But What Do I Make with Them? MidSummer Mini-Skein Magic

02AugApril 14, 2015 By Stephanie

August is not always the month for knitting, is it? Both of my main WIPs (I’m current working on a Vitamin D and The Old Man and The Sea) are at that bulky stage where you have to carry a whole garment around if you want to grab a little knitting time. And… I don’t want to carry all that around. It’s mid-summer, I’m hot, and all I want to work on are quick projects that I can grab easily and go. What’s that? You too? Yeah, I figured maybe!

What I’ve been reaching for the most lately are my mini-skiens. Little tiny bundles of fingering weight yarn seem just right for the season and, on hot days when my concentration is so short, I love moving through quick changes of colour and onto the next yarn. I’ve been using them like crazy on my Zoom Loom — it’s so addictive! But more on that in a minute — in the meantime, I’ve also been searching out patterns that are perfect for Mini-Skeins, and I’m dying to share a couple of my favourites with you.

Sweet Hexagon Cowl by Mercedes Tarasovich-Clark

First off, be prepared to be knocked off your feet. At least, I was as soon as I saw Mercedes Tarasovich-Clark‘s stunning Sweet Hexagon Cowl. I don’t know what it is about it but I just swooned when I saw it. And then I tweeted…

The whole thing is created from interlocking hexagons knitted in the round, and I think there is just so much scope for colourplay and creativity here. You could work it in a soft palette that gently blends from one colour to another and back again. Or you could go wild, choosing strong colours and placing each hexagon strategically to really play up the intriguing construction.

I kind of have a million possibilities in my head now. …And, looking at my mini-skeins, at least five different colour palettes all mapped out. Oooooh! So much fun!

Also, while we’re on the subject of Mercedes… we hung out at the bar at TNNA and I’m now an even bigger fangirl than I was before because (a) she had the most awesome earrings on, (b) she rocks her gray streak — and I do love me some gray-worn-bold — and (c) she turned me onto Songza, which I’d never used before but it is magic. Seriously, go get it.

Burano by Emily Ross

I first came across Burano by Emily Ross when my friend and customer Amy knitted hers using SpaceCadet Mini-Skeins. Knit in garter stitch, it’s got this fabulous multi-coloured border with stripes that you can modify and alter to be anything you want it to be. Just a few colours? Perfect. Twenty colours? Do it! Strong contrasts or gentle changes… this shawl can become pretty much whatever kind of colour combination you can come up with.

Here, it’s shown in the bright bold colours that inspired the original design. But check out Amy’s version (click here to see it) — she chose a much softer palette and it completely changes the end result. What a fun knit! And, if you’re as addicted to Mini-Skeins as I am, what a great pattern to use them in.

The Zoom Loom from Schacht

You may remember me saying that we discovered the Zoom Loom at TNNA. And you probably saw all the pictures of my weaving that I tweeted/FB’d/IG’d. Well, it’s been a little over a month since TNNA and I haven’t stopped weaving on it since. This thing is seriously addictive!

And it’s easy. And quick! Did I mention easy? I mean, c’mon, I’m the SpaceCadet(!) and on these hot days when I can’t even think straight, the Zoom Loom is that perfect combination of mindless and intriguing. I love taking a variegated yarn and watching how the colours play out as they morph over and across each other. Each little woven square works up differently from the next… each one a little adventure all of its own.

I’ve been enjoying it so much, I had to get a few for you guys too! I’ve put them in the shop with two options: you can pick the Zoom Loom on its own, or with your own little starter bundle of SpaceCadet Mini-Skeins so you have everything you need to get you going for some great summer yarny-goodness. Click here to grab yours!

The SpaceCadet’s Mini-Skein Club

And if you’re dying to cast on one of the patterns you’ve seen here, check out the SpaceCadet’s Mini-Skein Club. Each month you’ll receive a fabulous bundle of hand-dyed fun: five 20g (approx) skeins of SpaceCadet fingering yarn in mix of variegated and semi-solid colourways. The Mini-Skein Club is my chance to really experiment and play with colour, and your chance to try out the different SpaceCadet yarns. Join anytime and stay in until you have enough mini-skeins for your project. It’s flexible and tons of fun. Click here to find out more!

The Super-Coolest New Stuff from TNNA

05JulApril 14, 2015 By Stephanie

Soooo, did you catch my tweets from TNNA last week? I wanted to share with you guys all the fun of the National Needlearts Association’s annual summer tradeshow because it is absolutely the best knit-industry weekend of the year. The. Best. Weekend.

First, because we get to see all the new patterns, products, and trends that will shape the industry in the coming year. We were shopping for hand-made gifts for the Yarn Alliance and the SpaceMonster Club — and we found some amazing stuff! And second, because everybody that you’ve been wanting to connect with all year is there — every fabulous designer, every big name podcaster, every fantastic dyer — all in one place, hanging out and chatting and knitting in one place. Saturday night at the Hyatt’s bar is like the dream team of knit nights!

