Margaret Holzmann’s Visited the Guild February 7th in Person
At the first in-person meeting of the year, Margaret Holzmann presented to a nearly full room of knitters eager to discover how she creates her imaginative blankets. She brought a large collection of blankets for us to examine, and it was amazing to see how she can make garter stitch twist and turn in so many different directions.
Margaret loves to design blankets, she said, because they are a blank canvas. A blanket doesn’t need to fit, and the design doesn’t need to flatter a body. So her blankets feature large geometric shapes, VW Bugs, houses, animals, and the campers some of us learned to knit in her workshop the next day.
She used animated illustrations to show us how the blocks come together. It’s a fascinating process that uses short rows and three-needle bind off to create shapes. She explained the geometry of garter stitch knitting, and we even reviewed the Pythagorean Theorem!
Margaret draws her inspiration from traditional quilt designs, tile patterns, and the work of M.C. Escher. She showed us how she chooses theme colors for a blanket and stressed the difference between colors suitable for blankets and the darker, more subdued apparel colors featured in most lines of worsted yarn.
Margaret has published two major books recently, Safe at Home and Geometric Knit Blankets. She promises there are more books in the works, and we can’t wait to see what she comes up with!
