sweetgeorgia

Surrounded by yarn. Please send help.

Despite catching some crappy flu on Sunday night almost immediately after I finished teaching my very first dye class, then nearly passing out at my brother’s birthday dinner, and tossing and turning through a long night of fever and chills last night, I’ve been experiencing a ferocious wave of energy. It’s partly an unsettled feeling of wanting to do so much and create so much while only having a limited amount of time… but it’s also a massive push from the energy I gained from being at the TNNA trade show. I met so many beautiful, young, talented women who had taken charge of their lives, their passion and their careers… women who had built or re-built their lives on the design and creation of contemporary textiles. It makes me feel like I could feel perfectly at home doing the same with my life. It also makes me feel like I should stop being so timid about how much I love what we do.

After spending a weekend rooming with Cecily Keim of Such Sweet Hands and Kim Werker, two girls who wrote the book on crochet, I came home with a pressing need to crochet something… anything. Currently, I’m obsessed with the Babette Blanket. Pictures soon, if I ever stop ripping out what I make. These girls could make a crochet-convert out of anyone. I did teach Cecily how to drop spindle very quickly… and then she did order a new loom from the Glimakra booth. That would be a double yay. I’m excited to see her excited about trying out weaving. Her eyes were seriously sparkly with the thought of being able to mix crochet and handwoven fabric. I love that.

I’m also currently obsessed with spinning this silk/merino fibre that I dyed last Thursday. It still has bits of undyed roving which give the spun yarn a bit of lightness and sparkle.

And I have grand plans for this simple, kettle dyed olive and apple green coloured merino wool.

But this wave of uncontrolled energy has me running between projects, creative and admin, all day long. I don’t stop for lunch until about 3 in the afternoon when I remember that my stomach is empty. I’ve ripped and re-cast on for some really silly project about six times in the last two hours… while also warping the Spring loom with new Malabrigo yarn, dyeing a pound of cashmere/silk yarn, weaving mistakes into my bfl scarf, snapping other warp threads on the Baby Wolf, and packaging about two dozen silk/merino fibre packets. All the while, thinking about the sportweight sock, Trekking sock, and my brother’s hat that I’m knitting… and not thinking about the February baby and Baby Surprise that I am also knitting. Forget accounting (for now).

So in the midst of all this (gentle) madness, I need to remember that I am not a machine and that while some things require my hands and eyes, other things do not and should not. This hand dyer and business owner seeks test knitters at all skill levels. If you are interested in doing some test knitting, please drop me a line at felicia [at] sweetgeorgiayarns [dot] com and let me know what you like to knit and what you are typically comfortable knitting. I would love to hear from you.

Also in the mix is a weaving workshop that will be happening on Wednesdays at the Studio starting early February. If you are interested in working through some of the very basics of weaving and getting started with either a 4-shaft loom or rigid heddle loom, I’d love to hear from you!

Now, back to that Babette Blanket.

San Diego and the all fish taco diet

Before we can even think about the trade show, yarn stuff, crocheting or weaving… we have to talk about the fish tacos. Having never been to San Diego, I was unaware (but quickly learned — thank you, Mari!) that the signature dish of the area is fish tacos. And by an incredible stroke of luck, my $17/night hostel was located a block away from (what is claimed to be) the home of the world’s best fish taco. South Beach Bar & Grille is located in Ocean Beach, a little old school beach community just a little northwest of downtown San Diego. The small, palm tree-lined streets are punctuated by smoke shops, body piercing parlours, Irish bars, and of course, surf shops.

