You remember that, last week, I asked educators to share their thoughts on knitting and crocheting in schools?  I was so delighted by the response!  Tons of folks replied — some by email, some on Instagram and Facebook, and all of the replies were interesting informative.  I heard from a lot of educators who are restricted by budgets and/or rules regarding curriculum — I hear the frustration.   I loved hearing from the folks who learned in school (for the most part, Europeans) and from the teachers who started after-school knitting/crochet clubs, and most especially from a few students who had started their own knitting and crochet groups with their peers.  Such wonderful and inspiring stuff!

Well, come to think of it, that’s kind of what this whole thing is about, right? Inspiring stuff?  Ok, so let’s see if we can’t add a little inspiration to your morning.  Grab yourself a cup of tea and let’s jump in…

Ok, so, speaking of teaching kids to knit and crochet (in school or otherwise), I wanted to share this article with tips on how to teach kids to crochet — most importantly, how to create an atmosphere where they enjoy themselves so that it sticks!

And while I was looking through articles on this same subject, I came across this story about two British math(s) teachers who use knitting and crochet to create visual representations of mathematical concepts.  The funniest line in the article comes when they were approached by a US yarn company to design an afghan (“We were sent into a panic! We had no idea what an afghan was!”) but I think the most telling is this: “We always tried to make sure that knitting was not seen as a female activity and Steve always knits at any event to emphasise the point,” says Ashforth. “We find more reluctance from women who say they can’t do maths than from men who say they can’t knit.”  It’s a fascinating read and their creations are stunning — click the link!

There’s a chill in the air, which means scarf season is coming.  If you love cables the way my assistant Jill loves cables (that is, trulymadlydeeply), then this article on how to knit reversible cables might be handy.  Sadly, there’s no tutorial (and they’re mostly selling kits) but there are a few handy tips and there’s two free patterns.  So it’s worth a click… because no matter how carefully you arrange your scarf, somehow it’s always the wrong side that ends up on show!

Hands up if you spend most of your time during certain TV shows and movies spotting all the cool knitwear.  And you know you’re not alone (right?), which is why I had to smile at this quick blog post cataloguing Marilla’s shawls in different adaptations of Anne of Green Gables.  What’s your favourite show for knitwear-spotting?

Our Combining Yarns KCAL has come to a close and, even though I haven’t finished my project (I know! I know!), it has been so much fun to see the amazing variety of patterns folks have made by combining different yarns together.  I loved hearing how many folks were pushed outside their comfort zone by using two different yarns…  and love it!  I am personally inspired by

• marvelg’s Pātiki Cowl (Maia and Celeste look amazing in mosaic!)
• ReenieSue’s Road Trip Shawl (she combined three yarns, all in the same colourway but with such different characteristics and it looks amazing)
• and jventur319’s Strawberry Vanilla (because I’m crazy about the colour she chose and she got a whole sweater out of two skeins of yarn)

Click the links and get inspired too!

Giveaway!

To celebrate everyone’s hard work and creativity, we’re doing a giveaway for the KCAL participants.  If you’ve finished your project (or can get it finished by the end of Thursday), be sure to post a picture of it in this thread to be entered to win a skein of Maia and Celeste in the colourways of your choice!

Official rules and AMOE are here.

The Latest SpaceMonster Colourway

On a beautiful sunny day last week, we moved operations outdoors and packed the latest SpaceMonsters parcels in the dappled sunlight and cool summer breezes.  It really was the loveliest way to do a day’s work!

And I just want to share with you the colourway we were packing, because I am over the moon about it.  The club colourway is called Evening Shadows (top left) and the coordinating colour is Evening Fade (top right).   And then at the bottom, I put together a couple of gradient fade options using the two club colourways combined with our standard colourways.  And I am just so excited by they work together!

This week I’m featuring wonderful patterns by Corrine Walcher, whom I know through one of my favourite yarn shows, Homespun Yarn Party, because she needs the knitting community’s help.  Here’s how she put it on Instagram:

“Friends, my father is gravely ill with untreatable, terminal cancer. We do not know how long he has to live. I am on the first of what I expect to be many trips to Alberta [Canada] (I live in Maryland), and I need help to finance them. Please take a moment to look at my Ravelry page to see if there are any patterns you might like to buy in order to help. There are over 100 in the shop and I’m always available for technical help.”

