I’m pretty sure linen likes to be warped from back to front, but I don’t own a raddle and my efforts to make my own raddle from a piece of plywood and spare nails have been delayed… because I need nails, or can’t find my hammer, or some such fuss. Besides, I like sorting out the warp threads and colours first and making sure that it’s all correct before everything gets wound onto the back beam.

I’m also trying to salvage this beautiful cotton warp. It was originally put on the small table loom and then I decided that I wanted to re-sley it for a tighter sett… so I cut it off the loom, maintaining the cross, and now I am just reassembling it on the big Spring loom. It’s now sett at 30 epi for a nice warp-faced look.

It’s finally the weekend, and I have new toe-up socks on the go.

I am inching towards completion of many, many things. Yes, indeed, that is five pairs of socks at my desk. Not including the two pairs that are currently in my knitting bag. I don’t think this is the ideal situation, but things are the way they are. I knit two rows on one then two rows on another… two rows is about all my attention span can handle right now. Having finished a little February baby sweater for a friend (she’s due anytime now!), I’m satisfied with just working on simple stockinette socks… that have been in my in-progress bin for the past five years.

There is this handwoven scarf on the loom that is distracting me… the kettle-dyed colours of Malabrigo plus the texture and groundedness of the tsumugi silk weft and making me very happy. I have maybe 10 or 12 inches more to weave and then it will be cut off and washed. It seems silly that after all the expense and space of getting a 44″ wide 8-shaft loom, I end up weaving 9″-wide scarves in plain weave. Nothing makes me happier. Maybe one day, I’ll become one of those pattern-structure weaver types and lust after some computer-driven crazy shaft loom… but not likely.

Actually for three days in March, I’ll be attending Jane Stafford’s weaving workshop, “Pushing the Boundaries of Plain Weave”. It’s hosted by the Greater Vancouver Weavers & Spinners Guild and about 14 or 15 students will be doing a round-robin style workshop where we’ll all weave on each other’s looms and take home a complete set of samples. I’m really looking forward to experimenting freely with my very beloved plain weave.

Yet another plain weave scarf from both handspun warp and weft. It’s hand dyed blue face leicester handspun in the warp, 2-ply and about DK weight, plus very fine merino laceweight weft (the same yarn I used to knit the Lotus Blossom Shawl ages ago). Seeing as how there is about 10 cm of snow in tomorrow’s forecast, this brand new scarf might just come in handy.

Our weaving studio classes just started last Wednesday and we’re getting the first sampler warps on the looms. Plain and simple Quebecoise wool in bright, happy colours. I’m excited to see these samples start to take shape for the students.

This past month, I’ve found myself at the studio nearly full-time. And even though we don’t open the studio to the public on all days, I’m here bright and early every day… winding bobbins, skeining yarn, receiving orders of natural dyes from Earthues, dyeing yarn, weaving, spinning, knitting, doing my accounting and designing. Hours and hours are spent updating the website and entering inventory. Daily, I get calls to advertise in this medium or that. But even though I am constantly, productively doing things, I still feel like completion is always so far away. Bobbins are full and need to be plied. Those few inches could be woven off. That other loom needs to be warped. And I’ve got this pattern here that I need to finish writing out…

Anyway.

I have finished socks!! Here are the finished Jaywalkers in ["Angel"](http://blog.sweetgeorgiayarns.com/2006/05/jen-and-the-older-vampire/)…

####The best thing about turning 30… Contest

So, with this post I have the rare completed object… and the __FIRST EVER sweetgeorgia blog contest!__ That’s right. That’s like two for one. Lucky you.

In the spirit of my upcoming birthday, I’m hosting a little contest and the prize will be either 2 skeins of superwash sock yarn or a braid of BFL fibre — your choice! You choose the colourway and I’ll dye it for you. All you need to do is leave me a comment starting with _”The best thing about turning 30 is…”_. The contest will close at midnight on Wednesday, July 19th (i.e. 11:59:59 PM) and we’ll randomly draw the winner.

Happy thoughts, people. Send happy thoughts. =)

So in celebration of the new dedicated server and yarn-buying animals everywhere, 10% of the sales on Monday will go towards the Canadian Cancer Society via my friend, [Jazzi](https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=146011&lis=1&kntae146011=37B7CB77DCF1405C87EBF571EBE3FD5F&supId=124930490), who is participating in the _Relay for Life_ on June 9 in Salt Spring Island.

Michelle was superfriend yesterday and when I said something about “this is the kind of day that needs wine”, she bought me a bottle of [Cedar Creek Ehrenfelser](http://www.cedarcreek.bc.ca/2_our_wines/wine_list.htm) — a wine that’s been described as “fruit salad in a glass”. Ah yes, because that’s what friends do. They bring wine on bad days.

