This has been a week of triumphs …and defeats!  Triumphs because, despite my being sick, hosting Thanksgiving for my family was a great success (due mostly to my husband, who took over all the cooking and left me only to light the candles — I’m so grateful to him for that!).   Everything was delicious, the wine was plentiful, and it was so lovely to have my whole family together for the first time in a long time.

(See how my camera just naturally focused on the wine? I don’t know why that happened…)

And Yet, Disaster!…

And defeat because I was (and am) still so sick that I was physically unable to set up the photos and do the legwork for our Black Friday and Cyber Monday special offers. Can I tell you how important those two days are to any business?  They are hands-down the two most important sales days in the entire calendar and simply skipping them is an utter disaster (unheard of!), especially to a very small business like ours.  If there had been any way at all that I could have made my body do what I needed it to do, I would have. And because I couldn’t, we missed out on two days that really make a difference to our bottom line.   

On Monday night, after I explained my ongoing symptoms, my doctor sent me to the emergency room for scans and x-rays, and they (finally!) diagnosed me with pneumonia.  I may have been the most excited of anyone they’ve ever seen to get that diagnosis (the doctor seemed a little surprised by my reaction!) but after four whole weeks of being mostly incapacitated, I was just over the moon to have a diagnosis at last.  Now I am on meds (woot!) and looking forward to kicking this thing at last.

Black Friday Do-Over!

But what to do about that disaster of a weekend?  I have plan!  With the help of these meds (woot!), I am going to be well enough to do all the photos and legwork that is needed to get our Black Friday and Cyber Monday specials up and running.  And we are going to do Black Friday weekend one week later!  Which… can I be honest?…  which kind of feels better to me.  Last week, as I lay in bed scrolling on my phone, my inbox was just exploding with emails screaming about Black Friday.  Part of me was just devastated to miss such an important day but part of me was really glad not to be another voice in all that chaos in our customers’ inboxes too.  I’m excited about what we put together for Black Friday, really excited, and I want you to be able to look it in a nice relaxed way, just the same way we spend time together over the newsletter each week.

So (God willing and the creek don’t rise), this Friday Dec 1 will be SpaceCadet’s Black Friday and you’ll see an email in your inbox with our lovely Black Friday special.  Maybe they would’ve sold out last week and maybe they won’t this week, but I don’t mind.  My hope is that it’s a wonderful gift that’s perfect for someone on your list, and I’m glad to be able share with you, even a week late.  And the same on Monday — the SpaceCadet Cyber Monday.  Look for an email then too.  And maybe, together, we can salvage that weekend from disaster, and have some lovely yarny fun at the same time!

Ok, and now it’s time for our regularly scheduled newsletter.  I’ve got lots of awesome fun this week.  Are you ready?  Grab a nice cuppa and here we go…

I love Advent Calendars — in a season where everything seems fast-paced and loud, they are an invitation to slow down, take the season one day at a time, and to treat yourself to something small and beautiful each day of the countdown.  And the wonderful designer Hunter Hammersen is taking that idea applying it to her gorgeous designs!  Each day from Dec 1st to 24th, she’ll put one of her patterns on sale, throwing in giveaways for the accompanying yarn along the way.  What a wonderfully knitterly way to count down the season.  And two of those giveaways are for SpaceCadet yarn!  Look for her Changeful socks on Dec 7 (and a chance to win a skein of SpaceCadet Oriana!), and for the beautiful Permutation hat on December 13 (and a chance to win a skein each of Capella and Cressida!).  Click here to join in the fun!

There’s long been discussion in the knitting and crocheting world about respecting copyright when it comes to patterns, with lots of hot feelings on either side.  Piracy is issue in the book publishing world too, and I found fascinating this article about one author’s way of proving that to her publisher.  Well worth a read.

Speaking of copyright and piracy, this article on the true cost of a knitting pattern is equally worthwhile reading.  When you buy a knitting pattern, you are truly supporting all the work that goes into it.

Christina Campbell’s Peace Project was a huge event last holiday season and I’m so excited to see she’s brought it back for 2017!  This knit-along and peace-along combines a beautiful pattern (see my pattern picks below) with a daily tip on how to infuse more peace into your life, and real commitment to doing good — proceeds from this year’s pattern will be donated to 3 non-profit organizations focused on building a healthy, sustainable world.  It all begins on Dec 1, so click here to see more and find out about the worthy causes the project supports.

