This Weekend: HomeSpun Opens And Yarn Alliance Closes

22MarApril 14, 2015 By Stephanie

Before I say anything else, I just want to remind you that subscriptions to the InterStellar Yarn Alliance close in just TWO DAYS, and there are only a handful of spaces left. If you’ve been thinking of joining but haven’t grabbed your place yet, do it now before subscriptions close on Sunday night!

How to be a Super-Awesome Fangirl!

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Stacey Trock of Fresh Stitches asked me to write a guest blog post about how to be a great customer (and fan!) at yarn shows. So often, a show is such a conflicted situation: on the one hand, we’re dying to chat to customers that we’ve only been able to “meet” online but then, the booth is often just so crazy-busy that we hardly have the chance to really talk to anybody! What’s a dyer to do?!?

Well, like so many things in life, the best thing to do is start with a plan. And my guest post for Stacey goes through the basics of how to plan out a yarn show trip so that you get to spend some quality time with the vendors you’re dying to meet up with.

HomeSpun Yarn Party This Weekend!

And the timing couldn’t be more perfect, because this weekend we’re heading to Savage MD for HomeSpun Yarn Party, one of my most favouritest yarn shows of the whole year. The place is packed with indie makers selling all hand-made, home-made, and just gorgeous stuff!

We’ll be taking…

More of those coveted kits for Laura Nelkin’s Juego Mystery KAL. These are the yarn and beads that completely sold out in an absolutely frenzied 24 hours earlier this month, but we’ve held a few back for our spring shows. If you want one, get in there and grab it quick!

The Show Exclusive Colourway — a gorgeous yarn in deep, rich colours that I’ve designed that will be available only at the shows we’re doing this spring. You gotta be there to get it and, until the shows are over, I can’t even show you what it looks like! The skeins we took to Pittsburgh Knit & Crochet absolutely flew off the shelves, but — lucky you! — I kept a second a batch safely back in the studio to take to HomeSpun Yarn Party.

More kits for Melissa Jean’s Dublin Tee, and in some exciting brand-new colourways, including one called “Fizz” (any guesses what colour that might be?), one called “Fire”, and one — just one kit — that I may never be able to repeat again and looks like this…

Plus Sparkly Heels & Toes kits, Mini-Skein kits, and hundreds and hundreds of skeins of amazing, hand-dyed SpaceCadet yarn. …Oh! And SpaceCadet tatoos — make sure you ask for one!

HomeSpun Yarn Party

Sunday, March 24, 2013 from 12-5pm
Historic Savage Mill, 8600 Foundry Street, Savage, MD 20763
Want a map? I gotcha covered

So if you live anywhere in the DC-Baltimore area, you absolutely want to make sure you’re there! We can’t wait to see you guys!

And Show Season Begins!

15MarApril 14, 2015 By Stephanie

Today is an exciting day, because today starts a series of yarn shows that I’ve been looking forward to for months! This weekend is the Pittsburgh Knit & Crochet Festival (15-17 March in Mars PA), followed next weekend by HomeSpun Yarn Party (24 March in Savage MD), then a quick break for Easter before Knitters Fantasy (6 April in Youngstown OH). It’s going to crazy, busy, fun, exciting, and… whoooo-boy, pretty exhausting too!

But this year, there is more reason to be excited than usual, because we have some GREAT stuff to share with you this year. Here let me tell you all about it…

Colourways like you’ve never seen before!

Our show stock this year is focused on one-of-a-kind and unsual colourways. Yes, there are a few of the standard colourways, but those are always available to you in the shop. For the shows this year, we’ve really cranked up the dyepots and created some gorgeous, vibrant, eye-catching mixes that you may never see again. I can’t wait to see what you think of them!

Sparkly Heels & Toes Kits

It started with the idea of knitting socks out of a lovely skein of Stella in one colourway with fabulously sparkly heels and toes with a coordinating baby skein of our wonderful Lucina. Who wouldn’t want funky socks with sparkly heels and toes?!?

But then, I thought, why would you stop at just socks? What about a delicate shawl with a sparkly lace edging? How about lovely mitts with a sparkly lace cuff?

