Today is one of my hands-down favourite days of the year, one of those days that I look forward to for months… because today the InterStellar Yarn Alliance opens for subscriptions!
It happens only twice a year and just for two weeks — a really special event –and it’s so exciting to see all the new and returning members come rushing in. I know it means we’re getting it right and making our members happy. And this last session has been a blast! From the deeply saturated colourways, to the awesome gifts, to all the creativity and fun our club members brought to the Photo Scavenger Hunt, being part of the Yarn Alliance is a ton of fun!
But don’t take my word for it. Here’s what our club members have to say…
So, what do you get when you join?
…beautiful yarns, colourways you might never have dared try but suddenly realise you love, and some seriously fabulous gifts!
As a member of the InterStellar Yarn Alliance, you’ll receive a fabulous parcel delivered to their door every other month, containing:
SpaceCadet ® yarn (light to medium weight) in an exclusive Yarn Alliance colourway (guaranteed not to be offered on the SpaceCadet® website for at least 6 months)
A great Yarn Alliance gift tucked into every parcel!
The SpaceCadet’s Log exploring the inspiration for each colourway.
The InterStellar Yarn Alliance newsletter with periodic special offers exclusively for members.
A 15% off coupon every six months
And your entry to an awesome community of club members who share pattern ideas, cheer you on, and make our activities so much fun!
Plus, Sweater Quantities!
One gorgeous skein just isn’t enough? You also have an exclusive opportunity to order more skeins custom-dyed in the latest club colourway. You’ll receive an email with all the details about a week after your parcel goes out — and then all you have to do is pick your project!
On Facebook: Squee! The Yarn Alliance from SpaceCadet is open for subscriptions – check it out! http://goo.gl/1DqDkj
On Ravelry: Squee! The Yarn Alliance from SpaceCadet is open for subscriptions – check it out! http://goo.gl/1DqDkj
Important Details and Policies: Six month subscriptions include 3 parcels; twelve month subscriptions include 6 parcels. Parcels will be sent out in early January, March, May, July, September, and November. Subscription openings will be available in March and September. Shipping within the United States is included in the price; extra charges apply for shipping outside the US. Normal subscription openings for the InterStellar Yarn Alliance are two weeks only in March and September of each year. Cancellation policy: Because we often purchase supplies for all the parcels immediately after the subscription period ends, refunds are generally not available. However, if there are extenuating circumstances, please contact us as soon as possible and we will try to do what we can. By purchasing a subscription, you acknowledge and agree to these policies.
Any questions? We’re always happy to help: missioncontrol(at)spacecadetyarn(dot)com
I had two fabulous reasons to be excited about sending out the latest SpaceMonster parcel to our existing club members — the yarn and the gift both had me over the moon! — but I’m always nervous nonetheless. What if… what if they don’t love it as much as I do?
The parcels went out last week and I waited with bated breath for the response… And oh my stars, I needn’t have worried! Our SpaceMonster members took to Ravelry immediately and the response was just amazing!
This colourway is named Sky Dragon, after the constellations in the night sky that depict all manner of monsters. Here’s an excerpt from my dyer’s notes for this parcel:
There are several dragons and sea monsters in the night sky at the moment. Cetus is the sea monster sent to devour Andromeda by an angry Poseidon, and Draco is the dragon (or perhaps serpent) flung into the cold north sky by Minerva. And there’s Serpens (Caput & Cauda), a massive serpent that seems to take up half the sky. And each one of them seemed a good choice for this colourway, with its deep shades of green on a cool grey base, highlighted intense with night-sky blues. And so, I chose not to choose, and name it Sky Dragon – a tribute inspired by all those terrible beasts who circulate silently above us all each night.
And as much as I enjoyed creating this colourway for our SpaceMonster Club members, I have to admit that I was just as excited about the gift. For this club, we do a gift every third parcel and so we get the chance to make it really special. I was thrilled when Kate Sullivan agreed to collaborate on a custom SpaceMonster Yarn-It!