Put These Dates on Your Calendar…

Black Friday/Cyber Monday Do-Over — Fri Dec 1 & Mon Dec 4

If you read the bit at the top, you’ll know how exciting this is for us (and if you skipped over it…  quick, scoot on up there and read it!).  This is our chance to bring you the awesome Black Friday and Cyber Monday specials that we had planned but which the flu and pneumonia did their best to stop!  Plus, it’s a more relaxed and quieter way to share them with you, which I really like.  So, hold onto a little (just a little) of that original Black Friday excitement and look for an email on this Friday (Dec 1) and Monday (Dec 4) with all the details.

(And pleeeease keep your fingers crossed for me that these meds kick in fast — I really really want to be able to do this this time!)

The SpaceMonster Mega Yarn Club Opens — Fri Dec 8

If you’ve been following me on Instagram, you’ll know that, while I’ve been sick, I’ve been doing a lot of knitting — and most of it with past colourways from the SpaceMonster Club because those worsted and bulky yarns are just so wonderful and smooshy!  I absolutely love this club, and our members do too.  And you know what’s the best part?  It makes an excellent (and easy!) holiday gift that lasts a whole year!

We open the doors at noon on Friday Dec 8 and I always give first dibs to folks on the waiting list, so click here for all the details and get on that list!

Project Peace 2017 by Christina Campbell

This pattern is so much more than just a pattern — it’s a knit-along and peace-along that will bring so much to your holiday season, including a chance to support three wonderful causes.  Scroll up to the Orbiting the Fiber Universe section for more details, or just click here.

Welter by Hunter Hammersen

This is a pattern I’ve shown you before but with holiday gift-knitting in full swing, it jumped out at me again as a perfect choice for a very (very!) fast holiday knit.  Knit in SpaceCadet Capella, the worsted weight helps it fly off your needles and the single ply makes it gorgeous and squishy.  What could be better?

Glitch by Rebecca Velasquez

And crocheters are busy making gifts too!  What I love so much about this hat is that tassel (pom-poms are great but I really do love tassels!) and how quickly it will work up.  Designed to work with any weight of yarn, it’s a great stash-buster too.  Perfect gift-project material!

All images © the respective designers and used with permission

Ok, well, if I’m going to get our Black Friday Do-Over up and running, I’d better get busy (and on my belly…  did you know I take most of our yarn photos flat on my belly?  The behind-the-scenes shots are kind of hilarious).  I hope you’ve found lots of inspiration here — and I really hope I’ll see back on Friday!  Until then, have a wonderful day, and all my best!

 

 

I can’t believe tomorrow is Thanksgiving!  It is absolutely my most favourite holiday of the year because it’s got all the best things about a holiday (family and great food and downtime) without all the things that make me feel stressed (all those decorations and, oh!, the pressure to find the perfect gift).

This year, for a number of reasons and for the first time since I moved here, Thanksgiving for the entire family will be at my house.  And I am super-excited to have everyone round except for two things: 1) the flu is gone but I am still so easily exhausted that cooking is going to be a challange and 2) being so sick for three weeks, I haven’t been able to fully prep our Black Friday weekend events, so it’s going to be a scramble of taking photos and prepping yarn…  while we’re also cooking a turkey and all the trimmings.  It should be fine, right?

(Side note: many many years ago, when I was still living in the UK, I cooked an entire Thanksgiving dinner on my own for friends coming round after work that evening.  But I also decided that, as I’d taken the whole day off work, it would also be the perfect time to try dyeing with indigo for the first time. Oh yes I did!  And it didn’t occur to me that this was a Really Bad Idea until I had everything going at once: the indigo vat on the porch and all the dishes half-prepped in the kitchen, with me running back and forth and back and forth between the two and thinking, “Don’t get indigo fingerprints on the turkey! Don’t get indigo fingerprints on the turkey!”  I didn’t, and both the dyeing and the dinner turned out great, but it was seriously one of the most ridiculous ideas I’ve ever had!)

