One of the first challenges I had was trying to define or describe this space to people. Located on the fourth floor of a live/work building, it’s not a typical retail environment. It is an industrial-looking workspace, complete with concrete floors and walls, where we make hand-dyed yarns and spinning fibre. But I know that people came to the studio expecting to see every single yarn in every single colour and often I received (and still receive) phone calls asking if I carry Rowan yarns. No, it’s not that kind of yarn store. Maybe one day, but not today.

And so it was very important this past year for us to begin working with real, beautiful yarn stores again. I so much want for people to be able to touch and feel the yarns in person and to be able to experience that in their local yarn store. Nowadays, when you come to our studio, you will very often see (and smell!) yarn drying, yarn in the middle of being packaged or yarn being dyed. There actually is just a little bit of yarn on hand for retail sale. Most of what is in the studio now is being made to go out to shops. I love that the yarn shops can focus on beautiful displays, great customer service and keeping their shelves nicely stocked. And I love that by working in this way, I can focus on making beautiful yarn for those shops.

Absolutely, you can come visit our studio and see work in progress. And absolutely you can come see colours in person and make a custom order. And definitely, you can request dyed-to-order yarns and fibres from our studio online. But I encourage you to visit the fine local yarn stores that are now carrying SweetGeorgia Yarns… including L’Oisive Thé in Paris, France… our first time in France.

So this is kind of why we didn’t host a big party at the studio on this very rainy Vancouver Sunday. Well, because the studio floor is being taken up by yarn racks and bins of undyed yarn.

Instead, we are celebrating our Year One anniversary with a brand new website, a Free Shipping over $100 sale (for US & Canada), and a new pattern in Twist Collective featuring our Superwash Sport yarn. I’m sure that in the upcoming year we’ll have a few more falling-on-face-type experiences, but we are committed to focusing on developing more beautiful yarns and fibres, distributing our yarns and fibres through our website and fine retailers, and also designing more knitting patterns to inspire you. Happy anniversary.

And I’m so excited to present this series of semi-solid colourways for the SweetGeorgia sock yarns as a dye-to-order series. Available in the Superwash Sock or the slightly thicker, Superwash Sport, we’ll be dyeing as many skeins of these colours as you like. Over time, I’m looking to expand the series and also add back our more variegated colourways. I know that knitters want what they want when they want it, so I’m hoping to provide this option to many of you.

From left to right: China Doll, Raspberry, Pistachio, Saffron, Tourmaline, Orchid, Boysenberry. As for the colours, I think I was subliminally inspired by the Visit Mexico campaign that has been omnipresent in Vancouver buses. I’ve never been to Mexico, but my love for fish tacos seems to make me think I might like it.

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.

Last night, my friend Michelle came over to knit and watch The O.C. with us (this will likely be a trend over the next 30 weeks). In any case, I was organizing my stash bins (which are now 3!) and flipping through my old Spin Off magazines. We started talking about the drum carders that were featured in the Summer 2001 issue and about how I was now in between deciding on the Patrick Green Deb’s Deluxe (hand crank, $550 CDN) and the Patrick Green Fancicard (motorized, $1,300 CDN).

Then she says, “Fishy, what are you going to do with all the stuff you card? Spin it? Then what?!?” _(“Fish” is my nickname and aren’t you glad that this blog isn’t called “sweetfishy”)_

I have baskets full of handspun that I haven’t used to make _anything_ more than that single sock! But like I said before, when I finish a skein of yarn, it feels — _finished_. It’s my finished object.

So here’s the thing. I love the spinning. I love the hand painting and dyeing. I love making this _stuff_. But as a knitter with not so much time to knit, there’s no way I can knit it all myself… but I don’t want to stop making stuff. I can’t imagine _not_ dyeing just because there’s already too much in the stash.

Enter __[The Sweet Shop](http://sweetgeorgia.etsy.com)__. My handpainted, handdyed and maybe handspun _stuff_ (yarn and fibre) is now going to be for sale, starting with some of that sock yarn from the last post. Sorry, I used the blue and gold sock yarn to start a toe-up sock (to see how it knits up… _I like!_) but I’ve ordered more yarn to dye, so if you want the blue and gold colourway, send me a message at and let me know!

####And in other news

Here’s one skein of that lovely Ashland Bay merino I’ve been spinning — it’s a whole 180 yards! Now, I just need to make 7 or 8 more skeins just like it and I’ll be knitting up a shawl…

And for something completely different, here’s what the DH has been knitting:

It’s a 2×2 ribbed scarf in yarn that he stole from my stash. It’ll be his first finished object… when he finishes!

Mmm, _love_ long weekends. And this time, I actually took the whole weekend off. What a fantastic feeling. I spent all Saturday morning mixing up dye stock and dyeing fibre with my lovely turkey roaster…

There was some sock yarn dyeing… I was trying out some of the new dye colours that I picked up including Black, Brown, Navy and Scarlet. Mmm, it’s a nice change from my all-purple/all-pink rut, eh?

I also tried to dye some Tussah silk to match the [silk roving that I'm spinning for the Lotus Blossom Shawl](http://blog.sweetgeorgiayarns.com/archives/2005/08/from_the_fold.html). However, the silk I used was honey-beige coloured to start with, so my final colours are a little “warmer” than the pack of Treenway silk I bought. The idea is to ply the two together, but I’m wondering about how that might look overall — one “cool” ply and one “warm” ply.

It’s pretty amazing that the ratty looking just-dyed silk can immediately puff up into this soft, billowy roving. Just pre-draft a little and it looks buttery and smooth. Must get some more silk to dye!

####River Stole

Finally, I did cast on for River on September 1st and am now at five repeats. I’ve memorized the chart now, but still make mistakes when I’m in a rush. My advice for mistakes? Tink back entire rows and re-knit. I made the mistake of missing a couple of those massive YOs and tried to frog down the rows to insert them, but it just made me crazy. Those YOs are so large and all the stitches are so big and floppy that it’s easy to distort them. It can make you go blind and, _hello_, [I need my eyesight.](http://www.fox.com/oc/)

####Holz & Stein Needles

After posting about my new ebony needles, I received tons of messages asking about where to buy these needles. So here you go: . If you can read German, awesome. If not, Susanne writes perfect English, so just email her.