The entire SpaceCadet crew fell head over heels for the Yarn-It the first time we saw it. I just love the spacey clear dome and the way it holds your needles through the top (a little like the SpaceCadet’s helmet and antennae?). Look carefully, and you’ll see that Kate’s filled in each SpaceMonster by hand. And it’s super functional too: the bottom pops off to hold stitchmarkers and notions, the strap lets you carry it where-ever you go, and it even fits in a car’s cup holders! We’re not the only ones who love it – it’s been picked by most of the major knitting press as one of the hottest accessories of the year!
I cannot tell you how it warms my heart when a club colourway and gift make our members so happy. I’m thrilled to see the response! And it’s got the be the best part of being in a club like this the SpaceMonsters, to be part of a group that is so excited to cast on with their new yarn — I can’t wait to see what our club members make with Sky Dragon and their new Yarn-Its!
Only Three Days Left to Join the SpaceMonsters!
The SpaceMonster Mega Yarn Club is open for subscriptions now, but it closes in only three days. If you are excited by what you see here, join us for the next club session as we explore the furthest reaches of colour! Or if you are looking for the perfect (and easiest!) holiday gift for a knitter or crocheter in your life, click here to secure a spot before subscriptions close.
The SpaceMonster Mega Yarn Club is all about worsted and bulky yarns — big, smooshy, and wonderful! As a SpaceMonster, you’ll receive:
a fantastic parcel delivered to their door every other month, containing a beautiful skein ofSpaceCadet® yarn in worsted or bulky weight, hand-dyed in an exclusive colourway* created to bring out the best in thicker yarns.
The SpaceCadet’s Log exploring the inspiration for each colourway.
A fantastic SpaceMonsters gift tucked into every third parcel. We’re known for the great gifts we include in our club parcels — and for this club, we’re seriously upping the fab. You’re going love it!
*guaranteed not to be offered on the SpaceCadet® website for at least 6 months
But bigger yarns mean bigger projects, right?
Don’t you worry — in this club, you can buy extra skeins! For a whole month after you receive your parcel, you’ll have an exclusive opportunity to order more skeins custom-dyed in the latest club colourway. You’ll receive an email with all the details about a week after your parcel goes out — and then all you have to do is pick your project!
I want you to imagine a scene… one in which two grown women are carefully laying skeins of yarn out on the floor, neatly positioning them side-by-side in a gentle arc and then — every now and again — stopping one another and letting out a little squeal and doing a happy dance all around the yarn. And then composing themselves and laying out more yarn, before getting all excited again and the whole process repeating itself.
A little over a year ago, we came up with an idea that for the SpaceCadet Mini-Skein Club made us just crazy with excitement. Why not make each month’s colours flow into the next month, so they all worked together into one amazing and never-ending gradient?!? It was such an incredible idea, and yet so simple, that we couldn’t believe we hadn’t done it before. We immediately started designing a series of colourways that would evolve and morph from one month to the next.
The Never-Ending Gradient(tm) launched in October 2014 (just a few months after we launched the Start Anywhere(tm) Gradient, another innovation where our Mini-Skein gradients circle back on themselves, meaning you can cast on anywhere in the set). When October rolled around this year, I realised that meant we’d been dyeing our Never-Ending Gradient(tm) for a full 12 months, and I hatched a plan to capture a photograph of the full year’s worth of skeins out side-by-side.
Believe it or not, we hadn’t ever done that — laid out all the colours we’d been creating all this time. Sure, we’d look at a few months together here or there to get a sense of how they were flowing, but never the entire year… we’d never actually seen the full impact of all that careful planning and colourway creation! And so when my assistant and I finally did spread them all out in the studio and start putting them in order, I have to tell you, it made us kind of giddy.
You can see why, can’t you? I mean, you get this, right?
Eventually we calmed down and stopped dancing (so much). We observed carefully the way the colour-flows worked through the whole year and, from that, came up with some very exciting directions to take the gradient in through 2016. And I took a lot of photos — a lot. Can you blame me?!?