Ok, enough of that.  It’s not Thanksgiving yet, so grab a cup of tea or coffee and let’s dive into this week’s fibery news…

I picked up a surprise parcel from the post office this week and was delighted to find it contained a copy of Kate Atherley’s awesome new book, Knit Mitts, an easy to understand and comprehensive guide to knitting mitts, mittens, and gloves.  I was so inspired that I cast on a pair immediately (and hope to have them bound off today — yay warm hands!).  If you like warm hands too (or have someone on your gift list who does), you’ll want to get a copy of it.  Oh, and why did I get a surprise copy?  Because that’s SpaceCadet Aurora in the Holdsworth gloves pattern on page 81.  Thank you, Kate, for including our yarn in your beautiful book!

If you’re cooking the dinner on Thanksgiving day, you’ll probably be too busy for this and can just skip on to the next item but, if you’ll be curled up on the couch watching the parade or football and need something productive to do with your hands, I love the idea of whipping out these adorable little crocheted turkey drumsticks. They’re so tiny, you can have half a dozen ready by dinner time and add a crocheted i-cord and you have instant seasonal napkin rings!  The question is, will that be a good enough excuse for not being the kitchen helping to wrestle the turkey?

On the surface, knitting and crochet are all about design but, underneath, they’re really all about the math.  And few mathematical formulas produce more beautiful designs than the Fibonacci sequence.  I enjoyed this round-up of patterns that use that famous tool to dazzling effect.

Now that the weather has turned colder, I find myself falling back in love with everything cabled (I don’t know about you, but cables seem like such a perfect cold-weather motif…  do you feel that way too?).  But cables can be tricky: they change your gauge and can cause the edges of your work to flare out.  I loved this article from Interweave with great tips for combating that flare.  Read it before you cast on your next cabled masterpiece.

Every week, when I send out this newsletter, I receive a bunch of out-of-office emails from readers who are away that week.  And while I always secretly cheer for those lucky folks away on vacation (yay vacation!), it’s interesting how varied the messages are: some give practically no details and some tell me absolutely everything.  So I couldn’t help but notice this article outlining the best options for wording your out-of-office notice.  If you’re about to put one together for the upcoming holiday weekend, it’s worth a look.

Put These Dates on Your Calendar

This Week

• Black Friday Special! Because I’ve been so sick, I haven’t been able to get the photos to show you (guess what I’ll be doing on Thanksgiving day?), but we’ve got a great holiday special to share with you.  Ok, want a little hint?  Here’s a sneak peek inside the dyepots. There are three themes: blues, rusts, and greens — and let me tell you, the results are gorgeous. If you’re intrigued, watch your inbox on Black Friday!

• Cyber Monday: Another Holiday Special!  The same restriction as before — I haven’t been able to take photos yet — but if you’re looking for something filled with yarny fun, watch this space.

Next Week

• Friday Dec 8: The SpaceMonster Mega Yarn Club opens.  I love this club — all about the smooshiest of yarns.  Click here for all the details and get on the list to get first dibs!

Tacit by Hunter Hammersen

For obvious reasons (see the first item in Orbiting the Fiber Universe, above), mitts have been on my mind this week.  And I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a pair as pretty as these.  And for as complicated as they look, Hunter says, “It’s just cables. No really, I promise! I know it looks like there is some sort of fancy magic going on there, but it really is just cables.”  And, as she’s an absolutely excellent pattern writer (and person!), I believe her.  I might just cast on a pair of these next, in luxurious Aurora in either Frigia or Drizzle.

Study Break Shawl by Emily Connell

I gave you a little teaser about this pattern last week because I was just so excited to see it come to life at last.  And when it was released on Saturday, I just couldn’t be more thrilled with the result!  Designed in SpaceCadet Capella and Vega, it combines a gradient flow (from rust into red into oxblood into magenta), stranded colourwork, Latvian braids, and steeking, into a truly beautiful design.  And what’s more, it’s free, included in November’s issue of Knotions magazine.

