sweetgeorgia

Keeping Cool

Ugh, knitting and summer. I don’t know how people do it. Already, I live in the Vancouver where the climate is beautifully cool most days. If the temperature gets above 26 degrees, I start to want to wear a bikini top to work. Totally inappropriate work wear, I know. But once the weather gets warm, I find it hard to knit wool without wanting to go rinse my hands under cold water every ten minutes. So, I have two solutions. One: new yarn. Two: hide in the shade.

Enter this SeaCell-based laceweight yarn. For some time now, people have been asking me if I have non-wool yarns because they are either allergic or just want to avoid animal fibres. And outside of often pricey 100% silk, I haven’t had much opportunity to dye non-wool blends. But I did get my hands on a batch of this lovely laceweight and it’s available exclusively on the website as a limited run, called SeaSilk Lace.

It’s a 60% SeaCell and 40% tussah silk blend in a 2-ply laceweight. SeaCell® is a cellulose-based fibre (like Tencel®) derived from seaweed. I had dyed and tried some SeaCell/silk yarn a while back and even blogged about the differences between SeaCell skeins and 100% silk skeins. Being a cellulose-based fibre, the SeaCell doesn’t take up the dye the same way as the silk, so this resulting yarn is at the same time glossy and shiny but also heathered looking. It’s an odd combination to describe, but it’s like having shiny and tweedy in the same yarn.

Here’s hiding in the shade. For those of you who have visited the studio, you’ll know that two sides of the studio (north and west) are actually floor-to-ceiling double-high windows… which means, being in the studio is basically like being in the outdoors. When it’s dark outside, it’s dark at the studio. When it’s hot outside, the heat is magnified by the windows and it’s invariably roasting inside the studio. So, on non-dye days, I have been hiding out at my mini home office.

It’s a little corner I carved out to surround myself with yarn and knitting books. In the daytime, there’s plenty of natural light but it’s stays cool and I can see out into the garden and courtyard space. The hydrangeas are in full bloom and are so unabashedly rich in colour. Violet and mauve. I keep my spinning wheel nearby as well as my guitar and music things. Kind of a grown-up craft girl’s romper room, I guess.

This is where I’m working today. Emails. Bookkeeping. Writing. And keeping cool.

Simple Things

Sometimes, my brain makes up obstacles for itself and I self-impose these barriers on myself. Such is the way with this simple lace shawl, the Swallowtail. The Swallowtail Shawl pattern was sitting in my Ravelry queue for over two years and now that I’ve finished it, I don’t know why it took me so long. Maybe I was waiting for the perfect yarn, or maybe I was thinking it would be difficult… I don’t know. But I’ve done it and it was fun AND easy to knit. I even knit the nupps on the Greyhound bus to and from Whistler.

The Simple Things shawlette here was knit by my mother, intrepid new-ish knitter. She’s always excited to show me her new projects and, seriously, she knits so fast. She’ll leave the studio with yarn one afternoon and three days later, she’ll show up with a new scarf. But she can also be a little timid about new things… like this whole top-down triangular shawl technique. But MH’s Simple Things pattern really makes things quite easy and I think my mom’s got the hang of it now. She’s knit another one in Merino Silk DK in Violet Hill… but I think she took that to London with her.

What I found quite eye-opening was that variegated ‘lace’ wasn’t as horrid as I thought it might be. In fact, I quite like it here in this case where the pattern features mostly stockinette rather than complex lace. I’m also really pleased with how the golden yellow bits are spread out quite evenly and not pooly or blotchy.

Simple things like writing these blog posts or my email newsletter take me forever (okay, like 4 hours). I don’t know why they take me so long, honestly. If someone can answer me that, I’d love to know. It’s not even that I don’t have things to share. It’s just that I think I make everything so massive and unmanageable in my mind that it becomes a mountain. Oh, wait, there’s a saying for that… making a mountain out of a molehill. Ohh, I see… that means Wiki says I have cognitive distortion. In any case, I need to stop saying things like “can’t” or “that’s too hard” and just believe that everything is easy, manageable and doable.

Ballard Slouch

I owe this blog a whole lot of posts. But let’s start off with a simple and slouchy hat that I designed while I was sitting in my car for over 90 minutes, waiting to cross the border into the US to attend the Earthues Natural Dye Studio workshops in Ballard, Seattle, WA. A lovely clover lace pattern is the basis for this slouchy beret-style hat. Its easy-to-memorize lace pattern makes for a very simple and elegant one-skein gift. Since that day in July, I’ve made four of these hats in different yarns and colours and tested different sizes and gauges. I like this result the best:

Knit it up in a luxurious and drapey Merino Silk Aran or a lush and cushy Superwash Worsted yarn. I love how the lace is gentle and uncomplicated. It decreases seamlessly at the crown to form a beret-type shape. The simple pattern lets you add repeats if you like to make a slouchier hat.

The 2-page PDF pattern includes both charted and written directions. And it’s available via Ravelry or the shop site. And it’s free. My gift to you this crisp fall morning. Keep your head warm.

Phoenix Rising Shawl

When I first decided to move into the studio at the Watershed Building, I remembered thinking, “it’s so wonderful, there’s a little garden in the courtyard where you can go knit in the afternoons… and there’s a rooftop garden where you can see the entire city… ohh, I’ll definitely be spending time there…” After all these months of working at the studio, I’ve had very little time or cause to actually wander around the courtyard garden, but yesterday, I had a lovely visit from Sivia Harding and we had good cause to visit the garden. She brought me her Phoenix Rising shawl (also here on Ravelry) that she knit up in my CashSilk Lace yarn (Boysenberry, for those who want to know) and I got to hold it for photos!

(more…)

Nefertiti Wrap

Back in January, I had the delight and pleasure of meeting Miriam Felton, designer of the lovely Icarus shawl from Interweave. She told me that after TNNA she was going to embark on turning her knit design endeavours into her full time livelihood. I was so inspired and encouraged to hear this and wished her well. So when I got back from TNNA, I pinged her on Ravelry and said that I’d like to send her some yarn… see if she’d like something to play with. I ended up sending her a few skeins of CashSilk Lace and she ended up making this…

It’s called the Nefertiti Wrap and takes about 2 skeins of CashSilk Lace. I do love the diagonal design to it… and also how it’s not a single lace pattern throughout. One lace patterns flows and melds into the next. Very very lovely.

I’m thinking about Nefertiti this afternoon as I collect my things and thoughts, on my way to speaking tonight for the Coquitlam Weavers & Spinners Guild. Public speaking always makes me intensely nervous, so I hope I don’t lose my voice, insult anyone, or make any other major gaffs… I’ll be talking about natural dyeing among other things. We’re starting at about 7 pm at Place des Arts. Fingers crossed that everything goes well. Yay.