It’s always great to see friends like Laura Nelkin, Rebecca Velasquez, Andi Smith (whose new book, Big Foot Knits, has just been released by CoopPress), and the lovely Stacey Trock (do you know, she and I ended up staying up until 3am talking business and generating new ideas!). And so fabulous to finally meet up with long-time online friends like Ruth Garcia-Alcantud of Rock & Purl and Lindsey Stevens of Poetry in Yarn. We ran into the YarnOver Truck girls, who’d just won the TNNA Business Innovation award (and deservedly so!), Edie Eckman, Angela Tong, Meredith Tarasovich-Clark, and Caro Sheridan. We had a blast!

But listen, I want to show you some of the cool new stuff we saw! There were so many fantastic things to see that it was hard to choose, but here are two of my absolute favourites.

The Zoom Loom from Schacht

Oh my stars, this is soooooo addictive! Weaving on this little loom is quick and easy and I just can’t stop. Have you seen my Instagrams and tweets lately? I’ve been weaving Mini-Skeins into little woven squares non-stop ever since we got home!

Don’t you love them? I’m thinking of a scarf… a cowl… a blanket… or maybe an amazing jacket or cape. Wouldn’t it look incredible?

The Capsule from Go Knit

I’m so excited about these! Everyone loves their Go Knit pouches and now the same folks have hit it out the park again with two super-sleek sleeves to hold those littlest notions that are so easy to lose track of (darning needles, anyone?).

I love the crazy-bright colours,the faux crocodile fabric(!), and simple shape. And I’m not the only one — they’ve been getting press all over the place. Amy Singer of Knitty.com couldn’t resist tweeting them up right there from the show floor!

So you can see why I had such a great weekend, can’t you? There are still tons of stuff I haven’t shown you (keep your eyes open, club members!), and some really great collaborations with cool designers that I’m keeping mum about… but, hey, don’t you worry. You know all that good stuff will be heading your way soon!

January Brings… Lots of Exciting News!

18JanApril 14, 2015 By Stephanie

2013 has started off with a bang! We’ve been so busy getting ready for all the great stuff we’ve got coming up that I’ve hardly had a chance to stop and tell you about it.

Which is totally dumb, because what is the point of having all kinds of cool stuff in the pipeline if I don’t share it with you? Let’s fix that right now!

SpaceCadet is at the Loopy Ewe!

I’ve kept quiet about this for a couple of months now because… ooooh, I was afraid if I said anything, maybe it wouldn’t come true. But it has! I am so excited to announce that SpaceCadet yarn is now available at The Loopy Ewe. Sheri is well known for her fantastic customer service, her free shipping on orders over $75, and her ability to create a collection of the most amazing indie dyers out there. I can’t tell you how excited and deeply honoured I am to be part of that collection!

And the most amazing thing about this? Sheri told me she’d first heard about SpaceCadet from her own customers, who were asking her to start carrying our yarn. So thank you for that — it’s proof positive that I have the most awesome customers a girl could possibly ask for!

Now please, go and buy some SpaceCadet from The Loopy Ewe, and show Sheri and her team that you guys were right!

Exciting Mystery KAL with Laura Nelkin!

Here’s something else to go squeeeeeeee about: the fabulous knit designer and Craftsy teacher Laura Nelkin has asked me to create the kits for her exciting new mystery knit-along! Now, I’ve seen some of the sneak-peeks of her design and it’s so gorgeous I wish I tell you all about it but… well, it is a mystery, so I can’t say much right now. But her last KAL was such a runaway success, I just cannot wait to see this one get started!

What to be the first to hear when it goes live? Make sure you’re on her mailing list, in her Ravelry group, or following her on Twitter or Facebook. And then… just you wait, you’re going to love it!!!

New Intense Colours on the Way

I don’t know what it is about January, but as soon as the holidays ended and the new year began, I was suddenly craving some seriously deep, intense colours. And even though I have a ton of other dyeing to do, I took a couple of days and just indulged myself in some wonderful, soul-enriching colour experimentation.

The result is such intense colour that I just cannot stop looking at it. And honestly, I can’t seem take a picture that does it justice. But believe me, that blue on the right there? It almost pulsates with colour!

I’ve never explored colour this intense before and, suddenly, I cannot stop exploring it. I am totally inspired, and you are going to be seeing the results that inspiration popping up all over the place soon! Keep your eyes open.

And if you’re in the SpaceCadet’s Mini-Skein Club, you’re going to get some of the first tastes of this experimentation. Not to spoil anything but… well, the “wildness” of this month’s Wild Mix colourways is less about variegation and more about deep, intense, gorgeous colour. I know it’s a bit of a departure from the norm, but I think you’re reallllly going to like it!