Christmas Tree Wrap by handmade by SMINÉ

Why yes, it is that time of year (or, at least, it will be come Friday) and, with the holiday spirit on the ascent, I absolutely adore this sweet and clever design.  Do you see a Christmas tree garland?  I see a shooting star!  Either way, it’s an adorable knit for a season filled whimsy and fun and twinkling stars.  Designed in two colours of either fingering or DK, it’s absolutely perfect for your stash of Mini-Skeins (make sure you use sparkly Lucina for the star!) or for two skeins of Celeste, Lucina, or Astrid.   Here are four of my favourite colour combos to try…

all images © the respective designers and used with permission

Ok, it’s been lovely sharing all of this with you, but we’ve both got work to do before this busy holiday weekend.  So I am going to go tie up some skeins for dyeing (because I can sit down while I tie them and not get too tired!) and try to remember what I am forgetting for tomorrow (there’s always something, right?).  If you live in the US, I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving with much to be thankful for.  And, until next time, all my best!

Do you remember a couple of weeks ago when I said I thought I was coming down with maybe a cold?  Oh, how naive I was!  What I was coming down with was actually the Real Flu and I have never been so sick.  Never, ever.  I will spare you the gory details (and they are gory!) but to say that I have been laid up in bed and unable to work since Halloween.  My entire family has had it, the SpaceCadet crew has had it, and I am currently on Day 17 and I haven’t kicked it yet.  In fact, I was in such bad shape yesterday that I dragged myself to the doctor for the third time in two weeks (and I never go to the doctor!).

So, because much of the crew and I have been out of action, our schedule is a little out of whack (Yarn Alliance members, your parcels will be a little late — I really appreciate your patience).  But I now have new meds (yay!) and new hope(!) and I’m ready to jump back into our regularly scheduled fiber fix.  Are you ready too?  Here we go…

Right Now

• Friday Nov 17: Shop Update  To get ready for the upcoming holiday season, we’ll be putting a bunch yarns in the shop on Friday.  Look for Vega, Lyra, Lucina, Astrid, Aurora, and Elara to appear between 8am and noon (eastern).
• Tuesday Nov 21: Gradient Explorers spaces open!   At the moment, we have 6 spaces open for The Gradient Explorers, and they’ll be opening Tuesday at noon (eastern).  Click this link to read the details, and enter your email make sure you’re the first to hear about them. 

Upcoming

• Black Friday: Something Special!  I can’t say more than that, but it’s gonna be fun!  Look for details in next weeks’s newsletter
• Cyber Monday: Something Else Special!  Same deal: no details but watch this space…
• Friday Dec 8: The SpaceMonster Mega Yarn Club opens.  I love this club — all about the smooshiest of yarns.  Click here for all the details and get on the list to get first dibs!

As the weather gets cooler, I am in the mood to knit mitts and I loved (loved loved) this quick primer on mitten and thumb gusset anatomy from knitmaster Kate Atherley.  I’ve got a couple of gorgeous skeins of Reserve (above) from the SpaceMonster Club staring at me on the shelf…  maybe I’ll cast on right now!

Speaking of casting on, you’ll notice I never mentioned a pattern?  Heh.  I’m notorious for just starting a project with no pattern and trying to wing it.  Sometimes it works…  aaaand sometimes it doesn’t.  Either way, I was really excited to see the release of the new book Design Your Own Crochet Patterns by Sara Delany.  We’ll see if it improves my success rate!

And if you’re as excited about that new book as I am, you’ll want to know that the Moogly blog is giving away a copy.  Click here before the end of the month to enter.

Saturday was Veterans Day in the US and, in the UK, it was Remembrance Day, for which most Brits wear red poppies on their lapels to commemorate the fallen.  Usually they are made of cardstock, sometimes of silk, and this film from the BBC shows the results of eight months of dedicated knitting and crocheting by the residents of Walsham-le-Willows: no less than 5,000 handmade poppies to adorn the village church.

Ahem. How to turn a pretty cute heart pattern into something else altogether: this (not-safe-for-work!) crocheted hackeysack pattern made me grin.

If you have leftovers in your stash and don’t know how many yards they are, this quick tutorial will have you calculating the yardage of your partial skeins in no time.  Because mathing is totally worth it if it means you get to use more of your yarn!

Emily Connell Designs…  A Steeked Shawl!

As much as I hate the idea of someone taking a pair of scissors to our yarn (eek!), I am so looking forward to the release of Emily Connell‘s Study Break Shawl in Knotions magazine.  Created in SpaceCadet Capella and Vega, it has beautiful colourwork and all the added excitement of steeking!