I loved this spot. My day rate at the hostel cost less than the breakfast at the Hyatt hotel. It cost less than one day of parking at the hotel. I had a room designed with six bunks, but I was the only one in the room for three nights… so it was like getting a private room plus private shower. I would come back to this hostel in a heartbeat. Along with free towels (unusual at hostels, I found) and free Wifi, the hostel would serve a free, hot buffet with all the eggs and flapjacks you could eat. I’d get my coffee and walk the two blocks to the beach every morning, letting the sun and the sound of surf clear my head for the day. The residents were warm and friendly… and just very real. And no matter what I did in the daytime, I’d always come back to OB for dinner…

On Thursday afternoon, before I started my five hour drive from San Diego to Los Angeles (not the smartest thing, I know, but I had to get to the Unwind anniversary party), I bumped into this undeniably awesome taco shop in Mission Hills called Lucha Libre Taco Shop. Eating mahi tacos in a shop with hot pink walls and zebra striped chairs with luchador masks embroidered to them… it’s a completely perfect combination. And they have a bathroom painted entirely in metallic silver with mirrors on the ceiling… take your photo there and you can post it to their myspace page. Hah.

In the Starbucks line up on Saturday morning at TNNA, I bumped into Chris Bylsma and she recommended the Tin Fish across the street from the San Diego Convention Center, just outside the Gas Lamp district. She said it was so good she ate there twice in one day!

I think I’ve always associated tacos with the kind of small, crispy hard shell that is awkward and messy to eat… the fillings of the taco end up everwhere except your mouth. But these are light, soft tortillas, doubled up for strength and topped with a fresh, grilled piece of fish, a pile of shredded cabbage, salsa and white sauce. They are just fresh, light but filling. The grilled ones never make you feel weighted down. Mari wondered if they put butter in the rice because it’s so addictive.

I’ve been home for three nights and I miss my fish tacos.

Blogging from the beach.

This is all kinds of wonderful. I’m presently tucked into a little hostel by the beach in San Diego for a few days before TNNA, full up on super delicious fish tacos and enjoying more sunshine than I have seen in months. On Monday morning, I woke up at 4:30 am to make my early morning flight from Vancouver to LAX. The flight was short and sweet and the trek to get the rental car was easy. Mari and Rob (who came to visit Vancouver a few months ago and have amazing photos of Tofino) were so generous to host me for my first night in Los Angeles, but finding my way to Mari’s house was not so easy. I even rented a GPS but didn’t know how to use it… I kept going around in circles and the GPS kept saying I was “one minute from destination blah blah blah”. Anyhow, I finally met up with Mari and had the immense pleasure of sleeping under a quilt that she made herself!

She was such a lovely host, showing me around town, and we crisscrossed Santa Monica in search of new yarn stores. One of the first stops was not quite a yarn store, but SO awesome. The Urban Craft Center is like a larger version of what I’d like to see my own studio become… it’s a communal craft center where people come to participate in a whole slew of crafts including everything from candle making to wet felting to scrapbooking to soap making. They have three Lendrum wheels on-hand for you to use and at least ten sewing machines. There are crock pots and drum carders and pasta rollers (for polymer clay?). Oh my. If I lived in Santa Monica, THIS is where I would spend all my spare time.

We also managed to slip into Wild Fiber and buy a tiny bit of yarn. This is the first time in such a long time that I’ve bought yarn for myself… personal stash yarn. It was such a welcome change of perspective and I left the store with a few skeins of Mirasol Tupa, a Peruvian silk-wool blend, some Trekking sock yarn, and a skein of Wollmeise sock yarn. Typically, the yarns I like tend to be expensive because they have some fabby combination of silk in them… or they are dyed amazingly… but one yarn I was seriously moved by was the Tanglewood handspun. Those skeins of handspun yarn often had cashmere, yak or angora in the blends. They were hand-dyed and then spun into big skeins with prices ranging from $60 to 150 a skein. For the amount of time, effort, and artistry put into those yarns, Tanglewood deserves every single penny.

