sweetgeorgia

Spring Twist Collective

The new Spring issue of Twist Collective is out now and I’m so in love. It’s nearly 70 pages long and packed full of really beautiful, detailed and tailored knitting patterns. There are light cardigans, summer tanks, airy shawls of all shapes, and many fine sock patterns.

Susanna IC also has a couple new shawl designs in the magazine, one of them being Giardina, knit in our Merino Silk Lace (Glacier). It’s a beaded rectangular shawl/stole that is perfect for summer layering. Here’s a close-up of the beadwork…

I’m also in love with Marnie Maclean’s ruffle cardigan, Regent, and Allison Haas’ socks, Asti (I would never put these socks into shoes — they are too pretty).

Now, with more KAL

We loved the SweetGeorgia KAL that ran this past winter, so I was thrilled when Susan (the fabulous Ravelry moderator for our Sweet SweetGeorgia group) suggested we run another one! So the new More SGY KAL/CAL/SAL (that is… knit along, crochet along, or spin along) has begun! This is all the info from the Ravelry thread:

Time for MORE SWEETGEORGIA, am I right? But…wouldn’t it be nice if you could get BONUSES the MORE SweetGeorgia yarn or fiber you used? Well then THIS is the craft-a-long for you!

THE RULES:

• THIS CRAFT-A-LONG IS ONLY FOR SGY YARNS OR FIBER. ONE POST PER ENTRY. You may enter as many times as you want.
• EACH POST MUST CONTAIN THE FOLLOWING:

1. A cast on/start date and photo within the dates of the KAL/CAL/SAL, or a prepping photo for spinners!
2. A finish date and photo added upon completion within the dates of the KAL/CAL/SAL! Completed project, or completed fiber spun up if you are entering as a spinner!

• EACH PROJECT must use greater than 50 percent of a skein or standard fiber bundle of SweetGeorgia yarn or fiber.

Now on to the bonuses!

• BONUS ENTRIES FOR EACH FULL HANK OF SGY used after the first one! So let’s say your sweater takes 4 skeins of fingering weight. You will get one entry for cast on and finish, PLUS three additional entries.
• CREATIVITY WILL BE REWARDED. So if you used 3.75 skeins for your sweater and you make a couple of bracelets and a blanket square with the last .25 skeins, you’ll get an extra full-skein entry as long as you provide photos!!
• Spinners will get a bonus for knitting/crocheting up their SGY handspun during the KAL! So if a spinner posts a prep photo and date, then a final spun fiber skein, THEN a project knit or crocheted with that skein, you get a bonus entry! Pre-spun yarn is not eligible for a bonus entry, sorry. :/
• Spinners will also get a bonus entry for each additional 100 grams of SGY fiber. So if you’ve got a double fiber membership and you spin up both of your fiber bundles, you’ll get a bonus entry for that too.
• Don’t worry, I’ll take care of adding the bonus entries for everyone. So for each entry, please just make one post.

THIS KAL/CAL/SAL RUNS FROM APRIL 1 to JUNE 30!! Fabulous prizes will be announced nearer the deadline!! HAVE FUN!

Enter your posts here: http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/sweet-sweetgeorgia/2088880/

Winners of our Winter KAL

Waaay back in the early fall, Susan suggested we run a knit-along for the members in the SweetGeorgia Ravelry group. SUCH a great idea. There were nearly 70 finished objects entered for prizes and they were all either made with SweetGeorgia yarn or spinning fibre or made from a SweetGeorgia pattern. Here are our prize winners:

Andrea (arian624 on Ravelry) from Victoria is our Grand Prize winner who will received a skein each of Tough Love Sock, BFL Sock and Silk Crush sock in colours she’s picked (Summer Skin, Coastal and Riptide) as well as a set of all our patterns. Stella is a pretty strongly variegated colourway, but I’m so happy to see how the stitch pattern in the socks breaks up the colourway a bit and makes it so fun to look at.

Kate (Aelia on Ravelry) from Australia is our Second Place Prize winner who will received a skein of Tough Love Sock as well as a set of all our patterns. This Shaelyn shawl is so stunning! I’ve just downloaded a copy of the pattern to play with too.

Our third place winner is Grace (sprouts on Ravelry, who spins and knits the most lovely handspun). Grace receives a copy of all our patterns. I’m so happy her prize-winning shawl was knit up in our October 2011 Sock Club colourway, Rockwater! I love seeing this knit up.

And finally, Maya (mayapof on Ravelry) knit a beautiful North Wind hat that won her a fourth place prize… a gift from the lovely Julia at mindofwinter. CashLuxe Fine held double… so yum.

There were so many really exquisite projects, I wish I could link them all!

• iliketobike’s socks (beautiful texture)
• misocrafty’s Neither Here and There hat (such cool use of two contrasting colours)
• mayapof’s Plain and Simple pullover in Tough Love (Blackberry)
• luvinthemommyhood’s North Wind hat in my favourite colour, Raspberry
• pretty much all of sprout’s sock club projects… the Indian Wedding Jaywalkers, Sitka Dragonfly socks, Vampire Christmas Dragonfly socks… and you must see Cameron’s Winter Hose.

Thank you so much to Susan for her constant encouragement to all the participants and her hard work in putting this KAL together! Thank you to all the participants… I hope you enjoy all your finished objects! And of course, congratulations to the winners!

Leapfrog Socks

Have you seen the new issue of Sockupied!? Interweave Press has been putting out these special interactive e-magazines since August 2010, and in this Spring 2012 issue, our Tough Love Sock yarn was featured in Debbie O’Neill‘s pattern, “Leapfrog Socks“.

It’s an ingenious sock pattern that mixes up handpainted yarns to minimize any pooling tendencies. The stitch pattern creates these “leaping” yarnovers which move the colours around and makes the best use of handpainted yarns. Check it out on Ravelry here »

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.