optional materials: scratch paper, highlighter tape, and a digital row counter.

https://swissyarnfestival.ch/?product=intro-to-stacked-stitches-2&lang=en

Colorwork Games  Fri. March 27

If you love playing with geometry and want to combine your fiber arts with some fun math puzzles and games, this class is made for you! The class begins with an introduction to tiled patterns. We’ll look at Truchet tiles and learn how to use rotational symmetry to turn a simple group of tiles into varied designs.
Students will have chance to cut out, fill in, and play with their own tile sets. Once we’ve made some fun patterns with simple tiles, we’ll move on to edge matched tiling. These tile sets are used to create random patterns that look seamless (think of randomly generated maps in video games). These tile sets are surprisingly easy to create, and we will go over various strategies for creating edge matched tiles. Students will have time in class to create their own colorwork tile sets on paper and explore the possibilities. At the end of class, students can share their colorwork designs.
Requirements: Students should be familiar with 2 color stranded colorwork,
crochet colorwork, or quilt piecing.
Supplies: Graph Paper. A pencil or erasable pen. At least 2-3 colored pencils.
Students will work on paper during class but are encouraged to bring 2 colors of
yarn or 16-25 half-square triangles *just in case* they feel like working with textiles.

https://swissyarnfestival.ch/?product=colorwork-games-2&lang=en

Center Out Knitting Sun. March 29

This class is a guided tour of the possibilities of center out accessories. We will look at 3 different cast on methods for center out projects and the unique strengths of each method. After casting on, we will try out different arrangements and types of increases to build different shawl, blanket, and scarf shapes such as a square or other regular polygon, rectangle, oblong, almond, and classic circular “pi” shawl. Many traditional lace and colorwork motifs can be converted to work with these shapes for spectacular results. By the end of the class, students will feel confident using these cast on methods to create center out accessories and add stitch and color patterns to various shapes.

Intro to Algorithmic Stitch Patterns Sun. March 29

Level: curious knitters or crocheters with basic knowledge

In this workshop, you'll learn how to create textures, color, or lace patterns based on rules rather than fixed instructions. We'll begin by discussing how to design simple yet highly individual motifs by rolling dice or counting your daily steps, which techniques can be used to create amazing patterns, and how, eg., to knit a shawl using a temperature data sequence. You practice a stitch sample with a data set of your choice and present it to the others.

Supplies: 4 (not too fine) single-colored yarns + matching knitting or crochet hook, writing utensils, optional data set, dice or similar.

https://swissyarnfestival.ch/?product=intro-to-algorithmic-stitch-patterns-2&lang=en