sweetgeorgia

Monday Meanderings

It’s Monday and my brain has become complete mush since I worked until midnight last night. Without the requisite amount of sleep, everything, and I mean everything, makes me exhausted. Even flipping through my keys to find my house key is exhausting. Sometimes I wish I had an extra arm… maybe that would make things easier. But it’s all good because the work included massive updates to the online shop:

* Speed Demon Sock yarns in both handpainted colourways and natural kettle dyed colours
* Superwash Sock yarns
* Spun Silk laceweight yarn
* Heartcore Heavy aran weight mohair and wool yarn
* Handpainted Lace yarns
* Schacht weaving shuttles, warping tools and more weaving things (we have these in-stock at the studio)

There is also more fibre and more CashSilk Lace to come, but it’ll take me some time to get those photos done and posted.

###Studio Space + Rentals
The most exciting thing here is that we are now starting to take reservations for dye workspace and floor looms at the studio. You can have a look at our new one-pager site with all the details and rates. Also, you can subscribe to our Google Calendar which will show all our open hours, including exceptions to the general hours, plus upcoming events. If you are in the Vancouver Lower Mainland, we’d be happy to help you reserve a floor loom or rent a spinning wheel.

http://www.sweetgeorgiayarns.com/studio/

###Knit + Spin Afternoon

And finally, I’ll be hosting a knit/spin-in on December 6th. Come spend a relaxing afternoon at the studio with your knitting or spinning! On Saturday, December 6th from 1pm to 4pm… Bring your spinning wheel, your knitting project, your questions or ideas… Feel free to browse through our resource library upstairs or play on one of the floor looms.

Over the next few days, I’ll be making up a blanket warp with “seconds” of my hand-dyed yarn. The yarn itself is still fabby, it’s just that the colours aren’t quite what I’m willing to sell… We’ll have one of the floor looms warped up for the blanket and you are welcome to come and try weaving a shot or two or twenty. Once the blanket is finished, we’ll be donating it to a homeless shelter in the Vancouver Lower Mainland. We’d love to have your participation.

Please RSVP by email to info [at] sweetgeorgiayarns [dot] com since I’ll need to know how many chairs we should supply… if you’ve seen the studio, you’ll know that seating is kinda limited, so please RSVP soon.

###Dye Workshops

Soon, soon, in January, I will be offering a number of dye workshops at the studio. Everything from the absolute basics of dyeing on wool to handpainting yarns to natural dyeing. If there is something in particular you are interested in learning, drop me a line and I’ll see what I can accommodate as I put together the lesson plans. Ahh, now back to work.

SweetGeorgia Studio Opening!

Thank you so much to everyone who took the time out of their busy days (it was civic election day!) to come down and visit the studio this past Saturday. I was overwhelmed with the support of old friends, new friends, old weaving classmates, pharmacy colleagues, dancers, online knitter friends, and family. Half an hour into the opening, we were standing pretty much shoulder-to-shoulder in the space and my heart was so happy but also racing. Here are a few photos from the afternoon:

I feel so very blessed to have such wonderful family and friends… none of this would have been possible without them. My mom baked all the cookies and cakes and prepared all the nibbles and drinks so that I could focus on getting all the new loom equipment built and arranged. Friends came over to help label yarn, move the heavy things and fix up the studio. It was really quite amazing.

Finally, after all these years, Kim Werker of Interweave Crochet and Crochet Me fame and I met up for the first time. She is hilarious, generous and so engaging… especially the bits about Joss Whedon. I’m looking forward to hearing her interview soon!

Donald from WeaveThings also came up from Washington to visit me! I’m humbled by the efforts people made to come visit for the afternoon. Thank you so much.

###Shop Update!

Lest you think I have forgotten about the online shop, never! I’ve just posted an update today and you can find some of the new yarns and fibres that I’m going to be stocking regularly:

Superfudge: The ultimate super skein. It’s 100% superwash merino wool. It’s 1/2 lb… that’s 1120 yards in 225g of light fingering weight wool. Make some super long knee socks or knit a substantial and squishy shawl or scarf.

Heartcore: A huge 1/2 lb (225g) skein of light worsted or DK weight yarn. 55% mohair and 45% wool with approximately 485 yards per skein. Knit a hat and matching wrist warmers… or some warm, hardwearing socks for winter.