Corrine has returned home now from her trip to see her parents in Canada, but there will be more travel and expenses in her future, and I can’t think of any better way to support her in this difficult time than by knitting her patterns.  Here are three of my favourites…

Round Trip by Corrine Walcher

You know, we always suggest alternating skeins to blend yarns together but I just adore the way Corrine turned the colour changes in a simple fade into this gorgeous two-tone detailing!  If you’re on our mailing list, check out the colour combos in my Monday Morning Fiber Fix emails for two fabulous fade suggestions and then cast on — you know this is a sweater you’ll wear all season long!

I love it so much when you guys get in touch and share the projects you’re making with SpaceCadet yarn.  Seriously, I always wonder what those lovely skeins are going to turn into!  Here’s some that got me super excited…

Averysmom29’s Tubularity

Rachel knit this in SpaceCadet Mini-Skeins and there are three more pictures in her Instagram post.  Be sure to click through them all — I think the last one is just gorgeous!

semcdwes’s So Faded

Using three colourways from our Yarn Alliance club, Sara is putting together an absolutely gorgeous So Faded!  I love how, even though the colours weren’t designed to go together, they really do. (Also, I’m smitten with her Yarn Alliance stitchmarkers and notions tin!)

la_lizz0609’s Sea Grass

From our Combining Yarns KCAL, I love how you can see the different textures in the Celeste and Maia (compare the lace sections), even with indoor lighting

Ok, how that for some mid-week inspiration?!?  It’s been wonderful sharing all this with you, but I’ve got a busy day ahead of me — and I’m guessing you do too — so I guess it’s time to get it started.   Have a wonderful, fibery day and, until next time, all my best!

When you start your week with something as exciting as the moon blocking out the sun on the very first day (related: did you see this?), it’s kind of hard for the rest of the week to measure up.  And I think maybe Wednesday has to be the hardest…  the eclipse is over but we’re still two who days away from the weekend.

Well don’t you worry — there’s nothing like a little fibery goodness to get rid of the mid-week blahs.  And I’ve got a dose of it!  So grab a cup of tea, get settled in your favourite spot, and let’s dive in!

Practically everyone I know knits or crochets, from the age of 7 to 77, and I’m always struck by what a wonderful activity it is for kids.  As we head into back-to-school time, I was reminded of the Yarn Craft Council’s resource page for Incorporating Math into Classes.  And it made me wonder why schools don’t embrace knitting and crochet more — for manual dexterity, creativity, spacial awareness, math skills and, well, just to keep those hands busy.  If you work in education, I’d really love to hear your thoughts — on how you’ve incorporated knitting and crochet …or why you haven’t.  Seriously, I’m interested — please get in touch and let me know.

Speaking of classes, I recently took this free mini-class on short rows, taught by Carol Feller on Craftsy, and loved it — especially the Japanese short-row method, which I’d never tried before but found much more to my liking than the regular w&t method I usually use.  Good stuff!

I have a friend who recently learned to crochet (see? even the people I know who don’t knit or crochet come around eventually! *chuckles menacingly*) and I thought of her when I spotted this article called 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Crocheting.

So, ok, this is isn’t knitting and crochet related but I thought it was interesting.  Every property show I’ve seen on television in the last ten years has been allllll about open concept floorplans and, yet, they’ve never really knocked me out.  I like being able to find a quiet corner where I can curl up with my knitting, my tea, a nice view out the window, and…  close the door on the rest of the world.  And I’ve seen enough photos of fellow Ravelers’ crafting corners to know I’m not alone.  So I had to smile when I saw this article in the Wall Street Journal.  The bulk of the story is behind their paywall but the title sums it up pretty nicely: The Open-Floor-Plan Backlash: How Family Members Are Escaping Each Other.  Yep, there are times when that’s exactly what my knitting corner is about!

