• Week 1: Yoke to Body, divide sleeves from body
• Week 2: Body (1/2 of it)
• Week 3: Body (remainder plus bottom ribbing)
• Week 4: Sleeve 1
• Week 5: Sleeve 2
• Week 6: Collar and finishing

Maybe I can get a head start on the body this weekend, but between a bridal shower and two mother’s day events I don’t know how much time I’ll be able to spend with the needles.

I have to say… I’m using 6.5 mm Addi Turbos and I just wish that Signature Needles made this size. The points I’m using are dull and don’t feel speedy at all… but that could just be my own knitting speed.

The post Progress: Rocky Coast Yoke appeared first on SweetGeorgia Yarns.

Braids of spinning fibre. So much spinning to do!

On your marks! Get set! SPIN!!! This fall, the Spinning & Weaving Group of TNNA is planning an event named Spinzilla to be held during Spinning and Weaving week, October 7-13, 2013. The challenge is to form teams to see who can spin the most yarn during spinning and weaving week!

Spinzilla will be a community event designed to bring together new and experienced hand spinners; to raise money and awareness for spinning education via the Needle Arts Mentoring Program; and, to raise the profile of handspun yarn in the larger yarn market and beyond. The mission is to spin a great yarn.

Spinzilla will launch officially at the TNNA Trade Show in Columbus in June 2013. Meanwhile, we at SweetGeorgia, having just a few competitive souls among us, are gearing up to form a team or two to participate in the event.

I am thinking of setting up two teams for SweetGeorgia… one team for people who are physically located in the Vancouver area and one team for all our virtual spinning friends on Ravelry, the blog, Instagram, or wherever. For the Vancouver team, I’m hoping to host a spin-in and get everyone together sometime during the Spinning and Weaving Week so we can all spin our yardage together. We would like to sponsor prizes to top spinners on these teams (this is independent of SWG TNNA, we just want to show you a little love)… and the teams are open to spinners of all levels. We will collectively be competing against teams from all over!

Maybe set your own challenges for yourself (besides the most yardage). Something like… spinning long draw for the first time, or lace weight, or navajo-ply for the first time.

So, this is just a heads up to let you know what’s coming. More details will come forward as they do their official announcement at TNNA in June, but I just wanted to let you know. Let me know in the comments if you are interested in joining a SweetGeorgia spinning team as we aim to dominate Spinzilla with our handspun!

The post Save the Date: Spinzilla! appeared first on SweetGeorgia Yarns.

There was a time when I started new projects undaunted, when I would knit through dinner with friends and family, and when I could finish a lace shawl in a two weeks. But these days I’ve been frustrated by my inability to make it all the way to the end. I have less than an inch left of garter stitch to do on my “Life on Sundays” shawl. I have a pile of finished objects that are actually finished but just need to be blocked. And of course, I have many many random UFOs littered throughout our tiny home. There’s yarn by my bedside, yarn on my computer desk, next to my desk… and in the kitchen. I think what would probably help is if I actually went to a knit night and the obligation of having to show up with knitting hand would actually make me do it… but I’ve honestly been feeling too lazy to make the effort.

So, that’s why I’ve come to this crossroad… where my desire to wear the lovely Rocky Coast Cardigan collides with the relative lack of confidence in myself to finish said cardigan. Ever since I saw Shannon from Luvinthemommyhood wear her Rocky Coast Cardigan to FibresWest a couple years ago, it’s been at the top of my list to knit. I even cast on in a different yarn about six months ago, but decided I didn’t want to knit myself a THIRD sweater in Oxblood.

This time, I’ve dyed up our new Trinity Worsted yarn in a new colour for fall and my aim is to have it finished by mid-June for TNNA. That gives me about a month and a half. Luckily, this cardigan has no buttons to sew on. What I need is a) some conviction, b) a strategy, and c) a really good show to get into on Netflix to accompany my knitting time.

If I have six weeks, then I should roughly be completing:

• Week 1: Yoke to Body, divide sleeves from body
• Week 2: Body (1/2 of it)
• Week 3: Body (remainder plus bottom ribbing)
• Week 4: Sleeve 1
• Week 5: Sleeve 2
• Week 6: Collar and finishing

That’s a lot of knitting in six weeks, especially since most nights I might get 30 minutes of knitting time before I pass out. Has anyone else knit the Rocky Coast Cardigan? Have any suggestions or tips for what you would do if you were to do it again? Maybe if I check in with my weekly progress, it will get me closer to finishing…

Well, better stop writing and start casting on, if I’m going to get this cardigan done before June 20th!

The post So full of promise appeared first on SweetGeorgia Yarns.

