Anna Zilboorg.

About a month ago, on Valentine's Day, the Hillsborough Yarn Shop hosted designer Anna Zilboorg for a special workshop on embellishing knitted garments with embroidery. As the class was much larger than our usual groups of four to six, we met at the public library to learn embroidery from Anna.

The workshop was inspired by an incredible embroidered sweater that Anna wore into the shop one day. Anne and everyone else who happened to witness this sweater requested a class from Anna, and happily, she agreed.

Anna's sweater features a twisted stitch pattern from one of Barbara Walker's stitch dictionaries, striking embroidery along the traveling stitches, and the most perfect handknit buttonhole I've seen. The directions for this buttonhole are in Anna Zilboorg's Knitting for Anarchists, a fantastic resource.

It was a truly wonderful day, spent learning new techniques and admiring the talent of not only Anna Zilboorg herself, but also all of the knitters gathered to learn from her. I have no doubt that everyone left newly inspired, ready to embellish, experiment, and invent. Myself, I left inspired to pull a few favorite knitting resource books down from the shelf. Anna's sweater construction has really stayed with me since the workshop, and design ideas are percolating...

Those of you who are sorry to have missed the workshop can still get in on the Zilboorg craze that has swept the Hillsborough Yarn Shop. We carry Anna Zilboorg's books, Knitting for Anarchists and Magnificent Mittens & Socks, as well as the Jan/Feb issue of PieceWork, which features Anna's pattern for embroidered socks. Additionally, Nancy will soon be leading a knit-along at the shop for those interested in designing a sweater using Anna Zilboorg's method, a truly unique construction that wowed us all at the workshop. Check out the course description on the shop website if you're interested.