A Sneak Peek into the Yarn Alliance’s Latest Parcel

07MarSeptember 4, 2015 By Stephanie

I’ve been dying to share with you the inspiration for the latest InterStellar Yarn Alliance parcel and, as I sent them out a week ago today, I think it’s safe to show you. But if you’re a member and for some reason you haven’t opened your parcel, close this page now — I don’t want to ruin the surprise!

…

…Ok?

Ok, I think we’re safe. shhhh… Let’s have a look at the parcel. But first, I want to show you the picture that inspired the colourway. The thing is, just lately I have become obsessed with Spring. I am soooo ready to shed the grey, dull end of winter and welcome the sweet arrival of fresh green grass, new blooms, and warm warm days. So when I saw this picture on Pinterest, it just sang out to me.

It was taken by Mattie of Still Pond Photography and I just love it. Love it. For days, the mood of this photo stayed in my head, and I found myself returning again and again to just gaze at the colours of those eggs.

So when it came time to dye the Yarn Alliance colourway, there was no doubt what it would have to be.

I’ve been dyeing Spring greens and blues for the shop but, when I started designing this colourway, I wanted to take those colours to another level. Just like the eight eggs, I wanted to have myriad shades of blues and greens, so that the yarn would seem to change every constantly — from row to row, stitch to stitch. I began with one blue and one green, and then layered on another shade, and another shade, and another until I had depth and tone I was looking for. I called the colourway “EggShells”.

Doesn’t it sing Spring to you?

And as excited as I am about EggShells — and I am! — I think that I might be just wee bit more excited about the goody. It was a long time in the making, but the effort was sooooo worth it. Check it out — every member got a fabulous custom SpaceCadet project bag!!!

I’ve had such a blast doing the InterStellar Yarn Alliance this past year — so much fun. And I can’t wait to get started on next year’s yarns and goodies!

The InterStellar Yarn Alliance will open for subscriptions March 16 to 31 ONLY

You can join for either 6 months or 12 months. Every other month, members of the InterStellar Yarn Alliance receive fabulous parcels delivered to their door containing:

SpaceCadet^® Creations 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.
An InterStellar Yarn Alliance group on Ravelry where you can discuss WIPs, ask questions, and share FOs with fellow members.
The InterStellar Yarn Alliance newsletter with periodic special offers exclusively for members.
A 15% off coupon every six months

If you’d like to join, remember to mark your calendar: the Yarn Alliance will open for subscriptions from March 16 to 31 only. And when it does, get yourself over to this page to grab your spot!

This Yarn into That Project: Rebecca’s Submerge Socks

02MarApril 14, 2015 By Stephanie

If you’ve bought a skein of SpaceCadet yarn from the shop, you may have received a note from me, asking you to please come to the SpaceCadet group and show me what you made with it. Or, if you bought from us at a yarn show, I probably grabbed you before you left the booth and told you how much I’d love to see your project. Sometimes I wonder if people think I really mean it.

Oh, but I do! I honestly love seeing what my customers make with my yarn. Because here’s the thing: when I create a colourway, I have an idea in my head of how it will knit up but, more than any other kind of yarn, every skein of hand-dyed is something really special. The same colourway will work up completely differently from one pattern to the next — each project a wonderful adventure. And so often, entirely different from what I’d imagined when I dyed the yarn!

Here, check out this colourway. It’s called Submerge and I love it. Loved it from the very moment I pulled it out of the dyepot. It’s vibrant, exciting, and fabulously wildly variegated.

And there are just so many ways this colourway could work up in a project! The possibilities are almost endless, so I was dying for someone to send me photos of their finished object.

So I was delighted when Rebecca posted photos of her Submerge socks in the Ravelry group. Especially because she chose a pattern I never would have had the guts to use for this colourway: a pair of stockinette socks. Don’t get me wrong, I love simple patterns that let the yarn shine through, but I think I would have worried that this colourway would just be too bold for such a simple stitchpattern.

I would have been completely wrong! The stockinette was a bold choice, but it totally worked. The colours formed mini-stripes that played against one another beautifully and, where they came together, really made each other really pop. Here, see if this doesn’t get your fiber-lovin’ juices flowing…

One of the reasons I would have shied away from stockinette is that, with such a highly variegated yarn, there’s a potential for pooling or flashing. Now, there are always ways to avoid it if it starts (don’t know how? Download the SpaceCadet’s free guide) but, as these socks show, sometimes it’s best to just throw out the rules (are there rules really?) and just go where the yarn leads you.

