Debbie and Elizabeth, co-owners of Sweet Paprika
This month’s sponsor spotlight features Sweet Paprika Designs in Montreal, run by two sisters, Debbie and Elizabeth. Sweet Paprika Designs sells high-quality materials for knitters and crocheters, with a focus on locally-sourced and sustainable products, and hand dyes their own line of yarn. Read on to learn more about them.
Tell us about your shop’s history.
Sweet Paprika began way back in 2007 when my sister Elizabeth and I (Debbie) decided to see if we could find a way to use our crafting skills and knowledge to fund our yarn purchases. We started out in Ottawa, running classes and workshops out of our living room and releasing PDF patterns on Ravelry – quite a new concept at the time! We quickly added hand-dyed yarns to our offerings and moved to Montreal the following year. Since then, Sweet Paprika has evolved from a very part-time endeavor run out of our kitchens to a thriving business with a dedicated dye studio.
Tell us about your shop right now, what’s different and interesting?
At the moment we’re very excited because we just moved into a new, bigger studio! We’re in the same building, but the new space will give us much more room to host classes, workshops and social events. We’re working hard to get things set up and we’re planning a grand opening event for the end of March. If you’re ever in Montreal and would like to stop by and say hello, please don’t hesitate to reach out. We’d love to welcome you to our space!
What are some new and upcoming things our membership should be on the lookout for at your shop?
We’ve been running our Skill Builder yarn club for almost a year now, and we’re really looking forward to the next few boxes we’ve got coming up! We’ll be tackling Brioche in our next box, followed by Double Knitting and Beaded Knitting. For each box we partner with a designer who creates a custom pattern specifically for our members, and we provide photo and video tutorials for practicing the new technique. We make the club boxes available to non-members a couple of months after the members receive them – if you’re interested trying out steeking but intimidated to try on your own, keep an eye out for the Steeking Box (with a pattern by Jennifer Beale) which we’ll be releasing publicly in mid-March.
What’s your most popular product?
One of the items we find hardest to keep in stock is our Heart’s Delight thrummed mitten kits! We have a limited amount available right now, and we’re planning to dye up a few more of the most popular colours in the next week or two. The pattern for this kit was designed for us by Katie Tucker (formerly Noseworthy) of Newfoundland, and we use a combination of two Ontario-grown wools: a sturdy bulky weight from a dorset-based flock for the mitts, and a beautifully soft Norbouillet roving for the thrums.
What’s on your needles?
Every year we host a “Finish it February” make-along, so right now I’m trying to finish off some older projects. The main one I’ve been working on is a collaborative blanket project that will be a wedding gift. It just needs the edging finished and I’ve calculated that if I knit an average of 60 rows per day I can get it done by the end of the month. The rows are only 14 sts wide, so it is theoretically do-able, but the reality depends on whether I get distracted with other projects… The pattern is Cloudy Day Throw by Emily Kintigh, and the yarn is our Winfield worsted weight in Natural, Orchid and Strawberry Gelato.
Don’t forget to visit our membership hub to see the discount that Sweet Paprika Desgins offers TKG members!
