Life

Pattern Roll-Call: Perfect, Absolutely Perfect!

By Stephanie

I know two little girls who are mad-crazy-keen about ballet. They begin dancing the moment they wake up, and they dance all through their day, and they don’t stop dancing until they go to bed. Actually, they probably don’t stop dancing until they fall asleep — I am quite certain they lie in the dark and practice their tondues under the bedsheets until sleep finally steals them away.

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And they would wear their ballet shoes every single day if they could. But they’re not allowed, because the ballet shoes get lost — absent-mindedly set down on the wrong shelf or accidentally kicked under the sofa or sinking slowly to the bottom of the toybox — and are nowhere to be found on ballet day. And so those most-beloved shoes get secreted safely away after each class and the disappointed girls must instead practice their dancing in their socks. It’s not at all ballerina-like!

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I’m always on the lookout to bring you great patterns that would make the most of single skeins of SpaceCadet yarn, and when I came across the Open House Socks by Kate Atherley, technical editor of Knitty and knitting editor of A Needle Pulling Thread, I fell in love them! They’re sweet, romantic, and cheeky all at once — and, as a bonus, each pair takes only about half a skein of yarn. They’d make a great quick-knit holiday gift — perfect for padding around the house on cold winter days. I looked at them and thought, they make me want to… dance!

© Kate Atherley, Used with Permission

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Wait… Make me want to dance?!? I thought immediately about those two little dancers… I could knit them ballet shoes! I could knit them lovely ballet shoes so they could dance all week whilst their real ballet shoes were safely tucked away. There could be no better Christmas present for them on Earth!

In the dyeing studio, I sat and thought for a while about the perfect colour. I could do them in the standard ballet-shoe pink-beige but… well, while these two are budding ballerinas, they are also little girls who love all the stuff that little girls everywhere love: sparkly and bright and fancy and pink. Plain ballet shoes would never do — if they were going to have custom knit ballet slippers, then they would have them in a pink to thrill their hearts. And I began mixing the dyes…

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I emailed Kate and told her my plan, and she wrote straight back and very kindly offered to help me adjust the pattern to suit these much smaller feet. What a lovely thing to do!

So once I’ve done my gauge swatch and worked out some calculations, I will cast on with this wonderful, crazy pink. And then I can’t wait to share with you my new works in progress!

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But shhhh… mind no-one tells the girls, ok?

Shop Update: A Gift for a Wee Miracle

By Stephanie

A dear friend of mine is about to have her baby boy — a little miracle after a lot of broken hopes and heartache — and I am overjoyed for her.  So I want to send something special to welcome him into the world.  The first thing I thought about, of course, was the colour…

I didn’t want to go with the typical baby pastels or box him into blueblueblue.  So I went down to the studio and mixed up a few colours that I thought would be just right — that would be interesting, exciting, but still perfect for a baby boy.

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And when I pulled it out of the dyepot, it was exactly what I had in mind.  I’m seeing a little cardigan and a pair of matching booties.  And I can’t wait to cast on!

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But first… I dyed a couple more skeins for you.

Stella Fingering Weight Yarn, Superwash Merino and Nylon, in SeaFoam


The sea rolls in, and softly out again… leisurely, relaxed, as if it has nothing better in the world to do. Softly in, softly out, and making that wonderful, rich sound — the gently fizz of blue-green SeaFoam melting into the sand.

Each skein is over 100g of Stella, a beautiful and distinctive 2-ply fingering weight yarn in 80% Superwash Merino and 20% Nylon. There are two skeins available, sold separately.

Fiber Content: 80% Superwash Merino, 20% Nylon
Weight: Approximately 3.7oz / 105g (approximately 400 yards per 100g)
Colourway: SeaFoam, 101113-003
Care Instructions for the final item: Hand or Machine wash, Lay flat to dry.

Each item is individually hand-dyed by the SpaceCadet, using professional grade acid dyes which are mixed by hand from primaries. Please be sure to buy enough for your project as the colours may not be able to be reproduced exactly.
SpaceCadet Creations is a smoke-free, pet-free environment.
Please remember that the colours in pictures may vary depending on your computer monitor. The colours in the photos are as accurate as possible.

Shop Update: From Flat on My Back

By Stephanie

You may have noticed that there was no shop update on Monday, as there usually is.  Nor on Tuesday, which is when I usually do the update if Monday gets too busy.  There were yarns ready — drying, or in the process of being reskeined, some weighed, some tagged…  But I was not ready.

I was flat on my back in agony and holding as still as I possibly could.  Over the weekend, my neck and shoulder had seized up completely and, man oh man it hurt!  I mean, they’ve seized up before, a few times in my life, but never like this.  Imagine, if you will, me lying on my back in bed, with no pillow, nothing to contort my spine away from the support of the mattress, and I moved my foot — just my foot! — and it sent a spasm of pain shooting up through my shoulder and my neck and wrapped right around over my skull all the way to my eyes.  That kind of agony.