And in this case, the yarn led Rebecca to some of the coolest diagonal pooling I’ve ever seen. “I loved seeing the colors start to spiral around each sock,” she said. “I’m more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants knitter, so it was pure luck that the socks ended up with those fun spirals.”

Seriously, how subtly funky are these socks?!?

So, if you meet me at a yarn show and I ask you to send me photos of your project… or you open your parcel and find a little note from me asking you to share your project in the SpaceCadet Ravelry group… know that I mean it. I love seeing what you guys create with my colourways into and I really do want to see your projects. Quick! Grab your camera and show me your work!

Inspirations: Quilt on a Green Bed

28FebApril 14, 2015 By Stephanie

I want to show you a picture. It’s by Camille Roskelley and I found it on Pinterest a few weeks ago. And I just couldn’t get it out of my mind.

The colours kept coming back to me… that gorgeous sage green, the dusty pink, that zingy red, and those bursts of cool aqua. Oh! I found my mind returning to the colours in that picture again and again.

The thing is, most of the time, the colour combinations I dye come straight out of my imagination. They pop like fireworks in my mind, and I rush off to the studio to try to recreate them before the memory fades. But this time, all I wanted to do was play with the colours in this image.

And so I did! First, I dyed a few variegated skeins that captured all the colours at once. And then I dyed some beautiful semi-solids that pulled the individual colours out and let them shine on their own.

I love the way the semi-solid yarns work with and support the variegated colourways, don’t you? When I look at them together, I see projects. I can see a cardigan done in that beautiful bright blue, and livened up with a variegated collar and placket. A multi-toned shawl that alternates stripes of semi-solid and variegated yarns. A pair of eye-popping socks highlighted with coordinated toes and heels. There are so many fun possibilities when all the colours work together!

And all these yarns have just gone into the shop. Go have a look — Spring is on its way at last!

My First Ever Dyeing

24FebApril 14, 2015 By Stephanie

I was walking through the living room the other day when my eye fell on a bowl on yarn. It’s been sitting on the shelf for several years now, looking pretty …but pretty much ignored. I walk past it day after day and had almost forgotten it was even there.

But I really shouldn’t forget about it, because it’s some pretty important yarn — it’s the first yarn I dyed seriously. Y’know, not just messing about, not playing with Kool-Aid… This was the first yarn I dyed with professional grade dyes and real goals for the resulting colours. This was the yarn that I showed to my friends, asked them what they thought… waited nervously for their answers…

They loved it. And so, this was the yarn that has changed my life.

But the yarn itself is not lovely. It was something wallowing at the very bottom of my stash, for good reason… It’s thick and rustic, rough and itchy. I don’t know why I ever bought or what I’d ever use it for. And so the yarn has sat in that bowl, pretty but unnoticed, for several years now.

So when I spotted it the other day — hidden there in plain sight — I thought it had probably been waiting long enough. It was time to honour the importance of that yarn by using it in a project. But what project for a rustic, itchy yarn…?

I carried the bowl over to the dining table and grabbed my phone. And as I took a couple photos, I suddenly realised what the project would be. I wound the yarn and cast on.

It’s going to be the perfect use for this yarn. And you’ll never guess what it is. I’ll show you when I get further along…

A Weekend of Near Disasters… And Silver-Linings

21FebApril 14, 2015 By Stephanie

Every time I do a show, I get nervous as the day approaches. A million thoughts go through my head… Have I dyed enough yarn? Is the colour balance right? Do I have everything we need? Will the weather hold? Will the booth fall down? Will I end up in hospital?

**sound of a record scratching**

Will the booth what?!? Will I what?!?

Ok, those last two questions are not usually on my mind …but they should have been for the Pittsburgh Knit & Crochet Festival. It many ways, it was a weekend of near disasters — but I think every one had a silver lining. I think.

First, let me tell you how fabulous the festival was — because it was! There was everything that makes a yarn show wonderful: colour, yarn fumes, that amazing feeling of collective fiber frenzy when you know everyone around you feels exactly the same way you do. But there was something more than that…

There was the first big snowfall of the year. And while that was a bit of a disaster for a lot of people who weren’t able to get to the show, the upside was that the quieter crowds meant that we had the chance to really take the time to talk to everyone who came in the booth. It was so wonderful to meet you guys! I loved being able to chat about projects and yarn choices, to show off all the great things that can be made with Mini-Skeins, and just being able to make that connection with our customers. The snow made the whole show that much more personal.