There are a couple generally accepted sets of primary colours (colours that can’t be mixed from other colours). In printing, we use CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black). In painting, we use RYB (red, yellow, blue). This is most likely what you used in grade school art class. And finally, for light-based applications (monitors, television, digital, theatre lighting), we have RGB (red, green, blue). I chose dye colours that best approximated CMY (on the right) and RYB (on the left) colour primaries and we dyed two colour wheels with them, comparing and contrasting the colours.

You can see the CMY dyes tended to produce clearer hues while the RYB produced slightly murkier, earthier tones, probably because of the duller undertones of the red and yellow dyes that we used.

Two colour wheels (triangles) from six different dyes

Every student assembled a colour wheel (or triangle) using a bit of fibre from each of the colours. We used Superwash BFL for this to show the colours as clearly as possible. Sometimes Merino or other fibres will make colours appear more subdued or paler. Now, they can use this chart as a starting point for future dye projects.

The next part of the experiment was to look at the difference between dyed colour (physical mixing) and carded colour (optical mixing). We took a chunk of fibre that had been dyed a particular formula (e.g. 60% cyan, 40% magenta) and spun that up straight as is. Then we weighed out fibre to create a hand-carded blend that was 60% of the dyed cyan fibre and 40% of the magenta fibre. This was to see if it was possible to replicate the dyed colour with carded colour, and what the differences were. In many cases, even though the carded colour didn’t match exactly (our scales aren’t super accurate), the students preferred the carded colour because of the interest that the different colours added to the mix.

The other observation was that even though a fibre was dyed as a semi-solid in a slightly blotchy way, it would still spin out into nearly solid coloured yarn. So, if you really want to retain a bit of colour variegation in your final handspun, you need you start with much more variegated dyed fibre. All those extremes will be subdued as you spin it.

That’s just a little peek into what we are doing on Tuesday mornings at Place des Arts. It’s a lovely group of spinners… chatty, enthusiastic and talented. Can’t wait to share their epic term projects with you too.

The post Dyeing Colour Wheels at Place des Arts appeared first on SweetGeorgia Yarns.

The winners! From the BLOG comments, our winner is Sarah from Blue Garter who said:

If anyone HASN’T knit an unflattering sweater, I’m green with envy! I still can’t seem to get my waist shaping correctly placed, despite years of practice, and have begun to wonder if placing decreases at the side “seam” simply isn’t a very good idea. Also, anything with too high a neck seems to make my breasts look like they’re too far south. (I think it’s because I’m so tall, but maybe they actually are!) Anyway, I can’t wait to get a good look at Amy’s book. It seems like such a gift to women, whether they knit or not.

And our winner from the Facebook comments is Mary Elaine Henderson who said:

I am a new knitter so I haven’t tried a sweater yet. I am looking at patterns. drooling…

I’ll be contact both Sarah and Mary so that we can pop these books in the mail to them. Thanks so much for everyone’s stories. I was actually quite surprised at how many people reported having devastating or discouraging experiences with their hand knit sweaters… It hasn’t deterred me from wanting to cast on for a Rocky Coast cardigan though… The yarn has been dyed and is just drying now!

The post Winner(s) of the “Knit to Flatter” Giveaway appeared first on SweetGeorgia Yarns.

Spring is officially here — the season of light, airy knits and bright colors. Frambuesa is my ode to spring. It’s a crescent shawl available in two sizes, a shawlette to drape over your shoulders, and a larger full shawl size to wear wrapped around you on those still chilly nights. Frambuesa is available as an individual pdf or as part of the Fire Collection, which includes Corazon and Mexican Wedding. If you previously purchased one or both of those patterns, the price of the collection will be discounted by the amount of your previous purchase(s).

The shawlette sample is shown in SweetGeorgia Yarns Superwash Sock in the “Raspberry” colorway. Frambuesa is suitable for intermediate lace knitters. Please see specific required skills below. Instructions are both written and charted. The pattern has been professionally tech edited to reduce the possibility for error, but if you have questions or believe that you have found an error, please contact me (Julia at Mind of Winter).

Get the pattern and all the details on Ravelry here »

AND for our blog readers, Julia has offered us the coupon code: “FRAMBUESARELEASE”, good for 10% off the individual pattern only through May 15!

The post Frambuesa Shawl appeared first on SweetGeorgia Yarns.

To get to this place of fashion freedom and enlightenment, there is a little path you must traverse, starting with discovering your body shape. Amy leads you through some steps to scrutinize your shape and measurements but does so with encouragement and acceptance at every turn.

The book is filled with ideas and instructions on how to best flatter your own figure and most loved/despised features. On top of that, there are 21 sweater patterns designed to suit all different shapes and sizes.