I am super-proud to have pioneered the Never-Ending Gradient(tm) and just over the moon with the way the first year has turned out. If you have been in the Mini-Skein Club for a while, you have all this gorgeousness lurking in your stash! It can be hard to see when they’re tied up in their little bundles, but lay them all out and I’ll bet you start doing your happy dance too. And if you aren’t a member of the Mini-Skein Club, click here to join and we’ll send a bundle of these little beauties straight to your doorstep every month — it’s like Christmas all year round!
Three Super-Fast, Super-Easy Holiday Gifts
The SpaceMonster Mega Yarn Club
This club is all about our biggest, smooshiest, warmest yarns! Focusing on worsted and bulkies, members receive
a fantastic parcel delivered to their door every other month, containing a beautiful skein ofSpaceCadet® yarn hand-dyed in an exclusive colourway designed to bring out the best in thicker yarns.
The SpaceCadet’s Log exploring the inspiration for each colourway.
A fantastic SpaceMonsters gift tucked into every third parcel. We’re known for the great gifts we include in our club parcels — and for this club, we’re seriously upping the fab. What’s not to love?
Give the SpaceMonster Club as a gift and we’ll send your recipient an email notification (either straight away or on the date you choose) so they’ll know they’ve got serious smooshy goodness on the way. But subscriptions are open only until Dec 20, so click here to reserve your subscription now!
Sidekick Boot Socks Kits and our Holiday Wind-Down KAL
Designed by Kate Atherley and featured in the latest issue of Knitty, the Sidekick Boot Socks feature will make for toasty warm toes all winter long. Using a great technique that makes wildly variegated yarn go all tweedy, these are a quick and fun knit that’s perfect for escaping from the holiday madness. Our kits feature two SpaceCadet yarns in coordinating colourways and are ready to ship, and our KAL starts on Dec 26 — perfect for helping you wind down from the holidays. Click here to grab your kit while they’re still in stock.
The SpaceCadet’s Mini-Skein Club
You’ve already seen how amazing our Mini-Skeins are, so you know they’d make a fabulous holiday gift. A subscription lasts as long as you like — cancel whenever you have enough skeins for your project. With two subscription levels and two colour mixes to choose from (Multicolour or Ombre&Gradient) you can customise this gift so it’s just right. Click here to start your subscription and, if it’s a gift, please leave a note so we can send the recipient a notification and get their holidays started!
I am a terrible holiday gift shopper. Lots of other people write out lists, get to the shops weeks ahead, and have everything bought, wrapped, ready to go with plenty of time to spare. Not me. I always seem to let the holidays sneak up on me. Then I’m trying to think of the perfect gift way too late… panic… run out to the shops and get scared by the long lines (or even fail to find a place to park!), come home and try again online, realise it’s too late for shipping, run back out to the shops, panic again and compromise on the concept of “perfect”, then stand in line for ages, fight the traffic home, and finally… collapse onto the couch with a good-enough gift and a slight sinking feeling in my heart.
Been there? I have a better solution for you. If you’ve got a knitter or crocheter on your list, I know a way to make them super-happy this holiday season, with a gift that will deliver yarny goodness all year long. And one that is easy to buy, stress free, with no worries about shipping or parking or long lines. In fact, even better than the fact that it is so easy to give, I think it is the perfect holiday gift. Are you ready?…
Whether it’s for a fiber-loving friend or (who are we kidding?) even for yourself, the SpaceMonster Mega Yarn Club is an awesome gift that keeps giving for months on end. It’s all about big, smooshy worsted and bulkies — because there is nothing like a skein of lovely, thick yarn to make you want to pick it up, squish it, press it against your cheek, and… dive right into it! And when you cast on, they always work up so fast! Big yarns are gorgeous.
Here’s what you’re getting…
…big smooshy yarns, gorgeous new colourways that no one else can get their hands on, and a seriously fab gift!
There is nothing in the whole world like a skein of lovely, smooshy, thick yarn to make you want to pick it up, squish it… dive right into it! Big, bulky yarns call out to you, beg you to pick them up and press them against your cheek. And when you cast on, they always work up so fast! Big yarns are gorgeous.
As a member of the SpaceMonsters Mega Club, you receive:
a fantastic parcel delivered to their door every other month, containing a beautiful skein ofSpaceCadet® yarn in worsted or bulky weight, hand-dyed in an exclusive colourway* created to bring out the best in thicker yarns.
