sweetgeorgia

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.

Revamp

The dust is settling now… I think. I’ve been reworking the blog, trying to drop in all the ideas that I’ve had for a while now, but managed to break nearly all the photo links and things. I’m working on fixing it all! In the meantime, if you haven’t yet changed your subscription settings, the sweetgeorgia feed is now at http://feeds.feedburner.com/sweetgeorgia. Sorry for the inconvenience… and don’t breathe in any dust.

The Sweet Shop

Thank you to everybody who left such sweet comments for me about my handpainted sock yarns! It was both overwhelming and encouraging. So I took the past couple days to think about it all and last night, I had a tiny moment of clarity.

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. 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 sweetgeorgia@planetfishdesign.com 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!

Labour of Love

Dye Day

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. 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.

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.