When I discover my yarns featured in an Etsy Treasury, I get such a rush of excitement, I can’t tell you. And so it was yesterday when I found Sunflowers had been picked for a treasury called “My Sunshine“, put together by ThePlumTree.
Sunflowers sold pretty quickly after that, and I am so excited to send it off to its new home. But if you loved all these golden colours, don’t worry — I’m going to be dyeing a lot more beautiful yellows over the weekend.
I’m really excited to show you some of the new colourways I’ve put in the shop this week! I have to say, I just cannot get my camera to really capture them, but I hope you get a good idea here.
Dragonfly flitters by, catches the light and throws back iridescence — greens, lilacs, pinks that shimmer in the sun for only a moment… and then are gone. This skein is over 100g of Superwash Merino in Celeste, a wonderfully soft 3-ply fingering weight yarn.
These are ancient mountains, gentle and rounded, that seem to go on forever, ridge upon ridge disappearing into the distance as the night falls and the mist rolls in — deep blue fading into soft purples that stretch as far as the eye can see. This skein is over 100g of Superwash Merino in Celeste, a wonderfully soft 3-ply fingering weight yarn
Happy yellow that welcomes the sunlight, stretching skyward, petals open to catch the rays. Yellow petals, deep brown seedheads — happy sunflowers basking in the mid-day sun. This skein is over 100g of Superwash Merino in Celeste, a wonderfully soft 3-ply fingering weight yarn, which has been dyed using a technique to create random, short bursts of contrasting colour.
Dark waters, dark night. Soft waters, cool and still, flashing deep blue, purples, greens. Water dark as bruise, quiet as the night, so cool on the skin… Irresistible. This skein is over 100g of Stella, a beautiful and distinctive 2-ply fingering weight yarn in 80% Superwash Merino and 20% Nylon.
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These skeins are over 100g of Superwash Merino in Celeste, a wonderfully soft 3-ply fingering weight yarn. There are two skeins available, sold in separate listings.
And there are more new colourways going into the shop later this week. Keep your eyes open for them!
This yarn was a dyeing disaster. I was aiming for Garden In Spring, one of my favourite colourways, and the colour just went all wrong on me. I pulled it out of the dyepot and… Oh no! The pinks were crazy-bright, the greens were just plain ugly, and the purples totally non-existent. I have a picture of it… I can’t even show it to you, it was that awful. It was embarrassing.
I set it aside and decided not to think about it for a few days.
When I finally went back to it and turned it over in my hands (cringing, cringing the whole time), I realised what I wanted to do with it. I thought I knew the shade that would salvage it. I mixed my colours and in went the yarn. And a little while later, this is what I lifted out…
I had hoped to salvage it — instead, it has been saved. It came out so much better than I could have hoped!
There’s one skein in Astrid DK and one in Celeste Fingering weight. And now I just have to decide if they go in the shop or… if I keep them for myself!!! I may have to think about this for a spell.
In Abigail‘s post last week about Choosing a Knitting Pattern for Hand-Dyed Yarns, she focused on reading the yarn’s colour repeats in order to choose a pattern that would work best with the yarn. Doing this avoids undesirable pooling and flashing, and brings out the best in the unique colour changes in each hand-dyed yarn.
But there are a few other things to take into consideration when choosing a pattern for a hand-dyed yarn, and one of the most important is the type of colour changes the yarn contains. Whether a yarn is dyed in gently undulating shades of the same hue or with wild changes from one colour to another makes a big difference to the type of pattern that will suit it. And understanding thise difference will help you choose a stitch that will really show off both the pattern and the yarn.
Hand-dyed yarns can be generally put into three categories. I tend to call them “Semi-Solids”, “Gently Variegated”, and “Wildly Variegated”. Carol J. Sulcoski, in her wonderful book Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarns, calls them “Nearly Solids”, “Muted Multis”, and “Wild Multis”. Either way, the distinctions are the same.
Semi-solids gently move through different shades of a single colour. The transitions from lighter to darker are usually subtle and gradual, giving the colour more life than if it had been dyed in a single shade. Because the colour changes in semi-solids aren’t very attention-seeking, they don’t draw the eye away from intricate stitch work. And for that reason, semi-solid yarns are a wonderful choice for complicated patterns and delicate lace work. Examples of semi-solids are SpaceCadet’s Luna Laceweight in Sage and in Plum Wine.
Luna Laceweight Yarn in Plum Wine
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Luna Laceweight Yarn in Sage
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Gently Variegated yarns contain more than one colour but the overall effect is still subtle and gentle. The colours are all closely related in either hue or value, so the changes don’t pop out too much. Gently Variegated yarns can be used for textured stitchwork, but they work best where the patterns are simpler so the colour changes don’t compete with the stitches. The kind of intricate patterns that work so beautifully with Semi-solids would be overwhelmed by Gently Variegate yarns, but choosing a simpler pattern lets their colours sing. SpaceCadet’s Celeste yarn in Spiceberry and Astrid DK yarn in Red Brick are good examples of Gently Variegated yarns.