But last night, _during_ dinner (much to the amusement of the waiter), I finished my Pomatomus socks and Michelle finished Kate Gilbert’s [Anouk](http://knitty.com/ISSUEspring04/PATTanouk.html) — Michelle’s version is knit in denim yarn with the cutest red ladybug buttons. Must get a photo of it! My socks are here:

…and now I can continue to work on Fair Isle Yoke Cardigan (Elizabeth Zimmerman)…

The photo is of the left shoulder… and yes, there are no real sleeves yet. The EZ method is to knit the body in the round, then knit two sleeves separately in the round, then join them all together and start the fair isle yoke bit. Same idea as the Hourglass Sweater except that the Hourglass has raglan shaping and the EZ cardi has round shaping (evenly spaced decreases).

I wanted to break up the long stretches of plain, grey stockinette rounds, so rather than knitting up sleeves, I just did a provisional cast-on for the number of stitches that I want at the top of the sleeve and joined the “sleeves” to the body. Now I can enjoy the fair isle portion of the sweater. When it’s all done, I’ll just pick up the sleeve stitches and knit down to the wrist. Easy and lazy.

Happy weekend!

A couple days ago, I taught my friend, Francisco, how to knit. It was just last week when he was over at our house and expressed some interest in learning to knit (girls, this one’s a keeper). Well, not even the teeny tiniest amount of interest in knitting goes unnoticed around here. Over the past year and a half, I’ve taught half a dozen people to knit. I’m remarkably sentimental about the whole thing. In fact, I don’t know if Richard knows, but I saved his first few rows of knitting as well. It’s like your first handspun. Precious. A single moment in time, captured in a few stitches.

So here’s the thing. I’m an awkward teacher. Since I pretty much learned from pictures in a book, I never had the experience of someone else showing me step-by-step what to do. So when I teach someone to knit, I start with the long-tail cast on, then move to the knit stitch, and eventually to purl stitches and casting off… ’cause that’s how it’s described in books.

And here’s where it all kind of goes downhill — how about tensioning? needle/hand position? Tensioning is crucial to beautiful fabric (and relaxed knitting)… so when Michelle says she’s frustrated that she tends to knit tightly, I kind of blame myself. And holding your right hand under (like a pencil) or over the right needle? There are so many different ways to knit that, in a way, I figure the most comfortable method will eventually come to you. If you are interested (or obsessive like me) you might check out some books that will show you the English, Scottish, French, German, or Combined (Eastern Uncrossed) styles of holding your needles and yarn. But in the end isn’t the goal getting the stitch formed on the needle in the method that is most comfortable for you?

Do any of you teach knitting? Casually for friends or “officially”? How do you do it? Do you start with the cast on? Or do you cast on _for_ the student and then just start with the knit stitch? What kind of cast on do you start with? Long-tail? Backward loop? Knitted on?

Being the control freak that I am, I tend to want to watch them make each and every stitch — either congratulating them on nice looking stitches or attempting to dive in and fix problems. Luckily, ‘Cisco is an engineer and knitting is not rocket science. He was able to spot and fix most of his own issues. Irene, my spinning teacher, does this thing where she walks away from you so that you don’t think she’s looking over your shoulder… but really she is observing from a distance. That way, she allows you to relax into it. I can’t do that. I hover. Maybe my friends are just too polite to tell me to shut up and go away for a bit.

Speaking of boys and their knitting, Richard is all inspired to start knitting socks again. This time, he requested _fat_ yarn in “Slayer” so that he could actually see _some_ progress. Here’s his progress:

I, too, have sock progress. Here’s one finished Pomatomus sock knit with my hand-dyed superwash sock yarn in “Libertine”:

Siew and I were both working on our Pomatomus socks at Rachael and Lala’s drink-up on Monday night and I realized that I had mis-read the pattern… so my “version” of Pomatomus has only two repeats in the leg and not three. I also changed the toe shaping because I like my standard round-ish toes: decrease row, 3 rows plain, [decrease row, 2 rows plain] x 2, [decrease row, 1 row plain] x 3, decrease every row until there are 16 stitches in total (or 8 on each half of the magic loop) and then graft together (or be lazy and do a three-needle cast off). Super easy to remember. See? Not rocket science.

There’s also some low-level craziness around here as Jet Li and Jason Statham are filming in and around our building and also at Brioche bakery & café across the street. In fact, if you walk by the café today you’ll probably see the funky little bamboo shutters and the little Chinese entrance they added to the front of the café. Very odd. It’s kind of disappointing that with the renovation of the suite on my floor, the production people opted to use a different floor for one of the scenes… otherwise, there’d be _Jet Li_ fighting evil in front of _my_ door!

Anyway.

Maybe I will feel better today because I am wearing new socks.

These socks are so new that I haven’t even darned in the two ends yet. I put them on this morning for their photo shoot and they were so comfy, I just couldn’t take them off (plus we were running late) but maybe I can bring myself to weave in the ends tonight. Richard was very amused watching me take pictures of my feet.

