Life

Scenes from a Fiber Life: the Art and Science of Hand-Dyeing

By Stephanie

Years ago, when I was a corporate buyer, I remember my boss explaining that buying was both an art and a science.  I didn’t really understand what he meant at the time — surely it was just a matter of knowing how much should be in stock and plugging in the numbers, wasn’t it?  It was simple.  What was he on about “art”?

I didn’t really get it until I’d been in the job for some time, and I found myself explaining some of the basics to our intern.  She was plugging in the numbers — just plugging in the numbers — and coming to conclusions that I knew would spend our money in all the wrong places.   And as I explained that there was more to it than just the number, that was the moment that I realised what my boss meant by “art”.  Over time, I’d been quietly and unconsciously learning to follow to my instincts as well as the numbers, learning to apply both art and science.  And when I watched that intern making those simple, novice mistakes, I began to understand the value of staying tuned into both.

Today I tried to duplicate Westerly, the beautifully shaded colourway from the Tradewinds quartet that I showed you last week.  And there I was, duplicating the recipe exactly when…  I just suddenly didn’t trust it.  My instinct told me the colours weren’t right.  My instinct told me to add a bit of this, mix in a little more of that…

My instict wasn’t right.  This is what came out of the dyepot…

.

It’s beautiful for sure, but it’s not Westerly.  And though I think I’m going to love it when it’s dried and reskeined…  there’s no denying that it’s not Westerly.

.

Which just serves to remind me that, even though dyeing is undoubtedly an art as much as a science, and even though a dyer’s colour sense is borne of instinct, it’s important to remember and never to forget the first rule of the second dyelot: even when you want to follow your instinct…

FOLLOW THE RECIPE!

Spotted in the Wild: Socks Knit with SpaceCadet Creations Yarns

By Stephanie

The thing that never fails to take me by surprise me is the way that the colour of a yarn can change as it is knitted up.  As beautiful as it looks in the skein, when the colour repeats are all long and stretched out, is nothing compared how to it looks as you start knitting and the stitches join the colours together in unexpected ways.  It’s so exciting to watch each row unfold!

So exciting, in fact, that it’s sometimes a bit hard for me to send my yarns off to customers…  because I want to knit them up myself and see how they come out.  And so the thing that never fails to absolutely delight me is when customers share pictures of their finished objects and I get to see my yarns all knitted up.   Let me show you two that I think worked out beautifully.

Cindy won this skein of Garden In Spring in the SpaceCadet Creations May Giveaway…

.

And she used it to make these fabulous Dancing Diamond Socks by Wendy D. Johnson.  I love how knitting subdues the wild variegation of the colours but still allows the yellow to pop.  The result is just gorgeous!

.

When I lifted my first skein of Plumberry out of the dye pot, I loved it — loved it — but I knew that it was the kind of wild variegation that needed a carefully chosen pattern to really bring out the best in the colours.

.

And when Sarah chose to knit Pomatomus by Cookie A. with it, I don’t think she could have picked a better pattern for the yarn or a better yarn for the pattern.  These socks are absolutely stunning!

.

Thank you so much, Cindy and Sarah, for sharing your beautiful socks with us!

And everyone else, when you finish a project with one of my yarns, please do share it — I just can’t get enough of seeing how those colours turn out!

What Happened Nest…

By Stephanie

This summer, a pair of robins built a nest on top of my back porch light, right outside my backdoor, and consigned me to using only the front porch for the whole month of June.  And I (and you) got to watch as the eggs appeared, and the babies hatched and grew.  It was magical thing to witness so close.

Also this summer, the family next door moved away.  As she was in the middle of the chaos of packing up her house, my neighbour mentioned to me one day that she always collects a bird’s nest from every house that she lives in.  But her husband had already started his new job on the other side of the country and she was having to pack up the house and move the (5!) kids all on her own, and I suspected that she never got a chance to collect a bird’s nest.

And I have a beautiful nest sitting empty right outside my back door…

So today, we very carefully took it down.

.