The new issue will be going live on Saturday (and we’ll have yarn in the shop) so click here this weekend to get your copy!

images ©Emily Connell,  used with permission

I Played a Lot with Colour!

If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook you’ll know that, while I’ve been sick (and unable to sleep at night), I had a lot of time for knitting with the latest SpaceMonster Club colourway, Bonfire (above).  I had sooo much fun playing with the colours: pooling them, creating pseudo-stripes, and incorporating slipped stitches.  The different effects were stunning and, sometime soon, I’ll put together a blog post to walk you through it. But in the meantime, check out the images I’ve been sharing (below).  And, if you don’t follow me on social media, click here for Instagram and here for Facebook!

If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you’ll know that, while I’ve been sick, I’ve filled a lot of the hours (when I simply couldn’t sleep) by knitting.  And one of the things I played a lot with (…and fell in love with!) was slipped stitches.  And so, as I gathered the patterns that caught my eye this week, I realised there was a bit of a natural theme happening.  See if you can spot it…

Linen stitch is a wonderful way to use slipped stitches to blend colours and without muddying them.  I love the way this scarf softens a gradient into a stunning watercolour effect.  If you’ve got a stash of SpaceCadet Ombre & Gradient Mini-Skeins, this is the perfect pattern choice!

The other two patterns used all-over slipped stitches but these socks show off just how effective strategically placed slipped stitches can be. Incorporating a lifted bar of yarn, this is called Sandpiper Stitch and creates a really stunning effect!

images © the respective designers,  used with permission

Yarn Alliance Members: Share Your Projects!

Because the flu has us running a bit behind on the Yarn Alliance parcels, Fatima suggested we could help the new members’ in their anticipation by sharing past projects we’ve made in our club yarns.  If you’ve got a great FO (or WIP!) in a Yarn Alliance colourway, pleas click here and show us!

Thank You!!!

Before I go, I just want to say how wonderful its been getting everyone’s well wishes on Facebook and Instagram.  Seriously, when you’re as sick as I’ve been and up all night in the dark with that never-ending cough, getting little messages of support and encouragement mean so much.  Thank you so much getting in touch and giving me moral support — I really really appreciate it.

Ok, and on that note, it’s time to get back to real life and start the day.  I’m going to do some simple computer work and then maybe maybe maybe head down to the studio and see how I feel.  Keep your fingers crossed for me!  And until next time, stay healthy, stay warm, and all my best.

 

 

Every year on the day after Halloween, I realise that it’s somehow turned into November while I wasn’t looking and, every year, I wonder how did this this happen?!?  This year, I’ve woken up with my first cold of the season — you know the kind where you know it’s bad even before you’re fully awake?  Yeah, that.  Fortunately, I’ve got a bit of computer-work lined up so I suspect today will be spent mostly on the couch with my laptop, Olbas Oil, and a nice steaming pot of tea.

But before that, I’ve got a ton of great fiber news I found during the week and I can’t wait to share it with you!  So you grab a cuppa and get comfy, and let’s spend five minutes together to start Wednesday off right.  Here we go…

Upcoming

• Saturday Nov 11: Indie Knit & Spin in Regent Square, Pittsburgh.  One of our favourite shows!  Click here for details.
• Friday Nov 17: Gradient Explorers spaces open!   At the moment, we have 4 spaces open for The Gradient Explorers, and they’ll be opening on Nov 17.  Click this link to read the details, and enter your email make sure you’re the first to hear about them.

On Circular Yokes…

Road to Giza by Kristen Jancuk (© Kristen Jancuk, used with permission)

If you’ve never knitted a circular yoked sweater before, this nifty article will walk you though the basics of circular yokes and the pros and cons of yoked construction.  It’s a really great (and inspiring!) introduction.

Stranded colourwork means using two colours in each row, carrying (stranding) one of the colours behind the other.  I found two great tutorials (here and here) that give step by-step images to show you the different ways to hold your yarns and keep your sanity while you do it.

And finally, choosing the right colours is crucial to successful colourwork.  This article gives some great tips to help you step just far enough away from your default colours (we all have ’em!) to choose hues that will really make your colourwork pop!