We also got to host the Ravelry Meet-Up on Friday night and, again, it could have gone so wrong. At the last minute, we found out that there were no goody bags — we had the goodies, but the bags had never arrived! There we were with yarn samples, coupons, and all sorts of fun stuff from the vendors and… nothing to put them in! The silver lining? I found out how much great friends are really worth. With only 45 minutes to go, and while I manned the booth, my sister and my friends Natalie, Christine, and Amy kicked into action. Christine actually went out in all that snow, driving around in a part of town she didn’t know at all, until she found the gift bags we needed. And when she got back — with only minutes to go until the Meet-Up was due to start — the four of them hit right into stuffing those bags as fast as humanly possible. And they saved the day — the Meet-Up was a huge success! When I finally closed the booth, I walked back into the room to find party in full swing, people introducing themselves, and getting to meet other Ravelers they’ve known for months (or years!) only online. There were great prizes from the vendors. And there were goody bags — thanks to some exceptional teamwork from people who really stepped up when it was needed.

And then there was the booth… That really was a near disaster. We built new booth furniture but just didn’t have time test it properly… Do you remember this?

Well… when we walked in on Friday morning, it didn’t look like that. It was… well, it was leaning. But the upside to it was the teamwork thing again — we got the whole booth reworked and swapped out in about 30 minutes. Who’da thought we could do that?!? And, once we did, I remembered an important life lesson: there’s nothing so bad that you can’t find the funny side of it — even a booth that’s leaning. Well, y’know, once it’s been fixed.

(Still, I’m now in the market for a good local carpenter. Anyone got one they can recommend?)

And then the last near disaster really was a near disaster. Do you remember that, on set-up day, I woke up feeling decidedly under the weather? Well, I kept expecting it to get better (I really did!), but it really didn’t. On Saturday, I was ok-ish, but by Sunday it was bad. Baaaaad. So bad, in fact, that the asthma which I was diagnosed with last year and apparently have had all my life (who knew? I always thought I was just really unathletic!)… that asthma decided to kick in hard and, being new to it, I didn’t really know what to do. In the end, my breathing was so constricted that I actually had to leave the booth with Natalie and my sister and get myself to the ER. They got me breathing again but that illness that started it off… it is one mean beast. It’s turned into bronchitis and, twelve days later, I am still sick enough that I am stuck in bed all day. Twelve days!!! Honestly, it’s driving me mad.

(My mother has been round every day, with chicken soup and taking care of my family and all the stuff I can’t get to so that I can stay in bed. The woman deserves a medal — seriously. I can’t thank her enough.)

So, I can honestly tell you that the Pittsburgh Knit and Crochet Festival was one of the strangest yarn shows I’ve done so far. Nothing went as I expect it to! And yet, while it definitely had some hair-raising moments, I think it had far more upsides than down. I got the chance to sit down and really get to know our customers in a way I’ve never been able to at any show before. That was wonderful! I found out what a good team I’ve got. And friends who really come through when I need them. And, after it’s the show’s over and it’s all done, I’ve got a great mum who takes great care of me. Upsides indeed.

And now, I need to go make another cup of tea. …TWELVE DAYS, PEOPLE!!!

Closing the Shop! (And Going Back to Bed…)

10FebApril 14, 2015 By Stephanie

Timing is everything, isn’t it? After weeks of frenetic work in the studio to prepare for Pittsburgh Knit and Crochet (50lbs of yarn dyed in two days, anyone?), nights of help from friends and family, planning and packing and redesigning the booth… the eve of the festival is upon us. And when I woke up this morning, I realised right away that I am sick.

Sick sick sick. Hot-and-cold-shivering sick. Can’t-breathe sick. Another-cup-of-tea-please sick. Want-to-crawl-right-back-into-bed-thank-you-very-much sick. Oh crud. Timing… everything.

But today was set-up day, and so we set up the newly redesigned booth (How newly redesigned? Still building the fixtures this morning!). There’s five more tubs of yarn to hang up, but here’s how it looks so far…

I was exhausted by the time we finished! I could have happily crawled under that table and gone to sleep. I am honestly planning to take my teapot and keep it under the table, tuck up in its tea cosy, to keep myself supplied in healing cups of steaming hot tea all day. I don’t think I’ll make it through the day without them!

And because all the yarns are at the show, I will of course be closing the shop while we’re there. Timing, y’know. If you’re in the area, come and see us and meet all the yarns in person. And if you’re not, I’ll have the shop back up and running early next week — and I’ll be adding some of those lovely new yarns I’ve been dying in the last few weeks.

Oh and hey, if you’re on Twitter, keep an eye on the hashtag #pghkc for live updates from the show from me and lots of others — and to find out whether I’ve given up and curled up under the table with my cup of tea!