Or wait… what about sparkly stripes?!? How cool would that be?!? I can’t wait to see what you guys come up with!

Laura Nelkin’s Juego Mystery KAL Kits

Yep, you read that right! And yep, when Laura announced the Juego KAL on her blog, six weeks of kits sold out in 36 hours! We’ve been dyeing like crazy ever since to meet the demand but, at Laura’s request, I’ve dyed a few extras for the shows. They won’t last long — get in and grab yours quick!

Dublin Tee Kits

I adore Melissa Jean’s amazing Dublin Tee! Can’t you see yourself wearing it to… well, pretty much everywhere? So I know you’re going to love our Dublin Tee kits, created in Lyra, Ester, and Celeste — the very yarns that the pattern was designed for — and all packaged up in a sweet little bag for you carry them home and cast on straight away. And to thank you for buying the kit, we’re treating you to the $7 pattern for free!

The Secret Show-Exclusive Colourway!

Now, this is something really special — a custom colourway that I’ve designed exclusively for these Spring shows. It’s rich and deep, multi-tonal with pops of colour and hidden surprises… Intrigued? I’m absolutely in love with it, but you can’t get it unless you come to the shows. In fact, you can’t even see what it looks like unless you come and visit us!

Welllll… I will tell you, it’s in Celeste, which is the lovely 3-ply fingering weight in 100% Superwash Merino that Laura Nelkin chose for her Juego. And wellll… I’m not completely heartless — here’s a little sneak peak…

Ok, but seriously — come and see us at the show! We’d love to see you!

Don’t Forget…

Oh, and one last thing — but this is only for the brave… If love our little SpaceCadet as much as we do, go ahead and ask me for a tattoo! We had so much fun at HomeSpun last year with all the bold, brave women who wore their SpaceCadet tats with pride, and I would love to do it again. Arms, faces, shoulders… cleavage! They’re all fair game, and the SpaceCadet’s cheeky grin looks cute on all of them. So don’t be afraid — let’s tat you up!

And if you can’t make the shows?

Don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten you! All the great kits you’ve see here will be making it into the shop once show season is over. So keep your eyes peeled and your needles at the ready. But if you can get to the shows, do it. They’re so much fun, and you know you want to!

The InterStellar Yarn Alliance is open for Subscriptions

from March 8 to March 24 only!

The Yarn Alliance is Open for Subscriptions!

08MarSeptember 4, 2015 By Stephanie

Ok, you know what I’m about to say and I am just sooooo excited it’s here at last! So many of you have been emailing me and sending me messages about it, that I can’t wait to say…

The InterStellar Yarn Alliance is open for subscriptions!!!

The Yarn Alliance is the SpaceCadet’s fantastic yarn club, and Spring subscriptions are available from March 8 to March 24 only.

And why am I so excited? Because, probably more than anything else I do in this job, I love creating the yarn and coming up with the gifts for this club. This is my chance to really connect with you guys, to get to know you in the forum and through your projects. And when I dye the exclusive club colourways and come up with those fabulous SpaceCadet gifts, I’m doing it all with real people — with you guys! — in my mind.

Members of the InterStellar Yarn Alliance receive fabulous parcels delivered to their door every other month, containing:

SpaceCadet^® Creations yarn (fingering 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

A 6 month subscription (3 parcels) is $135
and a 12 month subscription (6 parcels) is $249.

Ready to join the fun? Spring subscriptions close in two weeks and spaces are limited so grab yours quick!

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.
Got questions? We’re happy to help! info(at)spacecadetcreations(dot)com

The InterStellar Yarn Alliance will Open on…

05MarSeptember 4, 2015 By Stephanie

In all the rush of last week, I totally forgot to make an announcement that a lot of you have told me you’re waiting for…

So I’m just slipping in this quick mid-week reminder for you. This is one seriously fun club — gorgeous yarns and fabulous gifts — and spaces go fast. All the details are here, and subscriptions are open from March 8 only until March 24.

So quick! Go mark it on your calendar so you can grab your space on Friday!