And Other Cool Stuff…

With Halloween last night and the first day of November dawning this morning, it’s full speed ahead to Thanksgiving here in the US.  I love the look of these adorable needle-felted pumpkins, perfect for decorating the Turkey Day table.  And, even better, there’s a fabulous step-by-step tutorial for making them!  If you’ve never tried needle-felting before, it’s easy and lots of fun and gives that awesome woolly fiber fix we all crave.  Try it!

If (like me) you have trouble getting your gift-knitting/spinning/crochet done in time, these tips might come in handy.  I think number 2 is BRILLIANT!

And lastly, I’m honestly not exactly sure where you’d ever wear this crocheted hat but it totally cracked me up!

October’s Mini-Skein Club bundles were so perfect for the season! The Multicolour Mix (top) just feels like October all over — so bright and warm and Halloween-ish.  And the Ombre & Gradient Mix (bottom) is a journey of purples as we leave the warmth of autumn and start heading toward the season of ice and cold.  Everyone has their own colour comfort zone — which of these is yours?

The SpaceCadet’s Pinterest Boards: Leaves & Nature Motifs

Photo by Chris Lawton

This time of year, I am so inspired by the fabulous show that nature is putting on outside my window that all I want to cast on is designs that capture the best of the season: leaves, wind, branches, ice and snow.  If you’re like me, you’ll want to check out my Leaves & Nature Motifs board on Pinterest.  It’s full of pattern ideas that are perfect for this time of year!  Click here to go to it and then, once you’re on the board, click the images to enlarge and again to go through to the corresponding pattern or webpage.

And did you know I started a Pinterest board to act as a stitch dictionary for when I want to find just the perfect texture for a project idea?  I did!  And you can follow it (by clicking here) and use it as a resource for your project ideas too!

The thing that caught my eye about this design first was the designer’s tagline: “When English is my language, I speak softly; when color is my language, I scream.”  And then I looked at her stranded colourwork on this design and realised how true it is.  Most of the yoked sweater designs I’ve seen use elaborate motifs with very simple colours.  This one uses a really simple motif combined with fabulous variegated colour.  Fun!

The kid-sized pattern releases this Friday, with an adult version to follow  — and the adult version is included with the purchase of the kid-version.

So, ok, this hat is knitted in two (lovely) solid colours but, as soon as I spotted it, I knew it was one of those awesome patterns that simultaneously brings out the best in a variegated yarn while also controlling the overwhelm by pairing it with a semi-solid.  I’d love to knit it in Lyra in Molten Cool and Drizzle, Time Traveller and Longing, or Breeze and Plume.

How’s your holiday knitting going?  Yeahhhhh…  But simple socks are such a fab gift and when someone else has done the math and all you have to do is put together the rainbow yarn and cast on, well, you’re half-way there!  If you’re in our Mini-Skein Club, do a little stash-diving and start lining up your colours — they’re going to look awesome.

all image © the respective designers and used with permission

Ok, Back to Reality…

See, I told you I had a bunch of cool stuff to share!  But now it’s time I made another pot of tea and get back to work.  Please keep your fingers crossed that I can send this cold on its way quickly, and I hope you have a happy and healthy start to your November.  Until next time, all my best!

 

Every now and again, when things aren’t going the way I expect them to go, I announce loudly, “IF I RULED THE WORLD…!”, followed by some proclamation of how I would improve whatever it is that I’m finding frustrating in that moment.  Usually it involves replacing all stop lights and stop signs with British-style roundabouts, or mandatory tea-making school for every food-server (warm the pot, tea bag in first, boiling water must hit the bag), or teaching all world leaders to knit or crochet (I’m convinced that if the G7 & G20 meetings were actually knit nights, everybody would chill and world peace would be that much closer).  And after reading today’s fiber universe news, I think I might add ovine lawn mowers to that list.