The SpaceCadet’s Log exploring the inspiration for each colourway.
A fantastic SpaceMonsters gift tucked into every third parcel. We’re known for the great gifts we include in our club parcels — and for this club, we’re seriously upping the fab. You’re going love it!
*guaranteed not to be offered on the SpaceCadet® website for at least 6 months
But bigger yarns mean bigger projects, right?
Don’t you worry — in this club, you can buy extra skeins! For a whole month after you receive your parcel, you’ll have an exclusive opportunity to order more skeins custom-dyed in the latest club colourway. You’ll receive an email with all the details about a week after your parcel goes out — and then all you have to do is pick your project!
And the price is pretty exciting too!
a 6 month subscription (3 parcels) is only $99
a 12 month subscription (6 parcels) is just $194
Plus, now you can choose a double subscription for two skeins in each parcel, or a triple for three, giving you the option to cast on your project as soon as you open the box.
But subscriptions are open for only two weeks and spaces are limited… so grab your space now!
Ready? Let’s do this!
Very Important: if you are giving a subscription as a gift, please remember to include the recipient’s postal and email addresses in the notes when you check out. We gotta have that to send the recipient their parcels!
Six month subscriptions include 3 parcels; twelve month subscriptions include 6 parcels. Parcels will be sent out in early February, April, June, August, October, and December. Shipping within the United States is included in the price; extra charges apply for shipping outside the US. Normal subscription openings/renewals will be available in June and December of each year. All club members are automatically subscribed to the club mailing list to receive email notification of club updates, special offers for extra skeins, and similar stuff. We never, ever sell or share your email with anyone. Because of the nature of the club set-up, we can accept returns or exchanges of club shipments for faulty yarns only. By joining the club, you are agreeing to these terms and conditions. Any other questions? We’re here to help! missioncontrol@spacecadetyarn.com
Perfect for holiday gifts (or, let’s be honest, perfect for you too!), each kit is made up of skeins that we have hand-selected to go together — not for an exact match, but instead to create a fabulous progression of colours that will work together in a way that’s just stunning! Here, let me show you a small selection…
But hey wait — don’t sit here looking at these pretty pictures while other folks are snapping the kits up. Click here to come on over to the shop and grab your favourites before they disappear!
Last week we talked about the different meanings of the colour terms “solid”, “semi-solid”, and “tonal” — all of which refer to yarn dyed in a single hue. But so often the yarns that really send our pulses racing are the multi-hued colourways — layer upon layer of fabulous colour, almost glowing in our hands as we turn them over and over to catch every last shade. These are variegated colourways and, beautiful as they are, they can be intimidating. But there are different types of variegateds and, once you realise the differences, they become much more approachable.
So first, let’s define what we’re talking about. The straight-up definition of a variegated colourway is any colourway that contains more than one hue (colour). So, going back to last week’s post, if a yarn contains light kelly green and mid-kelly green and dark kelly green, it’s not variegated, it’s tonal because the hue of all the greens is the same. But if a yarn contains a yellow-green and a blue-green as well as the kelly green, now it’s got mutiple hues (colours) and that makes it variegated. To put it very simply: in a variegated colourway, the colour varies.
But there’s far more to “variegated” than just that simple definition. Here at SpaceCadet, we tend to divide our variegateds into two categories: Gently Variegated and Wildly Variegated, and the good news is that they are exactly what they sound like.
Gently Variegateds: The Easy-to-Love Variegateds
Gently Variegated colourways are low contrast — their colours blend and flow into one another. Think of our colourway Time Traveller, all shades of green and gray and gentle flecks of copper. There are actually a whole bunch of colours in there — it’s definitely variegated — but none of them are jarring against each other. In fact, although the yarn looks clearly variegated in the skein, when you knit it up, it’s quite startling just how much the different colours begin to flow into each other. In fact, if you back up a few feet, it all begins to blend together as if it were hardly variegated at all.