Laura Nelkin’s Juego Mystery KAL

01MarApril 14, 2015 By Stephanie

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve been hinting for a little while about something special that I’ve been cooking up with Laura Nelkin. She’s a Craftsy instructor and the designer behind some of the most beautiful beaded lacework patterns out there (as well as the lovely Mythos). And a few months ago, she rang me up with an idea for a little collaboration…

I was over the moon when she asked me to dye the yarn for Juego, her newest Mystery KAL. What fun! Lacework, beads, and beautiful kits of SpaceCadet Celeste yarn in three coordinating colour combinations — Translucence & Plume, Diaphanous & Honey, and Five Rings & Feather — all hand-selected by Laura for a design that only she had seen… I could not wait for this to go live!

Laura and I discussed how many kits we thought would sell, and agreed to have about half already dyed, with the other half prepped and ready to go as soon as they were needed. She went live with the KAL yesterday, and I planned to let you all know about it in my blog post today.

And then… then… it just went NUTS! Within a couple of hours, she had pages of sign-ups on her Ravelry thread. Juego was flying up the ‘Hot Right Now’ pattern list. And the orders started coming in…

Every. single. one. of the dyed kits sold out by mid-day. I couldn’t believe it! I released kits for pre-order… They sold out within hours. As I was having dinner, people were emailing to ask if there were more, actually jostling for reserve kits. I released still more pre-orders… and they flew! By the end of the first day, we’d sold more kits than we had expected to sell for the entire run up to the KAL. Laura and I were both stunned!

So, I had planned on announcing this to all of you this morning, and hoped a few of you would go grab a kit and join in the KAL fun. And I still hope you will but, crickey, it’s going to be a lot harder to nab one of those kits than I’d thought! There are a few kits left at the moment, if you run over there quick.

And then I’m going to get to dyeing, and Laura and I are going to regroup, and we’ll release more pre-orders as we assess how much can be dyed and delivered before the KAL starts.

But there is one thing that this has shown me beyond any shadow of a doubt: that knitters and crocheters are an amazing force when they they know what they want, and that is an awesome thing to witness. Yesterday was just so wild… so exciting… absolutely mind-blowing!

Thank you all for giving me this job — honestly, I can’t imagine any job I could love more.

SpaceCadet Yarn Now Dyed to Order!

22FebApril 14, 2015 By Stephanie

We are in flat out dyeing mode right now to get ready for the upcoming shows and KALs in March. And I’ve got lots to tell you about them — new kits, new project ideas, and some really exciting exclusive colourways. But all that in good time. For now, I have some lovely images to share with you, and one small but very important announcement.

First, the images. Here’s a little glimpse of the studio this week…

You can see why I love dyeing, right? And now, the announcement…

SpaceCadet Yarns Now Dyed to Order

I made a small but very significant change to the shop this week. You didn’t notice? Yeah, that’s ok — it is very small. But it kind of changes everything.

As things have grown and gotten busier here at the SpaceCadet studio, one thing that just hasn’t happened is regular shop updates. I love dyeing the yarns, love coming up with new colourways, but when it comes to sitting down and photographing them, then uploading the photos to the shop, then typing in all the details… well, I always find myself drawn back to the dyepots and the shop update just doesn’t get done.

But that’s no good for you, is it?!? You can’t buy what’s not in the shop! So, I’ve decided to give you the best of both worlds. You can buy what’s in the shop — and shop updates will still happen — but when when a colourway or a yarn that you are just itching to work with is not in stock, you can now go ahead and order it to be custom dyed!

Every SpaceCadet colour, every SpaceCadet yarn, available to you any time. See, that really does change everything, doesn’t it?

When we receive your order, we’ll get to work dyeing your custom yarn. Now, because each yarn is created by hand, we do ask you to allow 4-6 week for your order to be completed but, in truth, we always aim to beat that and get your yarn out to you as quickly as possible. That timescale is really there to allow for busier times of year and the more complicated orders. The best thing about the whole dyeing process? Packing those lovely bundles of yarny goodness in their boxes and sending them off to become exciting new projects!

So there you go — one tiny little alteration that brings enormous change and wonderful news!

And here, before we go, one last image from the studio. I just love these greens against that rust, don’t you?