Gradient Explorers: 14 Spaces Opening Friday

When we opened the Gradient Explorers last month, it sold out so fast it nearly made my head spin (every single spot was gone literally before I finished making my cup of tea!).  So for everyone who tried but couldn’t get in, I have good news: we have 14 spaces available this month.  They’ll be opening on Friday so click here to read all the details and then, if you want one of those spots, set a reminder on your phone for Friday at 10am!

For the Gradient Explorers, we create a Never Ending gradient, just as we do for our Mini-Skeins, but for full-sized skeins so they build up into sweater sets!  How cool is that?  Just like the Gradient Mini-Skeins, each month’s colours will flow into the next but in larger skeins to create bigger colour blocks and more gradual shifts that are perfect for sweaters.  You choose the yarn you want to receive each month, and then we start dyeing, all in colours that coordinate together and with our regular colourways too (so they’ll work with your stash), plus we’ll  add some exciting club-exclusive variegateds too!

(And for our current members: we just finished the second layering of colour on your skeins and they look awesome.  We’ll be packing them as soon as they’re dry.  I can’t wait for you to see them!)

 

Sometimes a design just really jumps out at you and the unusual way the mosaic motif repeats on the left side of this beautiful shawl is so innovative that I was drawn to it immediately.  Knit from the bottom up with no short rows, the result looks more complicated than it is.  Plus, mosaic is so hot right now, how could this not be a winner?

MommyDoc’s Gorgeous Socks!

When Clara shared these socks with me on Instagram, I knew I had to show you.  These two colourways are from a Yarn Alliance Club parcel from earlier in the year: Grounded, which is a green-brown-gold combination, and the coordinating colourway Percolate, the deep berry colour.  We designed them to work together and, in my mind, I was seeing them as thicker stripes or even large colourblocks but I am crazy about the way they’ve combined in these thinner stripes. Aren’t they stunning?!?  Click the image and send her some love!

(…and the stitchmarker is another Yarn Alliance goody. It’s such a fun club!)

You know, we send these beautiful skeins out and I always wonder what they’ll be when they grow up.  So I’d love to see your projects too!  Share on our Ravelry group or please tag me (@spacecadetyarn) on Instagram — it always makes my day!

Speaking of my day, I guess it’s about time I got started on it.   Today I’m finishing the photography for some awesome new stuff we’ve got planned for our LYSs (does yours carry SpaceCadet? Ask them to!), developing a couple of new colourways (best part of the day!), and then I have a whole bunch of parcels to take to the post office.    I hope your day is filled with good stuff too!  Until next time, all my best.

You know, I so enjoy putting these newsletters together and am always happy for the chance to inject a little fibery goodness into the start your day.  But with the events of the last week, it feels crass to write this newsletter in that same way without acknowledging that the recent news has been sobering and worrying, and shows the depth of the issues this country has to grapple with.  It’s easy to get down-heartened.

In difficult times, I’ve always found solace in my knitting.  It seems a bit silly but the click my needles, the rhythm of my hands…  it just always helps to soothe my mind.   So, no matter where you are or how this week has affected you, let’s sit down together, drink a cup of tea, and share some fibery goodness.  The world can always use a little more goodness.

Ok.  Onwards…

Just a bit of fun to start: the New York Times asks, “What’s your opposite job?” Sadly, it doesn’t seem to recognise “dyer”(!) but, if you have a more conventional job than I do, you may have better luck.  And if (like me) you love your job, you can look at its opposite with happy satisfaction and, if you don’t, then hey, maybe this will be inspiration!

Browsing through Ravelry the other day, I spotted this pattern and spit my tea across my keyboard.  Be warned, it is NOT safe for work and, if it turns out to be something you’re not keen on, it’s an image you won’t be able to un-see.  But wearing a bra in the summertime makes you uncomfortable, this may just be your solution.

As a dyer, I am all about colour, but I really enjoyed reading this article from Interweave on the beauty of black and white photography and the way it helps cut through our colour bias when it comes to choosing patterns.  I know that there are certain colours that will make me less likely to click on a particular design and I bet you’re the same.  (Wouldn’t it be handy if we could switch Ravelry to black-and-white sometimes so we can scroll through all the designs on even footing?)

When you love your craft so much, you wear jewelry fashioned after your notions…  I like this pretty scissors-inspired necklace!

