sweetgeorgia

The need for shared space.

In my conversations with weavers, spinners, dyers, crafters and guild members this past year, I hear the same lament over and over… “I want to weave but I don’t have space for a loom…” “I have no place to dye…” “I don’t want to dye in my kitchen at home…” and then we talk about how fantastic it would be if we had a space we could use. Some place with space for a gigantic dye/print table, weaving looms and spinning wheels. A place in Vancouver where we could host spinning/knitting nights, host dyeing or spinning classes or … or … even just a place to pick up a new weaving shuttle or extra bobbin for your wheel.

Sorting through my spinning and weaving equipment yesterday, I was a little bit sad about how much equipment I have that just isn’t being used. Over the past three or four years, I have acquired two spinning wheels, three weaving looms, two drum carders, two warping boards, one warping mill, multiple sets of hand carders, hand combs, a zillion books, almost every issue of Spin Off/Handwoven/Rowan/Interweave Knits in the past four years, and an electric bobbin winder AND an electric cone winder. (Half of this stuff is from Jen when she left to go to London.) There’s only one of me… and how many minutes a year will I spend warping with a horizontal mill? I am SO keen on sharing this equipment with like-minded people. It just makes sense that all this stuff get used more often than not.

Of course, we all LOVE our local yarn stores in Vancouver. ThreeBagsFull and Urban Yarns are filled to the brim with absolutely to die for yarns and beautiful things. The Silk Weaving Studio on Granville Island is a wonderful place to watch weavers in a working studio. And then there is Fibre Essence which is a co-op for textile artists that offers retail/show space but no workspace for a $75/month fee.

For some time, I have been blessed with a ton of space to work in. Absolutely BLESSED. I had a separate and dedicated dye room with storage and both wet and dry stations. I also had a completely separate room to house my weaving loom, yarns, and library. This past year, I was so incredibly lucky, my loom was positioned where I could look at the stunning Vancouver mountain landscape while I worked. But no longer. About a month ago, I joined the ranks of tiny apartment owners in Vancouver and have been struggling with how to continue dyeing and weaving where there is just no space. (I have honestly contemplated dyeing in my jail cell-like storage locker, much to the potential chagrin of my strata council.)

So I’m looking to see what the interest level is like in Vancouver for shared space among textile/fibre artists, designers, and crafters. Where would you be willing to go? How much space do you need? What kind of work do you do? And the clincher… how much would you be willing to pay per month? What is a priority for you? Workspace? Showspace? Retail space? I’m superkeen to see what you think. You’re welcome to reply by email to felicia [at] sweetgeorgiayarns [dot] com.

Upstairs, downstairs

Since July 1st, we’ve been in the midst of a crazy renovation/moving extravanganza. Essentially, I’m leaving my lovely, but inconvenient, office in Gastown and coming back home to occupy one of the big rooms downstairs.

All of Saturday, we moved everything in the spare room upstairs to the new storage room downstairs and then my incredibly supportive friends helped paint the spare room (Behr Soothing Celadon) so that I could have a fresh new room to house the loom, yarn, spinning stuff, and my temporary office.

Sunday was our annual BBQ/carnivore fest and as per usual, Rich was up at 6 am to smoke the pork and the party ended in the wee hours of the morning with poker and spinning. Some of our guests had never seen a spinning wheel before, so I treadled while they tried drafting.

Also at the BBQ were some old highschool friends — two of whom were dating in highschool, got married last year and then started a design company called ["Light Couture International"](http://www.lightcouture.com/). They design custom furniture items that incorporate light! Teejay writes a design blog called ["teejay's backsplash"](http://backsplash.lightcouture.com) and is also a contributor for [MoCo Loco](http://www.mocoloco.com/). Maybe I can convince them to incorporate fibre into one of their pieces?!

These guys, plus ‘Cisco and Des, came back a few hours later on Monday (we all need a _little_ sleep) to help Richard gut the downstairs office space (did I mention how lucky we are?). Here’s what the space looked like…

Yesterday, Rich and Steve (the reno/builder/contractor extraordinaire) put in insulation (because there was none) and it looked like this…

This morning, we were up at 6 am so that I could go to the store and pick out lighting fixtures. Who knew it could be so complicated? Anyhow, the drywall is being delivered today and soon the space will start looking more finished. I still have to pick paint colours… by tomorrow. All this work needs to be completed by Friday because we’ve reserved a moving van for Saturday morning and (yet) more furniture will be coming home from Gastown.

During all this, I did find some bits of time here and there to assemble the loom. It was really quite easy — kind of like IKEA but with more pieces and better wood. I even completed a tie-up for four shafts so that I can start weaving my turquoise silk scarves (there is a locking pin that holds the unused shafts in place)… but having moved all my yarn and stuff around the house, I can’t find the silk warp now.

Working spaces

My parents dropped by our house last week — the first time in many months. Even though we live less than five minutes away from them, we see my parents only once in a while — yes, yes, I’m a terrible daughter… In any case, my mom was a little horrified to find that yarn, fibre, equipment and books seem to have exploded in our living room. I think her exact words were “oh my god, you are almost getting to be like your father” — except that she said it in Mandarin.

You see, my parents’ house is not and will never be a spread out of a fancy interior design mag — it’s a working space. My dad’s studio is the living room. Their ‘living room’ is now sort of a tiny area between the the painting studio and the dining room, marked by the presence of a paint-covered sofa. There is paint on the floor, of course, and oil paintings stacked a foot deep all around the living/dining room area. But this is the only way… there is a massive north-facing window in the living room that my dad paints by… the view of West Coast mountains and water… it’s perfect. I mean, really, where else would you set up your workspace?

This is my workspace…

My so-called “knitting/dyeing/spinning/weaving” workspace is also our living room, dining room, bedroom, and second bedroom… it’s freaking everywhere. Sometimes, I don’t know how Richard can live with me. In July, we’ll be reclaiming our entire basement, so many many things (like rarely ever used golf clubs) will be able to move down there, including my design/work studio. I’ll get one half of the space for my office and fibre/equipment storage and Richard will get one half for his office…

That will leave the second bedroom empty for a nice, big floor loom (suggestions are welcome!). This room gets gorgeous, diffuse daylight and I’m looking forward to the days when I can wake up and weave or knit a bit with my morning coffee before going down to work. Ack. Can you tell that I just can’t wait to come home?