sweetgeorgia

New Pattern: Park City Socks

After taking Cookie A’s sock design class at VK Live in September, I knew I had to get myself in gear and actually DO something with all the knowledge I was acquiring. So, I thank Cookie A and my table-mate, Chia, for being a part of this whole sock pattern process. In Cookie’s class, we learned to do the math required to fit a stitch pattern to sock instructions, ensuring that the sock is the right size to fit over your foot AND ankle joint. While, I didn’t end up working out the pattern I had started in Cookie’s class, here is what I did end up designing:

These Park City Socks feature an all-over simple lace pattern that looks like a forest of trees. Knit from the top/cuff down, they are written for two sizes (to fit a foot circumference of 8.5″ and 10″ — ladies’ medium and large). One of our intrepid test knitters, Judy, knit these for us in Tough Love Sock (English Ivy). I knit my sample in Cayenne and I think it’s so interesting to see how we all use the same size knitting needles (2.25 mm) and the same yarn, and yet we get different results because of our knitting styles. My prototype sock was knit way too tight… thank heavens for test knitters.

Hope you enjoy… my first sock pattern. Please let me know if you run into trouble or have questions about the instructions! Find the pattern here on Ravelry or on our website.

New Pattern: Lilac Leaves Shawl

After months of test knitting, re-knitting, and more test knitting, we launched my Lilac Leaves shawl pattern at TNNA last weekend. It’s a lovely little top-down semi-circular shawl that is really easy to knit and modify. Knit with just one skein of CashSilk Lace, it features a quick stockinette body section and then finishes with a border of lace in the Lilac Leaves pattern.

Our test knitters made up their samples in laceweights including CashSilk Lace and Merino Silk Lace as well as fingering/sock weight yarns. The pattern worked well for the different yarn weights… they just resulted in different looks and feels… I need to take a photo of Evelien’s massive version in Merino Silk Lace. It’s simply gorgeous and huge and all Lettuce Wrap-y green.

In this case, Brigid reduced the number of lace repeats and used a heavy fingering weight yarn (our Silk Crush) to make a shawlette that’s perfect as a neck scarf.

The pattern is available as a 6-page PDF download with both written and charted instructions here on Ravelry or on our website here.

Back from TNNA

We escaped the cold and wet snow in Vancouver last weekend to Phoenix for the TNNA Winter Show. It was such a complete 180 in terms of weather, but it did not go unappreciated. I love wearing flip flops in January.

After all these years, we finally debuted our beloved SweetGeorgia Yarns at our first ever TNNA booth. We brought Tough Love dyed up in every single colour, as well as all fourteen of our base yarns. We had buttons and fibre… and Schacht was so awesome as to lend us a brand new Sidekick spinning wheel for the weekend!

Both Teresa and I managed to convince our husbands (Hubert and Dan) to join us on the trip, which was a great thing because we really really appreciated their help. And I think Hubert got hooked on spinning over the weekend too… he’s considering refining his spinning skills to spin laceweight so that Teresa can knit it. A perfect combo, I think.

This being our first show, we really didn’t know what to expect. From shipping things ahead of time, to setting up on Friday, to three days of sales meetings… it all worked out better than I had hoped. As we took off from YVR on Thursday morning, I still hadn’t received confirmation that our yarn shipments had arrived in PHX and it was SUPER stressful worrying about whether we would have ANYTHING to show in our booth. But as Teresa, Hubert and I touched down three hours later, I got a notification that our parcels arrived… just in time. We picked up our rental car and headed to a 2-bedroom condo that we had booked (so much more relaxed and less expensive than staying at a hotel). Dan joined us on Friday to help with the booth setup and the Sample It event.

The weekend went remarkably well and I was so happy that we finally met some of the yarn shop owners we’ve been working with already, and also so happy to meet new shops that we’ll be working with this year. Our booth was just a hop skip and a jump away from Deep South, so we got to see a ton of extremely talented designers every day… Grace Akhrem, Anne Kuo Lukito, Pam Powers, Ysolda, CocoKnits and Wendy Bernard from Knit and Tonic. Stephannie Tallent, who is about to launch her gorgeous new book “California Revival Knits“, also hung out with us at the booth.

We were really buoyed by the wonderful and positive response we received about our booth and about coming out to TNNA. Clara Parkes from Knitter’s Review even stopped by to chat! I’m sure we will do what we can to make it to Columbus in June. Despite all the anxiety and stress around shipping and deadlines, there’s really nothing that beats meeting up with knitters in real life. My reward for all this hard work? A couple scoops of Late Night Snack (never seen it in stores until last week!).

Cladonia Colours

Melissa at Espace Tricot also knit up a gorgeous version of Kirsten Kapur’s Cladonia shawl. The shawl is designed to use two contrasting colours in the main body, alternating to make fine stripes. Some knitters have chosen to knit it entirely in one solid colour, but here Melissa has chosen two colourways that are “close” but still visibly distinct. It makes for a beautiful shawl with kind of an undulating colour effect. A great variation on contrasting stripes.

And here’s a subtle and gorgeous version, knit by Ittybitty in Switzerland… it’s a mix of Koigu’s KPM and our Tough Love Sock in Cypress.

So many knitters on Ravelry mentioned that this was a super easy knit… so I added it to the queue and realized it’s #92 in the list of things to knit. Might need to spend a little time culling the queue.

Hawthorne at Espace Tricot

It’s a new year and time to start new things… including new knitting projects. Espace Tricot, a wonderful yarn shop in Montreal, is hosting a Knit-along starting January 19th in their shop and they chose our Superwash Worsted for their Hawthorne project.

Hawthorne by Susanna IC is a stunning and versatile shawl / wrap / scarf which can be worn many different ways. Knitted in one piece, it begins with the lace edge followed by garter-stitch short rows. The store sample is knit using SweetGeorgia Yarns 100% Superwash Merino. Pattern can be purchased online.

What new project are you starting this year?