sweetgeorgia

Weave me.

For some time now, I’ve been planning on weaving this mixed warp silk scarf for a friend of mine. The warp that I wound ages ago has been sitting in the living room whispering “weave me… weave me… I’m yummy.” The warp is all bubbly turquoise silk bouclé and aqua silk singles with a few skinny strands of 30/2 silk and tsumugi silk thrown in. Finally, this morning, I took advantage of the gorgeous warm sunlight to dress the loom and start weaving.

I warp from back to front, in this case, because I find there is less wear-and-tear on the somewhat delicate and fussy nature of the mixed warp.

I find myself tying loops at every stage so that I don’t accidentally lose my work. So, after threading the heddles, I tie a group of warp threads together. I undo the slip knots as I need to when I sley the reed… and then again, tie a group of warp threads after sleying the reed. It keeps things organized and… safe.

This is the 20/2 smooth silk I’m using for weft, all wound up on bobbins that fit in an end-feed shuttle. I’m hoping I’ll have enough to finish the whole scarf… fingers crossed.

There’s a header of about five shots of big, fat mop cotton woven at the beginning of the piece… and then a bit of proper weaving. I pause at the beginning so that I can hemstitch a bit…

Now we have fabric… and yes, it is yummy.

If you live in Vancouver and are free on Monday evening, you might want to check out the Memorial lecture hosted by the Greater Vancouver Weavers & Spinners Guild. The speaker is tapestry artist, James Koehler, who will discuss how colour, structure and form focus his approach to design and how the landscape and cultures of New Mexico have influenced his work. The lecture will be held on Monday, May 5 at 7:30 PM in the Floral Hall at Van Dusen Botanical Garden, 5251 Oak Street (at 37th Ave.) in Vancouver. Admission is free to anyone who is interested! Unfortunately, I’ll be at work late on Monday and will miss the lecture… but if you DO go, let me know what you thought!

Supernatural SweetGeorgia

There’s more than one way to get colour on yarn.

Tomorrow when we re-open the shop, we’ll be offering a collection of yarns and fibres under the name “Supernatural SweetGeorgia”. Natural and plant dyes create some of the most beautifully nuanced and luscious colours in our history. These colours are full of life and energy. Supernatural SweetGeorgia is our collection of yarns and fibres from organic, sustainable and renewable sources that are hand-dyed with natural and plant dyes. Multiple overdyes and multi-step processes… there’s a whole lot of love in these yarns.

As a knitter, spinner and weaver, I am well aware of the beauty and benefits of using natural fibres like silk, wool, or linen. But then things became more a little complicated with the release of products like soy silk, bamboo, ingeo, organic wool, and organic cotton. What’s good to use? What’s responsible to use? How do I sort out the options? I am, more than ever, conflicted about the choices.

We are inundated with publicity about “green” products and “sustainability”… just this month’s Knit.1 mag is entitled “The Green Issue” in which they discuss knitting, eco-activism, and organic yarns. Vogue Patterns’ April/May 2008 issue has an article called “Sewing Green” which describes all eco-friendly fabrics. Rowan’s latest magazine features their new “green” line called PureLife. There is Amy Singer’s book “No Sheep For You” which details all sorts of alternative natural fibres… and also Shannon Okey’s new book “Alt Fiber” which delves into even more obscure alternative fibres like pineapple ramie and kenaf. You can’t escape what seems like the immense pressure to make the right and responsible choice.

Treehugger simultaneously evangelizes about the benefits of bamboo textiles while also considering that maybe bamboo textiles aren’t really sustainable or organic. Confused? Yeah, me too. I think it’s all too easy to idealize any one particular “new” fibre or textile and to put something on a pedestal without investigation or scrutiny. In no way do I believe that I have the answers… but I am committed to looking at and studying different options while also encouraging everyone to do the same. Be open and vigilant. Here are some places to start:

• Sustainability in Textiles: An Overview (Worsted Witch)
• Greensleeves: Sustainability in the Fiber & Textile Arts (Worsted Witch)
• Eco-Tip: Mini Directory of Green Fabrics (TreeHugger)
• Sustainable Clothing: Emerging Standards (OrganicClothing)
• Tencel: Sustainable but not necessarily healthy (OrganicClothing)
• Bamboo: Facts behind the Fiber (OrganicClothing)
• Green Knitter: Natural, Organic and Eco-friendly Yarn Chart

In tomorrow’s update, we’ll have some naturally dyed bamboo and silk yarns. And in future updates, we’ll also have organic wools in worsted weight. I’ve just dyed some in pomegranate and it’s lovely, squishy stuff. Pomegranate-dyed organic merino yarn might not entirely save the world, but hey, I’m trying.

1% of the proceeds from the Supernatural SweetGeorgia collection will be directed to OnePercentForThePlanet, an alliance of businesses committed to leveraging their resources to create a healthier planet. Members donate at least 1% of their annual net revenues to environmental organizations worldwide.

What I did on my Gap year

It was exactly one year ago today when I started on my trip to Fiji. I didn’t think that I’d be away from work, friends and family for so long. In fact, the idea started out as just a three-week vacation… which became a hiatus from work wherein I declined all new projects and clients and explored other avenues of creativity, design and content development. Two of my close friends got married while we were in Fiji and, outside of sporadic wedding planning, we did a little bit of surfing and a lot of sunburning.

Traveling ended up being a very small portion of my year. Although I did travel to London several times, I think my travels and explorations were mainly internal. I started a couple new business ventures (because you can never have enough new ideas), looked back at the last ten years and looked forward ten years, discovered new friends and old souls, snowboarded during all my spare days this past season, uprooted and moved my possessions three times, and got divorced from my husband of six years. I tearfully sold my childhood and family home in Kitsilano … the one housing my entire dye and design studios… and am joining the hoards of people looking for a place to live in Vancouver.

My internal travels still take place every day. I question and I doubt. I look at different paths and avenues and simultaneously get inspired and despondent. These travels never end but I am just grateful that I don’t need to walk these paths alone. My family and friends have been an unmeasurable support and I am very very grateful for them.

Yesterday, I received news that I’m back on the practicing registrar for pharmacists… so I’m returning to practice in a field I thought I’d never go back to. I’m learning to see that not everything is black and white… and adjust to seeing all the shades of grey in my life, appreciating all the subtlety. And I’m also starting to knit again. Finally.

The back and front pieces are done. All I need are sleeves now. Why does it always feel like “All I need is ‘fill in the blank’ now”? I don’t know. But at this particular moment, all I need are sleeves now.

Here’s to the end of my gap year and to a most beautiful fresh start.

Screw it, let’s do it.

Okay, enough waiting. Enough hemming and hawing and fussing with my skirt hem. Friday, April 18th sounds like a good day to re-open the SweetGeorgia Yarn shop… so we’ll open up at 9 AM PST. I still have a bunch of work to do before Friday (like sorting out shipping costs and such) and I’m sure there will be some growing pains, but there’s no way to know without going ahead and trying.

If you visit the shop site now, you’ll see that it’s still password-protected. No worries, there won’t be any password required on Friday when we open. See you then!

Revamp

The dust is settling now… I think. I’ve been reworking the blog, trying to drop in all the ideas that I’ve had for a while now, but managed to break nearly all the photo links and things. I’m working on fixing it all! In the meantime, if you haven’t yet changed your subscription settings, the sweetgeorgia feed is now at http://feeds.feedburner.com/sweetgeorgia. Sorry for the inconvenience… and don’t breathe in any dust.