In the last 48 hours, Pittsburgh’s weather has dropped from balmy and almost August-like to cold, windy, wet, and grey.  Today I am holding a hot cup of tea in my hands and still thinking that perhaps I need to whip up a pair of mitts.   And for as much as I have loved having summer stretch a little longer, the weather today feels so right.  Time to pick up my needles and get busy! But first, I’ve got a ton of stuff to share with you, so get a cup of tea (maybe a pair of mitts too) and let’s jump in…

Upcoming

• Saturday Nov 11: Indie Knit & Spin in Regent Square, Pittsburgh.  One of our favourite shows!  Click here for details.
• Friday Nov 17: Gradient Explorers spaces may open — The Gradient Explorers is currently full and there are no spaces available, so I can’t open any in October but, if we have room next month, I’ll be opening the Gradient Explorers a week early in November (so it’s not all tangled up with Thanksgiving).  Mark your calendar and keep an eye here for updates.

I absolutely loved reading this article in the NY Times about how, when the landscaper retired at Old St Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhatten, the church brought in three sheep to “mow” the cemetery.  The move proved so successful — and popular — that the flock’s annual return has become a neighbourhood celebration.  Read about it here.

This pair of crocheted pizza sweaters made me grin, partly because of the adorable “Mini Me” aspect and partly because of the way the dad totally nailed that post-pizza food-coma look.

When I looked in my inbox the other day and saw an email entitled “Trips for Knitters”, that sounded just about perfect.  I’ve never travelled with this group, but if you like to combine your knitting with your travel, it may be worth checking out.

I can’t decide if I want to crochet a garland like this to go across my shelves (as pictured) or to do it all in white for my mantle at Christmas.  Which would you do?

I’m a huge fan of Woolly Wormhead’s designs and just spotted that she’s been nominated for the British Craft Awards.  If you love her hats as much as I do, click here, go to “knitting”, and fill out the survey (you don’t have to be a British resident to participate but, if you are, there are prizes too!)

Sometimes Mini-Skeins are Hard!

The other day, my assistant and I were developing the colour path our Mini-Skein Club will take over the next few months and, can I tell you…  we were really struggling.  Last month’s Ombre & Gradient mix was this really lovely blackened purple (top image, below) and, while I can’t show you this month’s colour mix yet, I can say that we were trying to think how to move from where we are now to something rich and festive and then onto something ethereal and wintery.  Quite a transition!

But I had to laugh because, even though we’ve both been doing this for years and we’re usually pretty good at developing the new colourways, we really struggled at first with the upcoming transitions.  Now that we’ve worked out how we’re going to dye them, I am super excited — they’re fun, intriguing, and everything I hoped they’d be — and I can’t wait to see how they come out.  But if you’ve ever thought that creating our beautiful Never Ending Gradient and Start Anywhere Mini-Skein bundles is easy…  well, sometimes it’s totally not!

Mini-Skein Club members, I can’t wait for you to see what’s on the way!

Ok, see if you can spot a theme.  Every one of today’s pattern picks is about…  me keeping warm — and quick!

Mitts can be so simple and functional but… do they have to be?  Especially when something so straightforward as a beautiful stitch pattern can elevate them to a thing of real beauty.  These mitts need a sublime semi-solid to show off the intricacy of the stitchwork, such as Vega in Breathless, Sage, Sliver, or Dark Skies.

Snowball Fight by handmade by SMINÉ

SPLAT!  How could I not fall in love with this awesome design?!?  I think it’d put a grin on my face every time I put it on — and I’d put it on every single day of the winter.   Designed in DK, I’d go for Astrid in ice-blue Frigia for the snowball and Drizzle for the main colour, or Lyra in Sliver for the snowball and Gobsmack or Oxblood or Dark Skies.

all images © the respective designers and used with permission

Ok, we’ve got a super-busy day ahead of us — lots of parcels to send out and some fun dyeing to do — so I’d better get to it!  If the weather is as cool for you as it (suddenly) is for us, I hope you’ve got plenty of handknits to keep you warm (I’m going to cast on that cowl!), and I’ll see you next time.  Until then, all my best.

 

Some days, I have to do boring things like file receipts and calculate taxes (blech!) but other days, we get to spread out a big sheet and one of the best parts of our jobs: sorting through yarn and creating new colour combos!  Last week, the weather was warm and breezy, the SpaceCadet crew all met at my house, and we did exactly that –laying skeins out like parquet flooring across my front porch and then setting up the camera to photograph them all.   It was so much fun, and the colours are so irresistible, that Jade ended up going face-first right into the yarn!   Poor girl, she never stood a chance really — the call was just too strong.