We all lose our knitting or crochet mojo sometimes.  What do you do to get back into the groove?  I bookmarked this quick round-up of 12 ways to get motivated again — I know it’ll be useful!

Swatching to get correct gauge is the very best way to ensure your project comes out the way your want it to and, when knitting in the round, it’s best to swatch in the round too.  This excellent tutorial from Very Shannon takes us through it in detail — so useful!

 

One-of-a-Kind Shop Update: This Friday at Noon!

(this is kind of long, so make sure you scroll to the bottom to see this week’s pattern picks — I think they’re worth it!)

This time of year is such a conundrum… I still want to make all the summer things and yet I know autumn (and autumnal knitting!) is just around the corner.  Either way, when the kids go back to school, that often means getting a chance to squeeze in a little a few extra rows… So it seems like the perfect time to share some of the amazing One-of-a-Kinds we’ve dyed lately!

The update will happen this Friday at noon (eastern) and it’s is absolutely first-come first-served, so check out the pictures below and decide which one(s) you love most so you don’t miss out when they go live! (my hands-down favourite is number 11 — zoom in to see how colour-rich it is).  Watch for an email with the link in your inbox Friday morning!

 

Gradient Explorers: New Spaces Opening!

When we opened the Gradient Explorers last month, the spaces sold out so fast it made my head spin (well, not actually but I literally went and made a cup of tea and when I got back, they were all gone!).  We’re dyeing a gorgeous colourway that will go out to the members soon (it’s a two-step dyeing process and, so far, I’m loving the result).  And, because those spaces went so quickly, we’ll open a limited number of spaces later this month.  If you want to join in the fun (and maybe didn’t get in last month), keep your eyes on your inbox for an update next week!

 

I love this eye-catching shawl!  It’s absolutely perfect for SpaceCadet Gradient Mini-Skeins, knit in garter so it’s reversible, and designed to join-as-you-go so you don’t have to worry about sewing it all.   Would you make yours so the gradient goes from the center out and matches on each side, or will you start the gradient at one end and have it change all the way along to the opposite end?  Either way, it’s going to be gorgeous!

 

Barbara Benson does amazing things with mosaic knitting and makes incredibly complex-looking designs simple to create.  Designed for gradient Mini-Skeins (so the colour changes slowly across the pattern), when I look at this shawl, I see a fantastic opportunity to combine a beautiful variegated yarn (like one of our Oriana One-of-a-Kinds!) with a coordinating semi-solid and bring a real spark of bold colour to the mix.  So fun!

Is it mitt weather yet?  Well… not yet but it’s coming!  And these mitts are super quick, super cute, and perfect for combining either Mini-Skeins or variegated yarn with a semi-solid for a stunning effect.

All images © the respective designers, used with permission

Ooh, one last thing…  Our Combining Yarns KCAL is nearing its finish and what a wonderful, inspiring time it’s been.  My favourite takeaway has been how many folks who had never combined yarns before said how much they enjoyed exploring it — exactly what I’d hoped!   If you’ve been in the KCAL, Fatima has a question for you so please click here to share your thoughts.

Ok, that’s it!  I have so enjoyed collecting all this fun stuff to share with you, and I hope it’s brought a little joy to your day.   I’ve got a busy day ahead — we’re dyeing some beautiful yarns for a couple of great LYSs and dying the second step of our August Gradient Explorers colourway.  I hope your day is a busy and productive one too and, until next time, all my best!

 

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know we’re doing a KCAL about combining yarns, and specifically about combining Maia and Celeste.  They’re two of my favourite SpaceCadet yarns with really different fiber contents (Maia is 80% shimmery bamboo and Celeste is 100% merino) that combine beautifully together for a really stunning matte/sheen effect.

You can see it perfectly here in this shawl which I was knitting in Maia and Celeste in Sage.  I am endlessly tickled by the fact that I am creating stripes out of one colourway but it’s true: see how differently the two yarns take the colour and how beautifully they play off each other.

