Fiberside Chats: Sydney Crabaugh February 16th, 2025

Join Sydney Crabaugh for a discussion on the history of fashionable knitwear and a glimpse into her online knitting school, Squid's School of Vintage Knitting! Sydney will guide you through a whistle-stop tour of handknitting history through the lens of fashion, looking closely at the changes in trends through the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. This era of knitting is brought to life again at her online knitting school through lectures, tutorial videos, styling advice, and vintage inspired knitting patterns. Sydney will talk through how the school came to be, showcase some recreated vintage knits from different decades, and will go over her distinctive approach to garment pattern construction. Unlike the "one-size-fits-all" grading in original vintage patterns, the school’s garment patterns use a special method of construction to create personalized, tailored garments that are fully size inclusive. Sydney will talk through this process and show you how her system can be implemented on both vintage and modern knitting patterns. Come along for a trip back in time and into the world of vintage knitting!

Bio:
Sydney Crabaugh (or @squidneyknits as she's known on Instagram) is a pattern designer, knitwear historian, tour guide, and the Headmistress of Squid's School of Vintage Knitting on Patreon. She has been knitting and studying fashion history for over fifteen years, and turned these passions into a career at Squid School, an online school devoted to the education and love of historical knitwear. The school provides a monthly knitting pattern inspired by various knitted items between 1860-1960, but updated with modern terminology and with full size inclusivity using Sydney's unique method of pattern writing. In addition to patterns, the school puts out a monthly knitting history lecture, technique video, vintage lifestyle or travel vlog, and a special true-vintage PDF booklet from Sydney's personal pattern archive.
When she's not in the Headmistress office, Sydney is teaming up with Rowan Tree Travel and Fibercraft to develop international knitting tours/ retreats that have a historical or vintage bent, often with elaborately themed and niche activities! With her entire career path spent in the fiber industry, Sydney has spent nearly half her life meeting other knitters and sharing fiber experiences, which she loves more than anything else in the world. Although rather nomadic by nature, she currently resides in Los Angeles with her fiancée (who thankfully puts up with her enormous yarn stash).

This is a live Zoom Event on Sunday, February 16th at 2:00pm EST, 1:00pm CST, 12:00pm MST, 11:00am PST, 8:00pm CET

This Fiberside Chat will be recorded - a link to the recording will be available for one week and shared with registered attendees only. 

Registration will close 1.5 hours before beginning of event.