Chic-a had the privilege and honor of hosting author and knitwear designer Patty Nance at Stiches West last week. It was wonderful doing the show with such a talented lady!

Patty is the creator of the Bargello knitting technique. If you’ve never heard of Bargello, you may not be alone—she created the new technique in 2005. In her own words, the creation of the technique came about “by trial and error. Fueled by dissatisfaction with a knitting project, I found that using short-repeating multi-colored yarns in an unintended manner results in a technique that, to my knowledge, has not been done before.” We love that! She took yarn she loved, but didn’t like the look of the knitted fabric…and found a way to make it beautiful! Bargello knitting is super interesting, beautiful, and can be applied not only to knitting, but needlework as well.

Patty says that Bargello knitting “tames the unpredictable beauty of variegated yarns. The colorwork technique uses the power of self-striping yarns to create brilliant color patterns in knitted garments and accessories.”

Patty Nance has a robust pattern library on Ravelry, and she often guest creates for the likes of Louet and Knitter’s magazine. Her extensive creativity and skill is astounding. She has a great history with Chic-a, and actually helped co-design our very useful and versatile Knittenger bag, which was on sale at Stitches West.

Below are a few examples of Patty’s Bargello technique. You can grab a copy of her book here.