Merino

Scenes from a Fiber Life: Laceweight NeverEnding

By Stephanie

With great beauty comes… great danger? Great sacrifice?  We all know that laceweight yarns are beautiful — there’s something inherent in its delicacy, and the luxury of its fibers, and the way it soaks up colour.  Laceweight is beautiful.

And dangerous, as I recently found out.  But sacrifice?  The beauty of laceweight requires sacrifice?  Not for you, dear readers, but it does for me.  Let’s talk about my arms.

My arms are going to fall off.  They ache, they’re sore.  And as much as my eyes love laceweight, my arms hate it.  At 1300 wonderful, delicate, luxurious yards per 100g, it takes a loooooong time to reskein.  I have to sit and turn that skein winder round and round and round and round…

When the dyed skein goes on the swift, it really doesn’t look much different from any other skein.  My arms are blissfully ignorant of what’s about to happen.

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But after a few minutes of winding, when my arm is expecting the job to be half done, I look and find there’s only wee bit of yarn on the skein winder…

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And so I keep winding.  Round and round and round and round…

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And after what seems like forever, I look up and…

.the swift looks as full as it ever was!  HOW can that be?!?

My arms are not happy with me.  My arms are burning and fed up and ready to quit.  It takes some convincing to get them to keep going.

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But after a long, long time, the skein winder starts to look lovely and full like this…

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And the swift finally starts to look a bit emptier…!

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And then just as my arms get to the point where they are ready to fall right off, we reach the end.

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And then it’s done.  And it’s gorgeous.  And I hold the finished skein in my hand and look at how all the colours blend together gently and I am in love!  Laceweight is worth it, I tell myself.

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Until I lay that skein aside, and pick up the next one and start to arrange it on the swift and my arms realise what’s happening… and they don’t like it.  They don’t like it one bit.

Rain and Reds, a Shop Update, and a Treasury

By Stephanie

It’s raining today — a nice, warm, gentle summer rain, but rain nonetheless.  And I know I promised you sunshine for this week, but the reason it’s raining today is because the lovely yellows I dyed over the weekend are still drying and if they are wet, then there is no sunshine to be had and the world must be wet too.

But even if your day is rainy like mine and there’s no yellow to brighten it up, let me offer you instead something as deliciously dark and moody as the clouds above.

First, I was delighted to discover that myhideway included my Red Brick yarn in a treasury called Rosé Wine.  It’s so inspiring to see all those beautiful rosy reds together.

So inspiring, in fact, that I went and filled the shop with warm colours from pink to burgundies.  Have a look…

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Fingering Weight Yarn, Superwash Merino and Nylon, in Pink Autumn

If autumn leaves turned pink instead of red, it would be this pink. If they shunned the sophisticated golds and the russets, all the subtle shades of brown, and chose instead to wear a girly hue — something wild and unpredictable — it would be this. An explosion of pink tinged with the warmth of the season, this is the colour that autumn leaves secretly wish for. 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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And four yarns in Desert Wine: one in Stella Fingering weight, one in Celeste Fingering weight, and two in Astrid DK weight.

This is a bottle of burgundy wine, rich and deep and smooth, poured out on the brown of the parched desert earth, there amongst the green cacti, where the merciless sun dries it to dark, dusty stain. A waste of good wine, but worth it just to see the amazing colour.

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And a lovely new colourway, DK Weight Yarn in Superwash Merino, in Sleep Deep, that I simply cannot get my camera to capture accurately.  It looks all blue-red in the pictures, but as I hold it here in my hands, it’s swirls of deep red and purple.

Here are the colours of dreams, at the moment when you slip from the dark of the room into unconciousness, surrendering to the safety of bed and the soft of pillow behind your head. These are the colours of a mind freed to wander, a psyche unencumbered, your true nature as you let yourself submerge into the deep deep of sleep. This skein is over 100g of Superwash Merino in Astrid, a beautifully smooshy 4-ply, DK (double knitting) weight yarn. There are two skeins available, sold separately.

And watch the shop for those sunshine yellows too!  As soon as they appear, the weather is sure to change for the better.

New Yarns in the Shop

By Stephanie

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.

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Dragonfly

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.

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Mountain Mist

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

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Sunflowers

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.

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Midnight Swim

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!

Dyeing Disaster, Last Minute Save

By Stephanie

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.

Boy oh boy, it is soooo tempting…

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.

Cold Waters, a Treasury Surprise

By Stephanie

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…