sweetgeorgia

After all this time (it’s our half anniversary)

On Thursday night, I managed to finish plying the silk that I had started spinning way back in the summer of 2005… I had just learned to spin from the fold and I was spinning this glorious silk that I had purchased on a trip to Salt Spring Island. It’s hard to believe that it’s been this long. It seems like just yesterday, I was taking a float plane over to the island to take a natural dye class for sock knitters… and that Jen was at the kitchen table making lavender sachets.

The yarn is not perfect. At 2644 yards per pound, it squeaks into the laceweight category. Some parts are slubby. Some parts are under-spun and some parts are overly fine and over-spun. But it started out as something so beautiful, ideal, and full of potential. And in the end, it’s still beautiful, but in it’s own imperfect, awkward way.

And now, it’s hard for me to believe that I’ve been at the studio now for six months already (it’ll be six months next Friday). I’ve been madly creating lesson plans, teaching, dyeing, starting the fibre club, creating new sets of repeatable colourways, and just getting settled in. I think now might be a nice time to catch a breath and sit for a bit.

I’d love to have you come join us at the studio for a Knit + Spin afternoon in celebration of our Half-Anniversary! It’s going to be Saturday, May 23 from 1 pm to 4 pm at the studio.

We’ll have our hand dyed yarns and fibres at 20% off for that one day in the studio, so even if you don’t have time to come knit or spin, drop by and shop for a bit! I’d love to see you there!

SOAR… I’m actually going.

I just finished registering for SOAR… It’ll be my first time attending… so far, feeling a little tingly. It took me 20 minutes of hemming and hawing to finally commit the credit card number and during that time, Judith MacKenzie McCuin’s sessions ALL filled up completely. Ahhh well. I am signed up for Amy King’s Dye Crazy, Abby Franquemont’s Drum Carding, Janel Laidman’s Spinning for Socks, and Deb Menz’s Colour class. The amount of combined wisdom in all the instructors is absolutely insane and I can’t wait to drown in fibre and colour during that Halloween weekend.

Now, time to start organizing the resort lodging and 8.5 hour drive from Vancouver to Oregon! Anyone else going? Did you get everything you wanted and more? Anyone ever been? Suggestions to someone going for the first time?

Renewal: April Fibre Club

It’s already May and here was what we did for the April Fibre Club…

the fibre // merino Merino. For me, this fibre was so tempting, so enticing, I had to learn to spin it very early on. Usually, new spinners are steered away from merino and to stronger, longer stapled fibres, but spinning a skein of sproingy, super squishy merino will have you hooked. Spin this fibre with a worsted drafting method and you’ll get a beautiful and classic yarn.

the colourway // renewal Spring is a time to renew and be made new. These colours make me think of potential, flexibility and growth. There are longer stretches of rose and lavender and shorter intervals of gold and rust and tulip leaf green. Spinning this all together and 2-plying back on itself might be a recipe for skeins of muddy looking yarn. Maybe take this opportunity to try spinning a fine, firm singles and then Navajo plying into a 3-ply in order to maintain the clarity of the colours.

I truly like to believe that we can renew ourselves. That we can be made fresh and new. That no one is keeping score of your past mistakes. That you can always try and do better. For myself personally, I’ve dedicated the month of May to trying to improve how I think about things. To really try to believe that no one is watching or waiting for me to fail. That I am doing my best and that hopefully a smigen of good will come of it.

To follow up with the previous post about meaningful work, part of me felt very ungrateful for having written it. I think that despite the great expense involved with creating and setting up this studio and business and how stressed I might get about making this all happen, I am very blessed to be in this position. I realize that in our current economic situation people around me are losing their jobs and that the cost of living and healthcare for everyone is very high. It does seem to be quite a luxury to be able to even make an attempt at your dreams.

Spinning Panda

Two weekends ago, we had a dye class here at the studio and I did my very brief demo on direct application of dyes on wool roving. It was Panda fibre, to be exact… a scrumptious blend of superwash merino, bamboo, and nylon… a perfect blend for making sock yarn or baby things or anything, really. We had sort of randomly mixed up some reddish orange and emerald green colours and I just randomly applied the dyes to the fibre, not entirely sure if I liked the colour combination. It was mainly to demonstrate the idea of the technique. But in the end, I loved the colours. They reminded me of cactus flowers, for some reason.

I took the variegated Panda fibre demo (50g) and split it lengthwise into many, many narrow strips to basically create very short intervals of colour in the singles yarn and plied it with another 50g of semi-solid Panda fibre that had been dyed red. One solid, one variegated, to sort of even out and break up the colours… overall dominating the yarn with red. The resulting 2-ply yarn, most likely a dk or light worsted weight, will make a nice little baby sweater… or hat… or, I don’t know. Right now, I’m happy just to look at it on the shelf.

Literally exploding with colour.

The studio is seriously oozing with colour. I finished dyeing the March Fibre Club this past week and it looks like a million gummy worms have taken over the studio. I love that. AND, I’m in love with this handspun merino/silk yarn. I spun it to worsted-weight and it looks like there is 50g of the greens and 75g of the reds. I am so tempted to spin more of this fibre and weave a humongous merino+silk blanket to live in.

And I’m so excited to present this series of semi-solid colourways for the SweetGeorgia sock yarns as a dye-to-order series. Available in the Superwash Sock or the slightly thicker, Superwash Sport, we’ll be dyeing as many skeins of these colours as you like. Over time, I’m looking to expand the series and also add back our more variegated colourways. I know that knitters want what they want when they want it, so I’m hoping to provide this option to many of you.

From left to right: China Doll, Raspberry, Pistachio, Saffron, Tourmaline, Orchid, Boysenberry. As for the colours, I think I was subliminally inspired by the Visit Mexico campaign that has been omnipresent in Vancouver buses. I’ve never been to Mexico, but my love for fish tacos seems to make me think I might like it.