This morning, after eggs for breakfast (yay!), we visited the Getty, a gorgeous building with equally impressive landscaping, followed by a trip to a new yarn store, Compatto, in Santa Monica. It was a crafty celebrity sighting as one of the girls who worked at the store instantly recognized Mari because of a pattern she had just published on Purl Bee _this morning!_

We drove to Manhattan Beach and stopped at another new yarn store, Twist Yarns of Intrigue. Compared to the large, spacious 2000 sq ft at Wild Fiber, Twist was tiny. Maybe 400 or 500 sq ft? But it was filled from floor to ceiling with some of the most lovely and thoughtful yarns I’ve seen. The owner, Cathy, has plenty of Habu yarns stocked as well as Handmaiden, Dream in Color, Malabrigo, Be Sweet, and more. She herself was a graduate of a textile program where she learned to weave, but unfortunately, there is no space for her large Macomber loom in the store. But she does fabric dyeing on site at the shop and also yarn dyeing off site. Her colour sense seems very sensitive and sophisticated. And she seems so at peace with her passion for yarn. It struck me how much the personality of the yarn store owner affects the mood and atmosphere of the entire store. Each of these yarn store owners was vibrant and strong and passionate in their own way, and the shops they created expressed their very personality. Stepping into a yarn store is like stepping into someone’s personal closet, full of there most favourite colours and textures. It’s so revealing.

To end the day, we made our way to the Purl Soho warehouse in Orange County where Mari works and I had the opportunity to meet Jen, the co-owner of Purl Soho. The warehouse is divine. About two-thirds of the warehouse is stocked with shelves and shelves of knitting yarn… everything from Alchemy to Koigu to Manos… all the yummy stuff. And then the other third is filled with beautiful, contemporary quilting fabrics. I was so tempted to get Joelle’s quilting book, but I barely have time to knit for myself let alone start quilting. Instead, I found a few skeins of yarn that called out to me, including some Shibui Kid Merino and Koigu Mori (mulberry silk and merino sock yarn).

It is all kinds of wonderful that it was possible for me to meet up with Mari. Knitters are different than other people, and knit bloggers are even more rare. It’s a blessing to be able to share so much in common with friends from so far away. We should all be so lucky.

Using your handspun

Sometimes when I’ve spent a zillion hours dyeing the fibre, spinning fine singles yarn, then plying the yarn (ending up with half or even a third of the original yardage) and then soaking and setting the yarn… I feel done. All I want to do is just want to rest and stare at the lovely yarn I’ve spun. My eyes travel along each strand of the yarn, inspecting the twist, the consistency (if any!), and the oh so subtle shift in hue. It’s literally mesmerizing. And then the handspun yarn that I’ve lifted to “too precious” heights ends up sitting there on the shelf for ages, admired and loved from afar. It’s too bad, because handspun yarn calls out to be used.

When you made the yarn, didn’t you have things in mind for it? Didn’t you design it as a 3-ply instead of 2-ply because it would be stronger? Incorporate nylon binder for added durability? Did you strip the handpainted roving lengthwise or crosswise to select for colours? Of course. When you spun the yarn, you designed it for a purpose that was already in your mind. Sure, sometimes it’s relaxing to spin mindless bits of gobbledygook, but most of the time, I have reasons for all the teeny tiny decisions I made during the handspinning process.

Lately, I’ve been going through my handspun yarn stash determined that no yarn is too precious to use. And so some of the very first Navajo-plied handspun yarn that was originally destined for socks is now being knit into Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Baby Surprise Jacket. Actually, my thinking was that this lovely yarn was too nice to be pushed into boots and worn underfoot. Now, I do think that I’ve muffed the instructions for the jacket though… forgetting where I left the instruction book for a few days and trying to figure it out on my own… never a good idea. I see that they have these BSJ “Row Keeper” notes on Ravelry… seems like a good idea. I’ll have to go back and start counting.