Superwash BFL: It’s superwash. It’s Bluefaced Leicester. It’s the best of everything rolled in one. And it’s seriously the softest and fluffiest fibre I’ve ever seen.

As for the studio, I will be posting about the facilities there soon. We’ll be offering the space up for people to reserve dye workspace, the new Schacht Baby Wolf loom, the Leclerc Nilus 36″ loom, and all the carding and warping equipment.

For now, if you would like to come visit, we are officially open on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 9 am to 6 pm. Come visit us at 4th and Main.

Indigo dyeing in Kyoto

Near the end of October, I took a very short, very last-minute trip to Tokyo and Kyoto at what ended up being a most economically unfortunate time of the year. The Japanese Yen shot up relative to my Canadian dollar, leaving me with some pretty sad (yarn)buying power. But, I did go to Japan, and I did buy yarn… but more on that in another future post.

Being in Kyoto, mere blocks away from the traditional weaving and textiles district in the city, I sought out the Aizenkobo workshop. Aizenkobo is a indigo dye workshop and retail shop that produces a number of hand-dyed clothing items using techniques such as shibori (binding and dyeing), sashiko embroidery (hand stitching), ikat and double ikat (resist dyeing and weaving) and also natural dyeing with plant dyes.

Shibori dyed Japanese cotton scarves

Rolls of double-ikat handwoven fabric

Indigo dyed and overdyed sashiko thread

Sashiko on a pillowcase

I met the third-generation indigo dyer, Kenichi Utsuki, who described how his grandfather was originally an obi sash maker and weaver and how they started indigo dyeing. His father ran two businesses — both the obi sash making and indigo dye shop — but discovered that obi sash making was no longer a viable or profitable business. Their family switched to indigo dyeing alone, sold all their weaving looms, and focused entirely on natural process indigo dyeing. He has since been invited to numerous universities around the world to lecture on natural indigo dyeing. His wife, Hisako, is the designer of many of their garments.

Kenichi Utsuki stirring up one of three dye vats

Frothy and foaming indigo flower on the top of the vat, after stirring

His naturally fermented indigo process is significantly different from other chemical indigo processes in that it results in improved colour permanence and vibrancy in the indigo dyed fabric. Whereas we use chemicals like thiourea dioxide or sodium hydrosulfite, his natural ferment process uses wheat husk powder, limestone powder, lye ash, and sake. It allows the dye vats to run continuously throughout the year. I think it gets pretty cold in Kyoto in winter, but apparently they dye through the winter too. Also somewhat controversial is heating indigo vats, and here I could see that he has a heater inserted in the vat. I even watched him taste the dye liquor… eeek.

The natural indigo process produces an incredibly vibrant, saturated and clear blue colour that does not fade. Even pieces that he brought out that were 50 or 60 years old were still a bright, vivid “eggplant” blue. For comparison, he brought out a number of chemical process indigo pieces from all different countries, and the blue colour was much less saturated… greyed. Some of their blues are so intense and deep that they come close to black. On cotton and linen, something like 15 or 20 dips are required to generate the colour range. On silk, however, the number of dips increases to 40 to 60 even. One madder-dyed scarf he showed me was dyed and washed 18 times in order to get it’s intense, beautiful red colour.

Kanoko Shibori tied fabric prior to dyeing

...after dyeing...

...and after steaming.

Utsuki explained how they do not do any of the shibori tying at their workshop and instead hire factories in Nagoya to do this work. He says that each family has their own tying method and pattern that they do over and over for their whole lives. They don’t switch patterns. They simple make the same pattern again and again. That kind of steadfast dedication to one thing allows them to develop true mastery and virtuosity. It makes me wonder, if you think _your_ job is boring, I wonder what they think of their jobs. If they wake up in the morning and think, ah crap, another scarf, another day of making knots… But we are grateful for their exquisite skill and the beautiful things that are produced from their hands.

If you are interested, I brought back two shibori scarves, one madder dyed scarf, and two skeins of the most gorgeous indigo-dyed silk threads that you can take a look at on Saturday at the open house. We are on from 2 to 5 pm on Saturday afternoon at #401-228 East 4th Avenue at Main Street in Vancouver. Go vote for mayor… and then come play with yarn!