One of the patterns does feature our yarn, Merino Silk Fine, and is called “Flutter“. The Flutter Pullover features cable detailing on the bell-shaped sleeves to draw the eye upwards and away from the hips. (Note that the pattern says it is knit in our Coastal colourway, but it’s actually Oceanside).

I feel like this book is one that is so needed right now. There are so many luscious knitwear patterns being designed and released these days, it’s easy to rush into knitting everything that is popular. I know I’ve been guilty of that, and then disappointed in the end when the finished garment made me embarrassed to wear it in public. Getting more guidance on what styles would be more suitable seems like the smartest thing to do before investing a good chunk of change in a sweater’s worth of yarn.

Amy has graciously allowed us to giveaway one copy of her Knit to Flatter book here on the blog! To participate in the giveaway, let me know:

• Do you have an experience with a sweater that either fit you fantastically well and flatters you?
• Or do you have an experience with a finished garment that made you cringe to put it on?

Leave a comment here on the blog and you’ll be entered to win a copy of the book. One comment per person, please. Entries will close next week, Tuesday, April 30th at midnight, and then I’ll draw a random comment for the winner.

Post your sweater experiences and we can celebrate and/or commiserate!

The post Book Review & Giveaway: Knit to Flatter by Amy Herzog appeared first on SweetGeorgia Yarns.

It seriously is. I’m feeling a little bewildered and a lot blessed to be named as one of the nominees in this year’s YWCA Women of Distinction Awards. Thanks to Kim Werker who nominated me, I’m one of the nominees in the Arts, Culture & Design category, along with Penny Eder (Founder, White Dog Studio Gallery), Chan Hon Goh (Goh Ballet Academy/Goh Ballet’s The Nutcracker/Principal by Chan Hon Goh), and Malene Grotrian (Designer & Owner, Malene Grotrian Design).

Thanks also to Michelle Griffiths, Liz Gipson, and Mary Ellen Sanajko for supporting my nomination. These women are the best. Check out the full list of nominees to see what some amazing women are doing.

The awards night is near the end of May. I’ll let you know how it goes!

The post It’s an honour being nominated… appeared first on SweetGeorgia Yarns.

Right after getting back from Hong Kong on Wednesday, I had one day to do all our laundry and run payroll for everybody, and then at 7:30 on Friday morning, we hit the road for Seattle. Luckily, Ginny was kind enough to take me in her car with Liisa and Melissa so that I wouldn’t have to drive jet-lagged. My sleep cycle was totally borked and I ended up taking a nap when we arrived and I missed my first lecture. I did, however, make it just in time for Josh Bennett‘s Tips and Tricks class which I loved. He’s hilarious and his love of the Price Is Right is even more hilarious.

All day Saturday, I took Nancy Bush‘s Overture to Estonian Lace class. More on that later. That deserves a whole post.

But Saturday evening was the Gala Dinner, sponsored by Skacel (distributors of Addi Turbos). They also hosted a speed knitting competition in which people had to pre-qualify during the day by knitting as many stitches as they could within 3 minutes. Our studio’s own, Liisa Nieminen, is known by all her friends to be the fastest knitter around but Liisa was shy and didn’t want to be put in the limelight. But her friends encouraged/pushed/goaded and did whatever needed to be done to convince her to give it a shot. She made the top three fastest knitters and won a spot at the Gala dinner to compete in the final.

You can see the final three knitters compete here (Liisa is on the far right):

Liisa won with 169 sts per 3 minutes and in the unexpected second round (against the likes of Lily Chin, Amy Detjen, and Brooke Nico) made 190 sts per 3 minutes. AND she said they weren’t even her preferred needles or yarn! Notice they all knit with yarn carried in the left-hand. And notice they all have minimal hand movements, Liisa’s being the tiniest movements of all. One of these days, we’ll capture Liisa’s knitting up close and you can see how she can whip out a sock in day. Congratulations Liisa!

The post Speed Knitting in Seattle appeared first on SweetGeorgia Yarns.

In any case, I came back and found this delightful news in my inbox. A couple months ago, Aimee at Darn Knit Anyway in Stillwater, MN contacted me about dyeing a custom colourway for their local Shop Hop yarn crawl. They sent me a photo of the St. Croix River to use as inspiration… and this is the colourway that I created for them…

And then in turn, Aimee designed this sweet fingerless mitt pattern that she’s entitled “A River Runs Through Mitt“. You can pick up this pattern for free at the MN Yarn Shop Hop (April 11 to 14) and on Ravelry for just $5. See how cute it is?

The yarn is our Superwash Worsted and the custom colour, we have called Darn Knit Anyway’s River. If you like it, you might like their upcoming yarn club too! Have a look.

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