sweetgeorgia

Yesterday

Wow, what a way to start the week. I have good news! There’s a new yarn shop opening up in Vancouver called “three bags full” at 4458 Main Street (between 28th and 29th Avenues)… and they will be the first shop in Vancouver to carry my hand dyed yarn and fibre! There is some Blue Faced Leicester rovings, Superwash Sock yarns, Handpainted Lace yarns and Candy Floss brushed mohair going to the shop next week before their grand opening on Saturday, August 26th. I’m so excited!! (can you tell?)

After meeting with Francesca and Zoe from Three Bags Full, I drove out to Langley to do this:

Lara from greysquare photographics and her assistant, Dan, came to photograph the alpacas at Kensington Prairie Farm in Langley Township yesterday so that I can use them in some print advertising that I’m putting together for Kensington Prairie Farm. So. Much. Fun. We were outside shooting the alpacas from about 6 pm until the sun went down and then inside shooting alpaca product (yarn, scarves, socks, fibre, and my favourite… blankets!) until nearly midnight. The woven alpaca blankets are seriously to die for…

I’ve known Lara since we were both about 12 years old. She had always wanted to go into advertising so it seemed natural that she studied to be a professional photographer. I gotta say it was very cool to finally get to collaborate with her on a project. And it’s a plus that Lara is also a knitter.

Finally, my first post has appeared on Whip Up! This first post, called “Killer Colour”, is all about safe dyeing practices… a good way to start before diving into playing with dyes. Whip Up invited me to write about dyeing and spinning for their site, so I’ll be doing that a couple times a month. The photo at the top of that article as well as this post? The Procion MX handpainted warp? Well, I’ll post about that tomorrow.

Uh oh.

I just got my Rowan 40 in the mail today. It’s worse than I thought… I love everything in this issue. Everything. The Big Wool sweaters. The crocheted corset. The Kid Silk Haze knitted ballgown (that’s a minimum of 27 balls of KSH — um, yes, I’ll knit that with my next spare $600). Absolutely divine.

It seems like all the complaints that were raised during the last few issues have been heard and addressed by Rowan. There’s a multi-page feature entitled “I could wear that” that shows three women (20-, 40- and 60-something) modelling the same six sweaters… Normal people styling the sweaters with jeans, casual skirts, etc. A great sell. It had crossed my mind that I should knit up all six sweaters for myself. Doh.

Another aspect they addressed is the basics of gasp crochet. Nice illustrations of all the basic techniques that you need to complete any of their crocheted projects. It’s really excellent support, I think.

The article “Design Diary” opens with “Twice a year the Rowan team wait with a great sense of anticipation as their designs are sent out to you. What will you think? Which will be your favourite? It is a nerve wracking time as the yarns and patterns that the designers have invested such hard work and passion in are scrutinised, the colours chosen and lovingly knitted up.” and goes on to describe the creative process that lasts about 18 months per issue. Oh, I feel almost a little guilty — it’s hard work and the designers pour themselves into these designs… and then we rip them apart.

We, knitters, are a fickle and demanding crowd, eh? Last Fall, I think we, Rowan readers, in general were quite brutal about the patterns and the freaky photostyling… we all lamented the departure of Kim Hargreaves (omg, have you seen her beautiful new autumn collection?!)… So this issue interviews five of the new designers at Rowan, introducing them as “The New Generation”. Yes, change is afoot and it feels so fresh and optimistic.

In search of simple

Maybe it was exhaustion… or the smell of sheep and vinegar… or realizing that the finished sweater would look terrible on me… I ripped St. Brigid. Gone is the AS aran sweater. I just figured it would look like I was wearing a giant, wooly purple potato sack. Instead, my fingers crave smooth, sleek, minimal… so I cast on for Wendy’s (Knit and Tonic) “Sizzle”.

The yarn is Estelle Mystik DK (cotton/viscose blend) that I bought the day after Jo’s wedding. Really, the wedding was at the Radisson Hotel in Richmond which is right next to Yaohan and the cute knitting shop with all the Japanese yarns… so of course we had to make a quick visit. Besides, I haven’t bought yarn for myself in ages it seems. This yarn is splitty but the viscose that is blended into it lends the yarn a lovely drape and sheen. Of course, it would be ideal if this were silk but there was none to be found at the shop.

In between knitting and dyeing, I’ve been dressing the loom with more 20/2 silk. I had a lot of silk warp leftover, so I combined them all to make a shawl about 15.5″ wide. This will hopefully be my first foray into all 8 shafts — it will be a block twill (I think that’s what it’s called).

I’ve also made several warps in various stages of readiness. The plan is one warp on the loom, one warp ready to go, one warp ready to dye, and one warp marinating in my head…

The purple and black warp is all hand-dyed silk (Cascade from Henry’s Attic, 2000 ypp) that will become a log cabin scarf. This is based on an article from an old Handwoven magazine. The “pattern” calls for an 8-dent reed but I just have the one 10-dent reed so I’ll have to see how I can get “16 epi” out of that reed — I know that either 15 or 17 are possible.

The pile of blank silk is 20/2 Bombyx silk in three different chains, each with 230 ends. I’ll handpaint each one with similar colours and combine them into a 690 end shawl, sett at 30 epi that should give me a shawl about 22″ wide. This warp is 6 yards long — enough to make two shawls. Again, the idea is a block twill on eight shafts.

I know that all of July, I thought “Oh, after the wedding I’ll have more time… after the wedding…” but it seems like that’s not the case. There’s always more work. There’s always more stuff. There’s always too much to knit and never enough time. But maybe it’s not about trying to find more time. It’s about simplifying. Paring down. Minimizing… meanwhile, I just found at least four new things I want to make from Rowan’s Fall issue.

Crap.