So, for the KCAL, I decided to cast on a shawl with these two yarns.  This is Astronaut Ice Cream, the Limited Edition we dyed for the Pittsburgh Knit and Crochet Festival and, even though these aren’t the colours I usually go for, I was totally smitten.  I love how different the colourway looks even though they were dyed together in the same dyebath and I was so excited to see how that matte/sheen effect looked with a variegated yarn.

I caked them up and took my photos…  and then life happened(!) and that photo never got on the KCAL thread but I thought, “That’s ok.  I’ll get a few rows on and photograph that instead.”

But as I knit, the yarns did something I wasn’t expecting at all: they totally blended into one another!  The two yarns are worked in stripes of increasing thickness but, as the shawl grew, the yarns blended more and more.  Even though they looked so different in the skein and caked, I could hardly see the stripes at all in the knitted shawl!

I kept thinking they would become more apparent once the stripes got thicker.  “I’ll post the pictures when the stripes start showing,” I said to myself and I knit onwards.  Row after row, I waited for the yarns to differentiate themselves, to no avail.  We had a team meeting this week.  Sitting under a tree in the local park, barefoot and all knitting, I thought the dappled sunlight hitting the Maia would surely show off the matte/sheen effect but no, as I held up my shawl, everyone remarked at how the colours were blending together.

That was my first surprise, and here is my second: as soon as I turned it over and showed off the purl side, the striping was obvious!  Something about those purl bumps made the differences between the two yarns jump right out.  There was the lovely sheen of Maia, and the deep intensity of Celeste.  The combination of the striping and variegation was exactly what I had hoped it to be — on the wrong side.  And to the whole team’s continued amazement, when I turned it back over to the right side, it all disappeared and, when we returned to the wrong side, it came back again.

So I decided to share that with you: that, even after years of knitting and years of dyeing and feeling like I know these yarns inside and out, they still continue to surprise me.  But then I got the biggest surprise of all…

I spread out my shawl and picked up my camera  to photograph it for this post.  And, as I looked through the camera’s viewfinder, I saw… the striping, as clear as day!  Instinctively, I pulled the camera away from my eye and looked again.  The stripes were gone and all the colours blended.  I looked through the camera again and they reappeared.

It’s the weirdest thing, but I can’t actually photograph the shawl as it appears in real life!  What you see here is what I thought it was going to look like when I cast on.  And I have no explanation other than there are mysteries of light and lens and colour refraction that I don’t understand.  But I can tell you that the yarn is soft and airy and a delight to work with.  And that when I knit the stockinette sections, they’re my favourite part, and then when I switch to the broken linen stitch sections, they’re my favourite part.  And even though these aren’t usually my colours, I just can’t get enough of them!

I guess, when I think about it, this is really why we knit and crochet with hand-dyed yarn, isn’t it?  It’s the adventure, the never knowing how the next row will look, the watching it change stitch-by-stitch beneath our fingers.  And for me, the knowledge that, even though I’ve been dyeing for years and knitting for twice as long, I can still find myself truly surprised (and delighted!) by the yarn in my hands.

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Just a quick reminder that our Shop Update is today at 1pm (eastern)!  We’ve dyed a ton of colours in Oriana to go with Hunter Hammersen’s beautiful new sock pattern, Tantamount.

These are just some of the colours going in the shop today…

And of course, there’s a Limited Edition colourway too…  It’s called Drift On By and it’s perfect dreamy summer knitting!  No spoilers — this image is black and white.  To see the real colour (and it’s so worth it!), click over to the shop page a 1pm…

So don’t forget to click here at 1pm.  See you then!

It’s a beautiful summer day here in Pittsburgh (with the threat of a thunderstorm — and I do love a good summer storm, don’t you?).  I’m going to start it with a cup of tea and lots of wonderful fiber-y news to share with you: everything from clever home-made blocking solutions to gorgeous gradient designs to discounts on two lovely patterns!  Sound good?  So grab yourself a cuppa and let’s dig in…

“Why would you make that when you can just go buy one?”  We’ve all heard that (right?) and we all know that it’s not about the hat/socks/sweater you have at the end of all your work.  But sometimes, knitting and crochet go much, much deeper.  Sometimes, that quiet meditation of sticks and string are what get us through the hardest points in our lives.   I think this sums it up perfectly.