Handspun yarns in weaving… I think I had always heard not to put handspun yarn in the warp, but really, it’s about making decisions while spinning that will make your handspun suitable for weaving. Warp yarn needs to be strong (handspun or not, cashmere yarn in the warp REALLY blows), so that it can withstand high tension and abrasion by the reed and heddles. So make your joins in the handspun yarn nice and strong. Plying your yarn adds strength too, although Paula Simmons swears by singles yarn (says she’s never plied in her life). And if you really want to put slubby singles on your loom as warp, maybe try to find heddles that will stretch or bend to accommodate the yarn (like texsolv…).

Yesterday, I received a shipment of the new Schacht Cricket Looms and managed to quickly warp one up with my handspun merino and silk yarn. I know some weavers will turn up their noses at rigid heddle looms, especially one that is tiny and only 10″ wide, but rigid heddle weaving is seriously one of the quickest ways for people to see how weaving works. I was able to build the loom, warp it, and start weaving on it within an hour. It’s a good, inexpensive way to dip your toe in the water and see if the weaving bug bites. For me, it offers nearly instant gratification to see my handspun in woven fabric.

Handspun yarn is beautiful. It’s full of life and precious… but nothing is too precious to use and enjoy.

Shiny + New

So many people had such a rough 2008, I’m happy to see that 2009 is finally here. It’s with great excitement that I start this year and start in a direction that I have long wished and waited for. For years now, I have been asked to teach dye classes and such, and for years now, I have wanted to be able to offer lessons, classes, workshops, and dye days. So, now with the new studio in place I am offering classes this spring. I’ll be teaching a series of essential dye classes for dyeing protein fibres, cellulose fibres, and also using natural dyes. Take a single one or take them all. They are a pre-requisite for signing up for open studio time or for the future advanced dye classes that I will be offering.

Also on the schedule are classes in drop spindling and wheel spinning! A few years ago, I realized that the commercial yarns I fell in love with were too expensive for me to buy and so I learned to dye and spin my own yarns to my own preferences and specifications. Learn to make your own handspun and you’ll be able to create exactly what you want, starting with the materials and colours you love. Ultimately, you free your creativity. I have included Louet Octo Drop Spindles in the drop spindle class, but you can always upgrade to a Schacht Hi-Lo Spindle if you prefer. And in the wheel spinning class, you are welcome to bring your own wheel or use one of our wheels — a Schacht Ladybug, Louet Victoria, or Louet Julia.

We’re also running three special spinning classes in spinning for sock yarn, spinning luxurious and exotic fibres, and also colour for spinners. Colour for Spinners is something I’ve always wanted to run… a full day of playing with the drum carder, combs, blending solids to get marls, and stripping handpainted rovings for self-striping yarns!

• » See the complete schedule of classes on our Google Calendar
• » Register for classes online here

Also new this season is our SweetGeorgia Fibre Club! We are currently taking a limited number of club members for this February to April offering of unique hand-dyed fiber. Each month, an exclusive colourway will be delivered to your doorstep for your handspinning (or felting) joy. I’ll be setting up a little blog, Ravelry and Flickr groups for this, so keep a look out for it.

Being snowed in by crazy (CRAZY) Vancouver weather over the past few weeks has actually allowed me time to work on my own projects. I’m actually slowly back to knitting and I started this tiny little February Baby Sweater over the holidays. It’s knit in two strands of SweetGeorgia Superfudge yarn, a light fingering weight yarn, that has been kettle dyed in lac. Similar to another natural bug dye, cochineal, lac is a small scale insect that can be found on Ficus trees. It gives a more muted colour than cochineal and results in a beautiful rose or burgundy colour. The EZ pattern is (pithy and) dead easy which also helps.

Finally, thank you to everyone who responded to my last post on gratitude. I am very pleased to announce that Sulicat, self-proclaimed fibre enthusiast and creative dork, was our randomly selected winner for the bloggy, yarny prize.

Following Elizabeth Zimmerman’s short letters and instructions, I was delighted to read her closing words… “Keep knitting and stay calm.” With all that is shiny and new this year, there is also excitement and nervousness… I am anticipating good things… and will keep knitting and stay calm.