Celeste Fingering Weight Yarn in Spiceberry
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Astrid DK Yarn in Red Brick
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And finally, there are Wildly Variegated yarns. These are the yarns that grab everyone’s eye, the ones that seem to jump right out of the yarn basket and yell, “Look at meeee!” They contain multiple colours, of wildly differing hues and values, and their colour changes are distinct and eye-catching. With colour as commanding as that, the key is to choose a knitting pattern that will make the colours the feature, and not compete with them. So, with Wildly Variegated yarns, the best patterns use simple stitches that really let the yarn show itself off. Good examples of Wildly Variegated yarns are SpaceCadet’s Celeste yarn in Garden in Spring and in NightDive.
Celeste Fingering Weight Yarn in Garden in Spring
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Celeste Fingering Weight Yarn in NightDive
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So, there we have it. Three categories of hand-dyed yarns — Semi-Solid, Gently Variegated, and Wildly Variegated — and one simple rule: with wild colour changes, go for simpler stitchwork and, conversely, when the colour changes are gentler, the yarn can handle more complicated pattern work. Just keeping that in mind when you match your yarns to patterns will help ensure you end up with finished objects in which both your yarn and your stitches shine.
So, let’s say I was holding out a skein of yarn to you — beautiful, light, airy yarn, with a slight halo that made the softness just call out to you. And let’s say that, as I held it out to you, I said, almost in a whisper, “It’s laceweight, a two-ply of silk and merino…” As you reached out to touch it, what would be the first thoughts that came into your mind? Would you be thinking strength? Would you be thinking red-hot? How about razor sharp? No? Those words wouldn’t be what popped into your mind? Huh. Me neither.
I’ve been dyeing the new laceweight yarn that will be going in the shop this week. It’s called Luna and it’s everything that laceweight ought to be: delicate, soft, luxurious, stunningly beautiful. With 20% silk blended into 80% superfine merino, it feels divine against the skin — the kind of yarn you just can’t stop touching. Oh, and it takes colour like a dream.
So far, so good.
It was when I was reskeining the dyed yarn that everything changed. I was turning the skein winder with my right hand and gently guiding the yarn with my left… I had the skein winder going at a good clip because, at 1300 yards per skein, it makes for very tired arms if it goes too slowly. So, we’re going along at a good pace, this yarn and me, when I realised my left hand is starting to hurt… The space between my thumb and my index finger is really starting to burn. So I moved my hand and rolled the yarn up my finger a bit and… moments later, that spot is red-hot too. This yarn is just so thin and going at such a pace that it was actually cutting into my skin!
So I looked about for something to hold it with — an oven glove would be ideal — and spotted a plastic coat hanger which will do the trick nicely. Arranging the yarn so it was running through the hook, I could guide it onto the skein winder by moving the coat hanger back and forth. And it worked perfectly …for a time.
After a little while, I realised that there wass a little ball of fluff forming on the hook of the coat hanger. Thinking that there might be a rough spot taking some of the halo off the yarn, I stopped the skein winder and took a closer look. And that’s when I discovered this…
That’s right. You are seeing what you think you are seeing. In a matter of minutes, my lovely, light, airy, and stunningly beautiful laceweight yarn was actually slicing througha coat hanger. You could have knocked me over with a feather!
And I’m so pleased I’d not carried on guiding it with my bare hand…
So, there you have it. SpaceCadet Creations’s new Luna Laceweight yarn: delicate, soft, luxurious and saturated with colour. Just as you’d expect.
…And also, apparently, red-hot and razor sharp. Not as you’d expect at all.
SpaceCadet yarns have been featured in an Etsy Treasury several times now, and each time I have been absolutely delighted to get the news. There is nothing quite like having your work choosen by your fellow Etsians and highlighted right there on the screen to make you feel all warm, right down to you toes.
But the interesting thing is that, so far, every time my yarns have been included in a Treasury, it’s been the Freshly Cut Grass colourway that’s been picked — every single time! And that’s great, because it tells me that the green I created for that colourway is as eye-catching to others as it is to me. But at the same time, I couldn’t help wondering why none of my other colours were ever chosen — or if they ever would be.
So you can imagine my surprise when I clicked on the link in an email today and found that it was not Freshly Cut Grass but instead Cold Waters that had been chosen for the “I Feel Like a Blue…” Etsy Treasury. I believe I actually let out a whoooop, I was that excited!
Ladies and Gentlemen, I proudly present you Cold Waters, the newest Etsy Treasury star in the SpaceCadet lineup…
