sweetgeorgia

Woven Shibori on a Rigid Heddle Loom

It’s the end of the work day on a Friday and I’ve been busy winding, packaging and labelling yarn. It’s a never-ending task. I’m kind of beat, but just saw this in my mailbox and got pretty excited… It’s woven shibori on a humble rigid heddle loom. Fantastic, extensive post with complete details and step-by-step instructions. I love love love simple plain weave on a rigid heddle loom but am getting more and more interested in seeing what else is possible with this simple tool.

Here’s the link at Weavezine »

Beyond Robson

Ahh, breakfast this morning was a potato focaccia from Terra Breads factory (on East 5th) on the way to the Vancouver Guild meeting. All those simple carbs are running straight through my bloodstream and I’m in a food kind of mood right now.

We are lucky to have a pretty extensive Vancouver blog here called Beyond Robson that details all the inner goings on of the city in terms of music, art, food and generally cool stuff. But when visitors come to Vancouver, it’s hard to refer them to a site like that because they’ll have no idea how to decipher it. It also tends to be a bit political in it’s reviews and opinions and so, is kind of more for locals. So, when people say they are coming to Vancouver, I send them a list of my most favourite restaurants and places in Vancouver.

The Foundation Eatery
2301 Main St., Vancouver, BC
http://www.foodvancouver.com/restaurant-review.php?restaurant=508
Vegetarian, but amazing. The very best nachos (and guacamole) in Vancouver (served after 5pm). Ask marirob… they went twice.

Chambar
562 Beatty Street, Crosstown, Vancouver BC
http://www.chambar.com/
Belgian beer and food. Mussels Congolese… really really good. It seems like it might be a bit pretentious, but the restaurant is really quite casual. “Crosstown” is just outside of Gastown, near downtown.

Grub on Main
4328 Main Street, Vancouver
http://grubonmain.ca/
One of the newest restaurants on Main street. Everything is super fresh… and they make a random vegan dessert every day which is remarkably good. That photo to the left… Prohibition Punch in old-school punch bowls with melamine ladles. A combination of Pimm’s lime syrup, ginger beer, cucumber, strawberries, bitters and apple slices… perfect for a warm sunny afternoon on Main Street.

Sweet Revenge
4160 Main Street, Vancouver
http://www.sweet-revenge.ca/main.html
For late night dessert!

Dragon Ball Tea House
1007 W King Edward, Vancouver
http://www.dinehere.ca/restaurant.asp?r=300
This place is good for late night bubble tea cravings… you’ll have to wait your turn though.

Finch’s Tea & Coffee House
353 West Pender, Vancouver
http://www.dinehere.ca/restaurant.asp?r=808
This is my absolute favourite café in Vancouver. I’ve written about it many times here… They make really wonderful baguette sandwiches and fresh soup every day. Masala chai tea. Everything is made fresh, so sometimes the lunch lineups can be long and frustrating (since they always run out of seating too)… but I think it’s worth it. This is just outside Gastown, so if you are visiting old historic downtown Vancouver, this might fit in…

Slickity Jim’s Chat & Chew
2513 Main Street, Vancouver
http://www.vancouverplus.ca/portal/profile.do?profileID=671929
Mostly brunch/breakfast things. During the weekdays that you’ll be here, it most likely will be easy to get in. On the weekends, the lineup is insane.

People emailing me about Vancouver usually want to visit yarn stores too, so the ones that I send them to are Three Bags Full, Urban Yarns, and Maiwa’s new yarn store on Granville Island at the Net Loft.

This summer, the Vancouver Art Gallery is also showing a pretty massive exhibit, “Vermeer, Rembrandt and the Golden Age of Dutch Art” which includes a single Vermeer painting and over one hundred pieces of artwork from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. If you’re in Vancouver sometime before September 13th, this is worthy of at least one visit. I’ve been twice already and it’s still not enough to absorb all of the work. The detail and skill in some of the works is inconceivable.

And sort of related, is the Saturday Circus that meets outside of the Vancouver Art Gallery on Saturdays… I found Christa Giles, local knitwear designer and knitting instructor, there teaching people the art of hooping this past weekend!

And there are a few newer-to-me places where I would take my empty stomach on any night of the week:

Jang Mo Jib
1719 Robson St, Vancouver
http://tamarindandthyme.wordpress.com/2008/06/19/korean-food-at-jang-mo-jib/
Handmade Korean dumplings. Hot pot that is to die for.

Book Kyung Ban Jeoum
1638 Robson, Vancouver
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/515627
It has the Korean version of my beloved Za Jiang Mein. Wheat noodles smothered in black bean sauce and onions. It’s item number one on the menu and rings up under $7. I could eat this every day of my life, happily.

Motomachi Shokudo
740 Denman Street, Vancouver
http://www.beyondrobson.com/restaurants/2009/02/motomachi_shokudo/
If you can’t wait in the line up for ramen at Kintaro on Denman, go to Motomachi. It’s run by the same people… just a little bit more upscale and organic.