Stella yarn in Faded Garland

The doctor is satisfied that it is muscular and not skeletal (I was worried), and I now have some painkillers the size of horse-pills that are working a small miracle.  Bit by bit, I am gaining more mobility — and having to remind myself not to rush it, that everything can wait…  even though I am desperate to get back work.  There were so many exciting things happening this week, and so many wonderful yarns!

Celeste Yarn in Stewed Cranberry

And so keen was I to get them in the shop that I took advantage of those pills and pushed myself a bit too hard yesterday.  The result is that there are now some lovely yarns in the shop    …and, I am flat on my back again today.  Not anything like before, but just a little reminder from my muscles they are not to be trifled with and I must respect them and take things slooooowly.

Luna Laceweight Yarn in Rapeseed

But I did get some really exiting stuff into the shop…  There’s enough Megan’s Frost to make a sweater — with two more skeins of Frost waiting to go into the shop as soon as I’m able.   And there’s four skeins of Stewed Cranberry, with two more in the studio ready to be reskeined.  A beautiful skein of Laceweight in the most amazing golden-yellow.  And a skein of Stella in a lovely, quirky colourway called Faded Garland.  Enjoy!

And please keep your fingers crossed for me, ok?

Celeste Yarn in Megan's Frost

 

Pattern Roll-Call: Warm Feet for Cold Days

By Stephanie

There are some designers whom I admire hugely, and some whom I just want to sit and absorb knitting knowledge from, and some whose stars have shot so high into the knitsphere that I’d be awed just to meet them.  But there is only one designer that I genuinely like so much that I want to sit down and a pour a nice cup of tea, and spend half an hour knitting with her each week.  And… I do!

© Brenda Dayne, Used with Permission

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Brenda Dayne produces Cast-On, my absolute favourite knitting podcast and the most relaxing half-hour in my week.  She is (as I was until a couple of years ago) an American expat living in Britain and, in between her interesting and entertaining pieces about knitting and spinning and dyeing, she also paints pictures of her home in west Wales that take me straight there.  Cast-On is an absolute delight.

And even if I weren’t a fan of Brenda’s, I’d want to show you this design for the name alone, but her Brother Amos Hellfire Lace Socks are worth knitting not just because of Brenda, and not just because of the name (Hellfire..? Lace..? How did those two words end up side-by-side?!?) but because it is a gorgeous design.  I love the way the lace flickers up the leg (what better to keep your feet warm as winter sets in?), and I know the stitch pattern would be interesting to knit without being too daunting.

And they’re beautiful, aren’t they?  Just beautiful!

© Brenda Dayne, Used with Permission

These socks call for a yarn that lives up to their fiery name, and I think they’d would really… (ahem!)… glow in the warm colours of Ball of Fire or Sunset Over a Stormy Sea.  Don’t you?

Celeste yarn in Ball of Fire
Celeste yarn in Sunset Over a Stormy Sea

Lions and Tigers and Bears! Oh My!

By Stephanie

I expect that by the time many of you read this, Halloween will be last night’s old news, but we are still in the midst of Trick-or-Treating — the doorbell is ringing and every time I open the door, I am greeted by fairy princesses, butterflies, kitty-cats, football players, ghosts and zombies.  All of them are filled with joy, holding out their bags in excited anticipation, and enjoying themselves immensely.   This holiday is so much fun!

And when once the doorbell stops ringing, we will sit down with a cup of hot cider and whatever is left of the candy, and I will pull out my knitting.   Perfect.

I hope you get to do the same.  Happy Halloween!

“Just Be Creative!”

By Stephanie

Custom orders can be exciting… and daunting.  Dyeing can be an unpredictable process — the slightest change in acidity, temperature, or concentration can create really noticeable colour changes from one dyelot to another.  And it’s just the way life works that those unpredictable changes will always occur on that special order where the customer has a really specific result in mind!

So when a customer contacted me the other week and asked me to dye three custom orders for a birthday celebration for three knitting friends, I had a slight moment of trepidation.   But when I asked her what she had in mind, she put back at my ease: “Just be creative!” she replied.  That I can do!

The birthday girls’ favourite colours are red, purple, and green, and I spent all week letting my imagination run wild on that theme.  I wanted to do a few different colourways of each, and then her choose whatever yarns she liked best.

It wasn’t an easy choice.  Here’s what she picked…

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Kristen’s HeartBeat


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Jill’s Storm

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Natalie’s Steel Leaf


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I was having so much fun dyeing and just letting my creativity run free that I rather let it run away with me, and I now have quite a stash of exciting new yarns to put in the shop.  Look for them to start appearing Monday or Tuesday of next week!