sweetgeorgia

SweetGeorgia Studio Opening!

Thank you so much to everyone who took the time out of their busy days (it was civic election day!) to come down and visit the studio this past Saturday. I was overwhelmed with the support of old friends, new friends, old weaving classmates, pharmacy colleagues, dancers, online knitter friends, and family. Half an hour into the opening, we were standing pretty much shoulder-to-shoulder in the space and my heart was so happy but also racing. Here are a few photos from the afternoon:

I feel so very blessed to have such wonderful family and friends… none of this would have been possible without them. My mom baked all the cookies and cakes and prepared all the nibbles and drinks so that I could focus on getting all the new loom equipment built and arranged. Friends came over to help label yarn, move the heavy things and fix up the studio. It was really quite amazing.

Finally, after all these years, Kim Werker of Interweave Crochet and Crochet Me fame and I met up for the first time. She is hilarious, generous and so engaging… especially the bits about Joss Whedon. I’m looking forward to hearing her interview soon!

Donald from WeaveThings also came up from Washington to visit me! I’m humbled by the efforts people made to come visit for the afternoon. Thank you so much.

Shop Update!

Lest you think I have forgotten about the online shop, never! I’ve just posted an update today and you can find some of the new yarns and fibres that I’m going to be stocking regularly:

Superfudge: The ultimate super skein. It’s 100% superwash merino wool. It’s 1/2 lb… that’s 1120 yards in 225g of light fingering weight wool. Make some super long knee socks or knit a substantial and squishy shawl or scarf.

Heartcore: A huge 1/2 lb (225g) skein of light worsted or DK weight yarn. 55% mohair and 45% wool with approximately 485 yards per skein. Knit a hat and matching wrist warmers… or some warm, hardwearing socks for winter.

Superwash BFL: It’s superwash. It’s Bluefaced Leicester. It’s the best of everything rolled in one. And it’s seriously the softest and fluffiest fibre I’ve ever seen.

As for the studio, I will be posting about the facilities there soon. We’ll be offering the space up for people to reserve dye workspace, the new Schacht Baby Wolf loom, the Leclerc Nilus 36″ loom, and all the carding and warping equipment.

For now, if you would like to come visit, we are officially open on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 9 am to 6 pm. Come visit us at 4th and Main.

Studio Opening + Shop Update

We have been busy dyeing, moving looms, and getting set up … and now we hope you will join us at the opening for the SweetGeorgia Yarns Studio! It’s a weaving studio… it’s a hand-dyed yarn shop… it’s a production dye studio… come see for yourself! We’re located at East 4th Avenue and Main Street in Vancouver.

Saturday, November 15, 2008 from 2pm to 5pm
401 – 228 East 4th Avenue, Buzz 32
Vancouver, BC

The online shop has been updated with a few new yarns including CashSilk Lace and Big Buttercrunch. CashSilk Lace is 55% cashmere and 45% silk 2-ply laceweight in 60g skeins. Big Buttercrunch is a chewy, sproingy 100% silk boucle in 50g skeins. Also in this shop update are freshly dyed Superwash Sock and Speed Demon Sock yarns, and 20/2 Silk yarn. Your feedback and comments on these yarns are welcomed!

Now that we’ve got more yarns dyed up, the online shop updates should be more frequent. Also, Vancouver residents will have the option to skip shipping fees and arrange to come pick up your orders. We’ve also set up Visa and Mastercard processing in case you prefer not to use PayPal. Please let us know if these new options make a difference for you or if you have any new suggestions on how we can improve things.

And finally, one important note… I am out of town from Sunday until October 30th and so all orders will ship during the first week of November. I hope this doesn’t cause anyone inconvenience and I appreciate your patience as I get my schedule more organized. In the meantime, I hope to find some lovely things to write about during my travels and I hope to see you on November 15th!

Ideal space. Studio space.

Time and space to breathe now. I have, indeed, secured an absolutely gorgeous studio space that is the studio space of my dreams. SweetGeorgia is now officially housed in a two-level studio loft with 18′ ceilings and a spectacular 4th floor view of the North Shore mountains and downtown Vancouver. The place is flooded with natural light via floor-to-ceiling windows on North and West sides. I will have more and more details about the space soon, but first I’ll be moving in this weekend…

… and then I’ll do more dyeing…

Here’s a teeny glimpse at the space and the iron spiral staircase…

Finally, we have a properly equipped studio space where dyers, spinners, weavers, knitters, crafters and fibre artists can converge, work, teach, learn, interact and innovate with other designers and artists and the community. Everytime I visit the space, I think it’s breathtaking. I can’t wait to be here.

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.