It came away without too much difficulty and all in one piece.  It was made from sticks and leaves, as you’d expect, but I was intrigued to see string, yarn, and bits of dried grapevines (complete with old grapes!) tucked in there as well.

.

We put the nest into a bag to keep it safe.

.

And then wrapped it in tissue paper…  just because.

.

And packed it up with all the love and care that I package my yarn.  More, probably — this is precious cargo!

.

And, just like that, the little nest that gave three baby robins their happy start in life was ready to travel all the way to the other end of the country.

.

Where, I do believe, it will be absolutely cherished.

How Thin Can You Spin?

By Stephanie

Do you remember this?

This is the bombyx silk I was going to spun for the second half of the Tour de Fleece, but…  life intervened and I didn’t manage to get that far.  So, running just a wee bit late, I’ve finally got it on my wheel now, and it is a dream to spin.

Not that silk is always a dream to spin…  Bombyx silk generally has a very long staple length, and that can make drafting a challenge.  The distance that you’re used to holding your hands for drafting wool simply isn’t far enough apart when you’re spinning silk, and it can easily become a struggle as you start tugging at both ends of the same fibers.

A few months ago, I spun pure bombyx silk for the first time in many years and, even though I’ve spun a lot of silk in the past, I realised that my hands had forgotten what to do.  It seemed to take forever to retrain my hands (…or more likely, my brain) and until that moment when it finally clicked, I was pulling and tugging on that silk as if I’d never spun in my life.  As a result, the yarn came out much thicker than I’d wanted and lumpier too.  There’s no doubting it’s beautiful to look at, and the colours ethereal, but because I spun so much thicker than I intended, I just didn’t get the yardage I was hoping for.  It’s come out to a measly 143 yards and I’m really not sure what I could make with it.

So now, as I begin spinning this second braid of silk, I am really focusing on spinning as thinly as I possibly can.  And, it turns out, I can spin pretty darned thin!  Now that my hands (and brain) are back in the groove with spinning silk, this is how it’s coming out…

That is, as long as I don’t get too involved in a scary movie on telly and forget to spin super thin (see the occasional thick bits in the photo below?  Yeah… that was when the film hit a tense spot…).  But overall, this is coming out exactly the way I want it.  And now that I’ve got the hang of it, it is just sooo much fun to spin.

And this time, I hope to come out at the end with a really good length of some truly beautiful, smooth, pure silk yarn.

The Dangers of Luna Laceweight

By Stephanie

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 through a 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.

A Little Lift for your Wednesday

By Stephanie

Wednesdays are hard, I know.  You’re still two long days away from the weekend, and too far from last weekend to go back.  You’re stuck right there in the middle of the work week.  There’s no where to go.

This week, I’ve been attempting to create some new graphics — an ad for Ravelry, and a new banner for the blog and my shop.  It’s all part and parcel of running a small fiber arts business and, while it’s something I’m having to figure out entirely from scratch, I have to say I am really enjoying the learning.  It feels good to stretch  …most of the time.  Sometimes it seems to morph from a learning experience to an exercise in pure frustration, and I am reminded that I am a dyer, a spinner, a knitter — not a graphic artist.

And so it was this week.  I took the pictures, loaded them onto the computer, opened up the software and…  nothing.  Nothing worked the way I wanted it to, nothing would cooperate.  I couldn’t get the graphics to come out the way I’d envisioned them for love nor money   …and so I stopped, and set it all to one side and decided to tackle afresh on another day.

So today is Wednesday, and Wednesdays are hard.  And at some point today, you will come across something that isn’t working for you either, and is just driving you crazy no matter which way you go at it.  When that happens, stop.  Set it aside.  You can tackle it tomorrow, when you are feeling a little fresher.   …When it’s Thursday and you’re that bit closer to the weekend.

And in the meantime, treat yourself to a momentary mid-week pick-me-up, and have a little peek at the one thing that did go right in my little foray into self-taught graphic design: the pictures — just a wee bit fiber eye-candy, to lift your Wednesday.