We first met Catherine Knutsson, our collaborator on the Beyond Merino yarn club, when she organized the Great Canadian Wool-Along last summer as a way to celebrate crafting with local materials and supporting Canadian wool farmers. We loved the concept of the wool-along, and jumped at the chance to connect with a community of Canadian wool-lovers.
This year we're celebrating Sweet Paprika's 15th anniversary, and it's honestly been a bit hard to get my head around where the time has gone! We've been looking back through some of our old photos, and thought it would be fun to share a little retrospective here. Our little business has come a long way in the past 15 years!
Most of the images I'm including are not our polished product photos (although those have also come a long way since the early days), but more of a behind-the-scenes look at some of the memorable stepping stones along our journey.
Last December, just as we were shutting down the dye studio for a holiday break, we got an email from one of our favourite customers telling us all about an upcoming event we might want to look into: the Year of Gnomes Knit-Along. We loved the idea, and couldn’t resist joining in by dyeing up some mini-skein Gnome Sets for you to play with. We ordered in some special yarn as soon as we got back to work in January, and our Gnome Sets are now ready to head on out into the world!
Saltwater Gifts is the third book in the Saltwater Knits series written by Christine LeGrow and Shirley A. Scott. Like the first two books, Saltwater Mittens and Saltwater Classics, this book is grounded in Newfoundland tradition and includes many quotes, stories, and beautiful photography.
The story of this pattern starts back in 2008 when Elizabeth and I, along with our sister Margaret, decided that we wanted to make a blanket for our parents as a gift for their 25th wedding anniversary. Elizabeth suggested we base our blanket design on the traditional Attic Windows quilting pattern, and she came up with a simple technique to knit the squares.
It's only the middle of July, and we've already had some significant heat waves here in Montreal this year, so I've been swapping out my normal afternoon pick-me-up of a hot black tea for iced tea instead. I've recently discovered this simple method for making my iced tea using green tea instead of black and I've been making it so often that I thought I should share the recipe
It's that time of year again! Our 2020 batch of Norbouillet fleece is already at the mill, ready to be custom-spun into this year's batch of our locally-sourced, 100% Canadian yarns.
This year as we were setting up pre-orders we took some time to look through all the beautiful projects that our customers have made with these yarns over the past few years, and we were inspired to share a few of our favourites here. Thank you so much to everyone who gave us permission to share your photos!
It's been over two months now since we had to temporarily shut down the dye studio to wait out COVID-19. We've been able to have limited access to the studio again for the past few weeks, and I'm happy to be back! But last month when I still didn't have access I was itching to play with colour again, and realized that in amongst all the yarn and other products that I'd hauled home back in March, I had some indigo dye kits. I didn't have any of my other dyeing equipment with me, but indigo doesn't require heat or mordanting to set, so it was the perfect solution for me to scratch that dyeing itch!
Lanark gloves (today's featured pattern in our 100 Days of Patterns project) are one of my design contributions to our Cloudy Day Collection, published way back in 2012. They're knit in our Messa di Voce fingering-weight superwash merino, in the Chimney Smoke colourway.
As part of our 100 days of patterns retrospective, we'll be sharing some project galleries featuring some favourite projects made from our patterns. Cranberry Biscotti (a free sock pattern) is my design with the most projects on Ravelry. I'm sharing a few of my favourites here, but do check out the project pages on Ravelry to see many, many more beautiful projects.
Sweet Paprika Designs offers high-quality materials for knitters and crocheters, with a focus on locally-sourced and sustainable products. Co-owners (and sisters) Debbie and Elizabeth create their own hand-dyed yarns, knitting kits and patterns in their Montreal dye studio and organize knitting and dyeing events in the community.