Wildly Variegateds: The Bad Boy Colourways You Can’t Help Falling For
Wildly Variegated colourways are high contrast, containing hues that pop and sizzle against one another. These are colours that jump around on the colour wheel, like the rust-and-blue combination in Windswept or the maroon-blue-yellow of Molten Cool. They’re incredibly exciting to knit or crochet with, the colours morphing and changing across your stitches. But because they are high contrast, they can be high maintenance as well — there’s a push-pull element to the colours that means that, unlike Gently Variegateds, they may not play nicely together in plainer stitches.
So, so far, so simple. Variegateds are colourways that contain more than one hue (colour). Gently Variegateds are low contrast and Wildly Variegateds are high contrast. Easy, right? Yep, so let me complicated it just a bit.
When Gentles Go Wild (And Vice Versa)
There’s another element to what makes us perceive a variegated yarn as either Gentle or Wild, and this one defies the neat definitions we discussed above. That element is the specific layouts of the colour repeats. Or put more simply: how quickly and often the colour changes.
A yarn with long colour repeats will tend to look more variegated regardless of whether the hues are high or low contrast, simply because those long stretches allow the colours to separate in your knitting or crochet. Depending on your project, they may stripe (or semi-stripe), pool, argyle, or create irregular flashes. And when there are these sorts of large, distinct areas of a single hue which abut other distinct areas in a different hue, our eyes more easily perceive those colour changes and the colourway appears to have higher contrast (even when the two hues are similar).
And the reverse is true as well: when a yarn has many short colour repeats, it tends to look less variegated, regardless of whether its hues are high or low contrast. Short, quick colour repeats create tiny pops of colour that sit right next each other in your knitting without such distinct edges. Because of this, our eyes perceive even a wildly variegated colourway almost as a single, multi-hued colour (as if such a thing were possible) and the whole thing appears to be lower contrast. Think of a heathered yarn, which may have anything from grays and browns to blues, greens, yellows, and perhaps even hot pinks — and yet, because the colour changes are many and often, they all blend together in a way that could almost be described as soft.
Here’s a great example: this is Mythos by Laura Nelkin, which my assistant Jade knit in a one-of-a-kind colourway we created last year. If you look closely, you can see that the colours are actually very high contrast — there are maroons, purple-blues, dusty aqua, lime green, and even yellow. By definition, it’s a Wildly Variegated colourway (and kind of sounds like it should be approaching the dreaded clown barf). But, in reality, the short repeats give only pops of colour instead of stripes or pooling. And the result is a colourway that is Gently Variegated and almost heathered — proof that even high contrast colourways don’t have to be so wild after all.
Now It’s Your Turn…
So now that we’ve gone over the terms, here are two exercises to give you hands-on practice in understand these different types of variegateds:
First, go to the SpaceCadet colourways page and scroll to the bottom to see our variegated colourways. Mentally note which look Gentle and which look Wild to you, and then compare it what we consider Gentle or Wild by clicking on the buttons at the top (you’ll see them marked “Gently Variegated” or just “Variegated” — I left off the word Wild because I didn’t want to them to sound scary). Remember that although there are clear definitions for both, there are no right or wrong answers — the perception of wild vs gentle is pretty subjective. Even very high contrast colours can look Gentle if they are configured the right way; and low contrast colours can start to look a little Wild if they are allowed to pool, flash, or stripe.
And then, go and look at your own stash and see what you gravitate to. Do you have a lot of yarns with colours that blend and flow into one another, or that are close on the colour wheel? Or is your stash filled with yarns whose colours that contrast sharply with one another? Open the skeins up to see how long the colour repeats are, and think about how is that going to affect the way the yarn looks when it’s knitted or crocheted. Most importantly, how do you feel about the colourways in your stash? Are you excited to work with them and see how they come out or are you a little intimidated by them? Ultimately, whether Wild or Gentle, low contrast or high, the how we feel about the end result is what really matters. But we’ll get better results from our yarn — and our yarn shopping — if we really understand what draws us to the yarns we love.
Next up in this series: a colourway that seemingly defies all these definitions… and what makes it so interesting. I’ll be posting that sometime in the next week or so — don’t miss it!
