So we’ve hinted and mentioned that the Club is going away in 2018. And if you’ve tried to renew or sign up for the Club, you’ll notice that it’s missing from our shop. Here’s the story:
It’s been about nine years since I started creating these monthly Club colourways. It was born out of a personal challenge to push my creative boundaries and work to create colour palettes that were interesting, expressive, and intentional. Creating the Club every month taught me the importance of keeping records and dye notes, of experimenting with different base yarns and fibres, of teaching others how to dye, and most importantly, being creative even when I didn’t feel like being creative.
At the receiving end, my hope was that every knitter and spinner would also be challenged to create outside of their comfort zone. The whole point was to learn new things, experiment, and repeat. Now, it’s time for us to create a new creative challenge.
The SweetGeorgia Club in Review // nearly a decade spent creating Club colourways
My plan for 2018 is to create four to six very special, very limited-edition, and very exclusive projects that we will be calling the “SweetGeorgia Secret Stash”. The challenge behind each of these projects is that it will be a learning experience for us and our team at SweetGeorgia. It might be a combination pattern and yarn kit that was dyed in natural dyes with fibre that came from a local farm, or it might be individually hand-painted sock blanks that were created with a new dye application technique, or it might be… who knows?!
The whole point will be that these projects will be dedicated to expanding the skills, knowledge, and abilities of our team, as a colour-focused artisan dye studio. The whole point for our community of knitters, crocheters, spinners, and weavers is that there will be new textures and colour ideas to work and play with. Things that we wouldn’t otherwise be able to make at scale… like, it would be difficult for us to produce 10,000 handpainted sock blanks… but we could make a small, special, and unique batch of perhaps 50 or 100.
As we discovered with our latest project, the Advent Mini-Skein Calendar, the kits sold out in less than 24 hours. I know there were lots of sad faces and disappointed knitters, and I’m sorry if you missed out. We announce our new projects through email first and so by the time someone sees it on Facebook, it’s possible that the kits are sold out… SO, with all our upcoming SweetGeorgia Secret Stash projects, we’ll continue to announce on email first, followed by social media. In order to get the best chance of nabbing one of these exclusive hand-dyed projects, make sure you’re subscribed to our newsletter and receiving our emails each week (or so).
I know it’s been suggested to us that we have a set day and time that we post special items so that people can set a timer and jump on it when it gets posted… but unfortunately, technology has repeatedly failed us in those situations, preventing anybody from being able to get on the website. So, we figure the most fair way to do this is first-come, first-served.
I love that feeling of being a beginner, surrounded by inspiration and possibility. I love taking those first few wobbly steps towards something fresh and new. December will be our last Club delivery for now but I hope you will look forward to our new changes in 2018 as we evolve and keep learning! And I hope you will learn with us too!
If you’re interested in being on the “SweetGeorgia Secret Stash” notification list, sign up here!