sweetgeorgia

What I did on my Gap year

It was exactly one year ago today when I started on my trip to Fiji. I didn’t think that I’d be away from work, friends and family for so long. In fact, the idea started out as just a three-week vacation… which became a hiatus from work wherein I declined all new projects and clients and explored other avenues of creativity, design and content development. Two of my close friends got married while we were in Fiji and, outside of sporadic wedding planning, we did a little bit of surfing and a lot of sunburning.

Traveling ended up being a very small portion of my year. Although I did travel to London several times, I think my travels and explorations were mainly internal. I started a couple new business ventures (because you can never have enough new ideas), looked back at the last ten years and looked forward ten years, discovered new friends and old souls, snowboarded during all my spare days this past season, uprooted and moved my possessions three times, and got divorced from my husband of six years. I tearfully sold my childhood and family home in Kitsilano … the one housing my entire dye and design studios… and am joining the hoards of people looking for a place to live in Vancouver.

My internal travels still take place every day. I question and I doubt. I look at different paths and avenues and simultaneously get inspired and despondent. These travels never end but I am just grateful that I don’t need to walk these paths alone. My family and friends have been an unmeasurable support and I am very very grateful for them.

Yesterday, I received news that I’m back on the practicing registrar for pharmacists… so I’m returning to practice in a field I thought I’d never go back to. I’m learning to see that not everything is black and white… and adjust to seeing all the shades of grey in my life, appreciating all the subtlety. And I’m also starting to knit again. Finally.

The back and front pieces are done. All I need are sleeves now. Why does it always feel like “All I need is ‘fill in the blank’ now”? I don’t know. But at this particular moment, all I need are sleeves now.

Here’s to the end of my gap year and to a most beautiful fresh start.

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.

Every shade of white

It’s breathlessly beautiful up here at Whistler Blackcomb. I’m almost tempted to not return to real life. Almost.

It’s pretty white up here though and sometimes all you see is miles and miles of white marked with tiny little coloured flags. But it’s fascinating to me… you think that all you see is white and nothingness, but really you see all the subtlety of light and shadow and every shade of white you can imagine. Cool white. Warm white. White in the morning light. White in overcast light. White in blindingly beautiful bluebird skies. I fully expect and look forward to being visually assaulted when I return to my yarns and dyepots next week.

I am brand new.

… and SO humbled by your responses. I am beside myself with appreciation that so many of you took time to write me your thoughts. Thank you so much for YOUR passion and interest.

It’s a lucky coincidence that most everyone is in agreement on most everything! So, the direction looks pretty clear to me, but I’ll still be taking some time to digest and plan it all out. In the meantime, instead of some new 2008 resolutions, I’ve made myself some 2008 rules/principles/ideals to live by:

1. I am not a machine.
2. I cannot be everything to everyone.
3. I will not compromise on the things I believe in.

All of this needs to happen slowly… oh so slowly… so that it doesn’t all collapse on itself. The very, very last thing I want to do is to disappoint any of you but unfortunately we are not yet at the production capacity of a decades old dye company. So, we will grow slowly and hopefully we will all be able to enjoy the diverse, unique, nuanced and intensely colourful joy that can only happen with a smaller, artisan dye studio. What this means is that for now we won’t be able to supply wholesale accounts… but this is something we will revisit continually. Because what is more wonderful than getting beautiful, squooshy yarn into your hands?

It still amazes me every day that we can get colour like this… delicate, honey gold, butter yellow, corn maize yellow, ochres, deep sea greens… from a couple natural dyes and overdyes. It seems so impossible and just so amazing.

I am brand new. And pretty darn blessed.

Happy new year to everyone and hope you have a wonderful start to 2008! Of course, you want to know who won the little contest, and that would be Pat J from Ontario. Thank you so much.

Top 5 for 2007

I’ve been holding out. I’ve really been holding back from writing this post for a while. This is SweetGeorgia’s 4th annual Top 5 list… you can see 2006, 2005 and 2004… but those old posts seem so irrelevant now. Michelle and I frequently remind ourselves that 2007 is “the year that never was”. 2007 was supposed to be a year of chrysalis… of breaking down, blowing everything apart, re-examining each and every one of the shattered remains and then beginning to rebuild… consciously. It’s a year of rebirth.

Many of you were so supportive earlier this year when my workload and general life difficulties caused me to crumple in a sobbing, drowned lump of a girl formerly known as me. I am grateful for the time and space I have had this year to re-evaluate and thoughtfully consider what is important in my life and what is not. This year allowed me to make some painful but essential choices… among them, the choice to slow down my design firm of ten years so that I can pursue my work in textiles. Dyeing, weaving, designing… and yes, SweetGeorgia Yarns.

So, here is my Top 5 for this year. SweetGeorgia Yarns will re-open in 2008 with new products, new colours… new ideas and new ideals. But I need your help and your input… tell me…

1. What do you love about SweetGeorgia Yarns?
2. What do you hate about SweetGeorgia Yarns?
3. If you’ve purchased from us, what made you compelled to? If you haven’t purchased from us, why? Price, availability, retail distribution…
4. What would you like to see us offer? What kind of yarns, fibres, colours… you name it.
5. How important is pattern support to you? What kind of patterns are you interested in?

Of course, I will be sending one randomly selected responder some gorgeous, naturally dyed yarn. Please send me your thoughts BY EMAIL to info [at] sweetgeorgiayarns [dot] com by Monday, December 31 at midnight PST.

So, this is me. At the end of 2007. Looking forward to new beginnings. A brand new life. This is me now, but it won’t be me next year.

And this is indigo-dyed bombyx silk warps. It looks like a mess now, but I swear, it’s gonna be beautiful.