####Coal Harbour Socks
* Pattern: [Wendy's Generic Toe-Up Pattern](http://wendyjohnson.net/blog/sockpattern.htm)
* Yarn: [SweetGeorgia Yarns Superwash Sock in "Coal Harbour"](http://sweetgeorgiayarns.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=2_5)
* Needles: US 1 / 2.5 mm Addi Turbos
* Notes: No changes to Wendy’s pattern. I knit a 6 inch leg and still had 18g of each skein leftover. So if I had more patience, I could have knit a way longer leg. I was also a little impatient with the foot, so I could have knit about 1/2″ more foot before starting the short-row heel.

And in Sweet Shop news, the next big shop update will be Thursday, April 6th at 12 noon PST! There will be about 20 skeins of [Superwash Sock](http://sweetgeorgiayarns.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=2_5), 35 skeins of [Speed Demon](http://sweetgeorgiayarns.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=2_7) and 10 skeins of [Handpainted Sock](http://sweetgeorgiayarns.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=2_6) yarn. Of course, I am still working out kinks with this new setup and I really appreciate everybody’s wonderful feedback and suggestions. One of the changes is that once yarns are sold out, they won’t appear in the product listings anymore — this way, you only see the stuff that’s available. Yay. There’s a new page that shows all the [sold out yarns](http://sweetgeorgiayarns.com/buy/soldout.php) only.

Ok. I’m off to get more coffee from the film set… I think.

Here I am mid-sock. Four potential pairs of socks and nothing to wear. From the left, there is the Friday Harbour socks that I started in August, the Jaywalkers in River, some handspun socks knit toe-up, and a fresh new toe-up sock in the new sock yarn that I’m dyeing.

I’m using [Wendy's super fabulous toe-up sock pattern](http://wendyjohnson.net/blog/sockpattern.htm) with 60 stitches around on 2.5 mm needles (US 1). It’s going super fast too — I knit almost the entire foot while watching Brokeback Mountain. Hopefully, if I keep this pace I’ll have an actual _pair_ of socks to wear next week. I’m knitting toe-up because I want to see how much length I can get out of each skein… Then next time I can knit top-down and be more confident that I won’t run out of yarn by the time I get to the toe. I prefer the toes on top-down socks…

I’m all fidgety now after seeing [Anna Maria's Pomatomus sock](http://annamaria.typepad.com/blog/2006/03/varma_hnder.html) and [Lavender's Pomatomus socks](http://thymeformom.blogspot.com/2006/03/pomatomus-socks.html). Yummy. Must have new sock(s).

Finally, I did promise to update the shop this week with those new yummy superwash sock yarns… and I did… You can find them on the _new_ [SweetGeorgia Yarns online shop](http://sweetgeorgiayarns.com/). Many of the yarns are already sold (you guys are fabulous — I love you all) but I will be dyeing again this weekend (since [FibreFest in Abbotsford](http://www.fibrefestinternational.com/) is next weekend).

Happy Thursday!

Our holidays were wonderful and much sleeping was enjoyed. Is it surprising to know that I spent the morning of Christmas Eve dyeing?

… the afternoon was spent spinning…

… and New Year’s Eve was spent with friends, knitting this sock and drinking overly aged icewine…

Because of the nature of this skein of yarn, all the brown bits end up on one side of the heel. Fun.

We’re five days into 2006 and I know _big_ things are going to be happening to me and friends and family around me this year. Here’s wishing you all a 2006 full of good health, happiness, food and fibre.

Oh! And before you go, my friend, stylish Jen, wanted me to mention the new knitting bags up at [Jordana Paige](http://www.jordanapaige.com). Cute little satchels in blue, lavender and brown. Must. Open. Wallet.

These are toe-up socks knit on US 6(!) / 4mm Addi’s and I’m getting 6 sts/in. The socks are 46 sts around. What does that mean? That means super-fast knitting! That means socks in a day! So I wanted to share the _joy joy joy_ and so I’ve posted a couple skeins of this new “Speed Demon” sock yarn in the [Sweet Shop](http://sweetgeorgia.etsy.com) for you. The best part? They are superwash, so no worries about felting. Happy day all around.

My horoscope said I would be productive these past few days and look, see, I’ve been productive:

I spent the weekend dyeing about ten pounds of yarn! Much of it is up in the [Sweet Shop](http://sweetgeorgia.etsy.com) today — there’s Slayer, Willow, Elf, Coal Harbour, Marina, and more… for most colourways, I dyed at least two skeins. And there is lots more coming in the next few days. By the way, go check out Kira’s beautiful [Misty Garden scarf](http://homepage.mac.com/kiramoff/knittingnutter/archives/2005/12/entry_117.html) that she knit out of a skein of Marina…

Oh! And those of you that requested skeins of River or Fondant be set aside for you, I have skeins of both in superwash or non-superwash for you to pick from!

Let’s see how far I get with this KAL… _No wait,_ let’s see how long I can restrain myself from also joining Cara’s ["Crossed in Translation" KAL](http://www.januaryone.com/archives/2005/11/crossed_in_tran.php) for this [amazing sweater](http://photos.imageevent.com/cdcphotography/miscellaneous/potds/websize/twstcardi.jpg).