I’m off to find some dinner now before tonight’s spinning class…

Deeper into Colour

The Coquitlam Guild gave me a chance to speak last Thursday about natural dyes and natural fibres, and while I did talk about my experiments with natural dyeing over the past few years, including starting up the Supernatural SweetGeorgia collection of naturally dyed yarns, I think I ended up talking about dyeing and craft and burnout. How do we renew and regenerate ourselves after burnout? Do we even come back to the craft which took us down in the first place? I related this to principles and values that I learned in the completely unrelated activity of surfing and talked about how it gave me back the balance, simplicity and focus, and the appreciation to even attempt to dye things again. I’m not sure my “surfing as metaphor for life” goes over in weaving and knitting circles, but it’s the honest truth about what I believe.

I talked about changing my dye practice from very sharply variegated colourways, requiring a shameful amount of plastic waste, and moving towards a more water- and energy-efficient workflow. That is the reason I have moved more towards kettle-dyeing, semi-solid shade colourways and multiple colour overdyes… so that I could better take advantage of the low-impact benefits of acid dyeing.

Also, I related to the guild members how natural dyeing is not a benefit to the environment for larger scale operations and noted how Lorna’s Laces Green Line ended up being dyed with conventional synthetic dyes.

Regardless of natural vs. synthetic dye sources, I’ve also tried to implement the colour principles that I learned from Michele Whipplinger including the idea of chromatic neutrals. That is, I’m trying to dye more complex browns and greys as opposed to colours that are so obviously… colourful. Colours that are slightly desaturated and more rich in depth.

I’m also working with a new 50/50 silk and merino laceweight base yarn. It’s a slightly heavier laceweight, but so glossy and gorgeous. It’s 765 yards in a 100 g skein and I’m looking forward to knitting up something like a Swallowtail Shawl in it. It has been, so far, taking the colour so well and I’ll be adding it to the online shop soon too.

There are so many things to learn and so many things to explore. I’m happy that I’ll be spending the summer dyeing more of these deeper, richer colours in preparation for the autumn.

Automatic Knitting

Recently, I had the opportunity to work with a fashion designer who referred to stockinette stitch as “jersey”. For whatever reason, that word seemed so 80’s. Not sure why. It’s the same thing, just different terminology from a different field. Whatever you call it, I love my plain knitting. No need to look down and watch my stitches, I am pleased that I can form these stitches relatively quickly and completely in the dark. Sometimes, I knit in bed and actually fall half asleep while still knitting stockinette. A particularly bad thing that I sometimes do is knit at stoplights. This is NOT recommended. But knitting at stoplights prevents the other evil that is road rage.

I love that I can knit on a stockinette sleeve in the movie theatre and not lose my place… good thing, since I managed to spend all of Friday night at the Twilight Drive In theatre in Langely… If you haven’t been, you must try it! It’s kind of a trek, but super relaxing to be able to sit in your own car and talk and knit through the entire movie(s) (they show three features in one night). During those six hours, I think I may have eaten my body weight in gummy bears and Pringles.

This knitting is so simple and so soothing. It’s automatic and doesn’t require much angst or thinking. I knit this sleeve of the Whisper Cardigan on much of the drive to Seattle for the Cheese Festival this past weekend. Rather than starting with 90 stitches as in the pattern, I followed the recommendation of a couple knitters on Ravelry and cast on for 76 stitches instead… so I wouldn’t have such a huge bell-shaped sleeve. Not that my arms are particularly tiny. But anyway.

A weekend full of automatic, plain old knitting has got me to the point of finishing this test sweater. I might find some time for doing the sewn bind off of that 1×1 rib tonight… or tomorrow. Finishing never seems as relaxing as knitting. Now that Dollhouse is finished and I’m still waiting for the return of TrueBlood, I’ve been given the first season of The Wire so that I have something to knit to.

It’s lovely that my mom finished knitting her first project too, last week. It’s a stockinette vest for my dad, knit in a Shetland Aran yarn, with 1×1 ribbing at the bottom edge, armholes and neckline. We adapted a pattern to fit my mom’s gauge on 5 mm needles and the size, pre-blocking, appears to be pretty darn good. She’s encouraged, I think, because she’s excited about starting a vest for herself this time. I like when people are happy about their knitting.

Nefertiti Wrap

Back in January, I had the delight and pleasure of meeting Miriam Felton, designer of the lovely Icarus shawl from Interweave. She told me that after TNNA she was going to embark on turning her knit design endeavours into her full time livelihood. I was so inspired and encouraged to hear this and wished her well. So when I got back from TNNA, I pinged her on Ravelry and said that I’d like to send her some yarn… see if she’d like something to play with. I ended up sending her a few skeins of CashSilk Lace and she ended up making this…

It’s called the Nefertiti Wrap and takes about 2 skeins of CashSilk Lace. I do love the diagonal design to it… and also how it’s not a single lace pattern throughout. One lace patterns flows and melds into the next. Very very lovely.

I’m thinking about Nefertiti this afternoon as I collect my things and thoughts, on my way to speaking tonight for the Coquitlam Weavers & Spinners Guild. Public speaking always makes me intensely nervous, so I hope I don’t lose my voice, insult anyone, or make any other major gaffs… I’ll be talking about natural dyeing among other things. We’re starting at about 7 pm at Place des Arts. Fingers crossed that everything goes well. Yay.