But any day you get to smoosh yarn is a good day, right?  Working on a project, digging through your stash, visiting a new yarn shop or…  just taking five minutes to read through some fun fiber news…  it’s sure to get your day off to a good start.  Today, I’ve got some super cool patterns to share with you, a bunch of fun fiber news, and the winner of our giveaway.  So, grab a cup of tea, sit down here with me, and let’s do this!…

Right now

• This Friday, Oct 20:  One-of-a-Kind Fade Sweater Sets Shop Update — So exciting!  The whole SpaceCadet crew sat down put together a bunch of FABULOUS fades in full Sweater Sets from our One-of-a-Kind yarns — they are stunningly beautiful, each one completely unique, and they are going up in the shop on Friday in two releases at 8am and at noon (eastern).   There’s only one of each and it’s first come, first serve, so click here to scroll through the Sweater Set pictures, find the number of the ones you love best, and then come back on Friday to grab it!

Upcoming

• Saturday Nov 11: Indie Knit & Spin in Regent Square, Pittsburgh.  One of our favourite shows!  Click here for details.
• Friday Nov 17: Gradient Explorers spaces may open — The Gradient Explorers is currently full and there are no spaces available, so I can’t open any in October but, if we have room next month, I’ll be opening the Gradient Explorers a week early in November (so it’s not all tangled up with Thanksgiving).  Mark your calendar and keep an eye here for updates.

 

It’s the nature of hand-dyed yarns to have variations from skein to skein — there’s almost no way to escape it (and, really, it’s part of the charm and the beauty emerges when you embrace it). If you want to blend the transition between two hand-dyed skeins, the general advice is to alternate every two rows as you switch from one yarn to the next, whether they’re both the same semi-solid colourway or two different colourways in a variegated fade.  But I found absolutely fascinating this article with an ingenious way to create a much more subtle blend that doesn’t require as much backing-and-forthing between skeins.  I have a One-of-a-Kind Fade Sweater Set from Friday’s shop update that I kept for myself (!) and I am totally going to try this technique with it!

Have you been hearing about hygge everywhere lately and wondering what on earth it is?  This article explains it beautifully (including how to pronounce it!) — so beautifully, in fact, that I find myself pining for snow and long nights…

You’ve seen t-shirts and project bags that say, “It’s not a hobby… it’s a post-apocalyptic life skill”, right?  I thought this article was interesting, all about how many companies are creating instructional videos on the most basic of skills for a generation who doesn’t have them.  Personally, I found some of them a little surprising (how to use a tape measure?!?) but then, I turn to online videos every time I find a knitting instruction I don’t understand.  Sign of the times…

This is a super-handy guide to yarn weights, with photos and translations to UK and Aus/NZ weights.

Ok, wait, I have to be honest here…  when I first set up this giveaway, I was not expecting to be so excited to choose a winner (maybe because I wanted to keep all the yarn for myself? Shhhh…).  But as more and more people joined in, and I read all the comments about the colour combos on Instagram and Facebook, it became so much fun.  And so, as I ran the Random Number Generator to choose a winner, I was just super excited.  This giveaway has been a blast — thank you to everyone who participated!

And now, without further delay our winner is…

Lisa Loyo

Congratulations Lisa!  I can’t wait to see which One-of-a-Kind Sweater Set you choose!

One-of-a-Kind Fade Sweater Sets Shop Update

We have so many awesome One-of-a-Kind Fades in the Shop Update this Friday that they are going live in two releases:

• Fingering yarns at 8am (eastern)
• Sport, DK, and Worsted yarns at 12noon (eastern)

(Plus I’m hoping maybe that gives everyone in different timezones a better chance to get the colour combos they want)

There’s only one of each combo and it’s first come, first serve, so click here to scroll through the Sweater Set pictures, find the number of the ones you love best, and then come back on Friday to grab it!

To celebrate this Friday’s One-of-a-Kind Fade Shop Update, I’ve picked patterns that are designed to make the most of gorgeous hand-dyed yarns that flow from one colourway to the next.  Everyone knows the most famous fade patterns dominating Ravelry at the moment, but check out these fabulous options…

all images © the respective designers and used with permission