I thoroughly enjoyed this article exploring knitting as a feminist issue.  Now, there’s nothing new in that concept but I was really taken with the author’s exploration of the fact that, while most knitters from the 1950s-1990s were women, most knitting leaders (and knit-world stars) were men.   And also that many of the (British dales) female knitters interviewed in studies of the times said they were taught to knit by their grandfathers.  An interesting read.

SpaceCadet is proud to be a sponsor of Jessie At Home and Royal Rabbit Vineyards‘ Yarn and Wine Tasting 2017.  Taking place on Saturday Sept 2nd in Parkton MD, the event gives attendees the opportunity to try a variety of yarns and notions as well as an array of wines.  Sounds perfect!  Click here to learn more.

Blocking can be a pain but I love this ingenious solution for super-quick blocking of crocheted triangles.  I have a thing for granny squares and I totally might have to adapt it!

 

Oriana Shop Update: This Friday Aug 4

Yesterday, Hunter Hammersen released Tantamount, her gorgeous new sock pattern designed in SpaceCadet Oriana.  And, to celebrate, we’ve dyed a bunch of Oriana for a shop update on Friday!  All the yarns will go live at 1pm (eastern) so, first, check out the pattern (in the next section below) and then click here to decide which colours you’re going to go for so you’re all ready when the new yarns hit the shop!

Oh, and did I mention there’s a special Limited Edition colourway too?  There is!  And it’s sweet and fresh and gorgeous.  You won’t want to miss it!

Winner of our Combining Yarns KCAL Most Admired Project Giveaway

It was so inspiring seeing everyone’s projects but, more than that, it was just wonderful to see all the lovely and supportive comments about each other’s projects in the giveaway thread! And so many wonderful possibilities, it’s no wonder we all had trouble choosing!
I gathered up the names of 34 qualified entrants and plug them into the Random Number Generator. And our winner is….

jujubee

Congratulations, Joy! Please send an email to missioncontrol (at) spacecadetyarn (dot) com to claim your gift card.

Pittsburgh’s Steel Valley Yarn Crawl

Pittsburgh folks: I just have to share with you these adorable little kits that Sewickley Yarns created with SpaceCadet yarn for the Steel Valley Yarn Crawl.  My favourite is the one in the lower right-hand corner.  Which is yours?

The Steel Valley Yarn Crawl is going on right now so click here to check out Sewickley Yarns’ hours and then do pop over to see them.  If you haven’t been, it’s hands-down one of the prettiest yarn shops I’ve ever seen and a lovely spot to hang out in for a while!

 

I know I gave you a sneak peek of these last week, and now Hunter has released these beautiful socks — with not just one but two eye-catching design options!  Knit in SpaceCadet Oriana, of which Hunter says, “…[it] has just the best stitch definition ever.  It’s absolutely meant for tiny twisty cables like this, it shows off your stitches perfectly (seriously, I am helpless to resist its charms) and is a delight to work with.”  What I love most about these socks?  The design works equally well for men or women, so it makes a great pattern for holiday gifts.

Hunter is offering 10% off  the pattern (between now and Friday) and giving away a skein of SpaceCadet Oriana (click here to get the discount code and read how to enter).  Plus, we’re doing a shop update of Oriana on Friday (see the section above for more details), so click here to grab your favourite colour in the shop update on Friday!

And if you like your socks a little lacier, this pattern designed in SpaceCadet Lucina is a beautiful choice!  When I asked Valya about featuring her design, she responded with such warm praise for Lucina. “I have to say it was truly, (no joke) the best yarn I have ever knit with!”

And then she generously offered 50% off the pattern exclusively for readers of the SpaceCadet newsletter!  Use the code LuckyFoxKnits between now and the end of the month (or click here to have the discount applied automatically) and you’ll be able to add a little bit lacy loveliness to your wardrobe for half off!

All images ©the respective designers, used with permission

 Ok, it’s time we got the day started, don’t you think?  Today I’m prepping the last of our yarns for Friday’s shop update and dyeing skeins for a couple of wonderful LYSs.  I hope your day is just as lovely (and your weather too!).  So, until next time, all my best.