And if you’re not in the club but you love these kinds of colours, now is one of the best times to join, because the Mini-Skein Club is the place where I really let my imagination come out to play! One-of-a-kind colourways, experimental yarns, and a good mix of SpaceCadet favourites too… all wrapped up in the sweetest little tiny skeins. It’s a great way to see what all the fuss is about!

So tell me… what do think of them?!?

Pattern Roll-Call: Is Garter Stitch the Answer to Everything?

20JulApril 14, 2015 By Stephanie

Sometimes less is more, sometimes simple is best. And so often I forget about that and all caught up in fancy and complicated and intricate and time-consuming… And then someone pulls out their project and I go over to smoosh it and I realise it’s garter stitch. Garter stitch! So simple, so easy, and — I forget this every time — so lovely and smooshy.

I love the feel of garter stitch fabric between my fingers. It feels thick and firm and, when I squeeze it, it resists, pushes back, holds its ground. Soft, delicate, drapey fabrics are all well and good, but there’s something about garter stitch… It holds a special place in my heart.

And it’s easy! And versatile! And because it tends to hide every other row, it does really interesting things to hand-dyed and variegated yarns. And did I mention easy? At the end of long project slogging away at some complicated lacework, coming back to garter stitch feels like going home to an old friend.

We have three samples that we take to shows that never fail to get people’s pulses racing. “What is this pattern?”, they ask. “Where can I get it?” They’re all three are by Martina Behm, they’re all eye-catching, and every one of them is simple, straightforward, and garter-stitch. It’s no wonder everyone makes a beeline for them!

They are Lintalla, with its lovely frilled edge; Trillian, with an intriguing eyelet edging; and Hitchhiker which, if you finish it, will actually teach you the answer to the ultimate question of life (…the universe and everything). And even though they’re all garter stitch, the construction itself is intriguing: you cast on just a few stitches at one corner, and then grow the shawl by knitting longer and longer rows until it forms an asymmetrical triangle. How cool is that?!?

But as much as I love those three, Martina’s newest design has got me positively swooning. This one has all the hallmarks of her other shawls — a corner start, asymmetrical shaping, and lovely garter stitch — but Leftie is… wait for it… designed to feature mini-skeins! Mini-Skeins!!!

The mini-skeins are worked as stripes that travel diagonally across the shawl to create a lovely border of little leaves along one side. Use only a few colours for a subdued shawl or grab as many mini-skeins as you can to create a riot of colour. Leftie will look gorgeous either way.

And if you need a little colour inspiration, how about a supply of mini-skeins delivered right to your door? Join SpaceCadet’s Mini-Skein Club and every month you’ll receive a beautiful bundle (or two!) of five 20g skeins made from a mix of the SpaceCadet’s fingering yarns. Play with the colours, try out the yarns, and stay in only until you have enough mini-skeins for your project size. Click here to read more!

Making That Connection

01JunApril 14, 2015 By Stephanie

Driving home the other week from back-to-back trunk shows, I was on an absolute high. The owner of one of the shops had said to me that she thought that trunk shows were so much fun because her customers really liked making that conection to the dyer. And as I thought about it, I knew she was right. We so often think of knitting and crochet as being about projects, being about rows, about yarn and needles and hooks and all that stuff. But there’s one thing that none of that covers, and it’s maybe more important than any of it.

It’s All About The Connection

So often, what it’s really about is connection. Yes, most days we knit in solitude — but we always make sure we can get away to knit night. And we upload our WIPs to Ravelry, and check out the projects of others who are making the same pattern or using the same yarn. And the yarn… yes, the yarn. There are miles and miles of beautiful, even, predictable commercial yarns to choose from… but so often we gravitate toward a skein of yarn that has been dyed by hand, by a real person who put as much care into the colours of that skein as we put into every stitch of our projects.

Stella fingering yarn in Plume

And as I drove home, I realised that that connection is just as important to me. In the same way that you knit or crochet for a someone special — for a friend, for your sister, for a colleague, or even for yourself — when I dye, I’m not thinking of the yarn, I’m thinking of the people who are going to use it. I can see the projects in my mind, and I know the wonderful fiber-zen that this yarn will carry. Just as you love knowing your yarn comes from a real person, so I love knowing it will be used by a real person, in a project they will love. I crave that connection too.

So imagine my excitement this week when I discovered that two of my customers (one new, one long-time) have created their own video-podcasts! It was such a delight to finally “meet” these lovely, warm, down-to-earth ladies I’ve been sending my yarns to. And I began immediately to wish we lived closer, so we could sit down and have a proper natter over a cup of tea and our knitting.

The connection is everything.

The Podcasts

This is Amanda and here’s what I love about her podcast, We Are Yarn: the way she asks for help on the stuff that’s stumping her, the lovely things she says about SpaceCadet yarns and her InterStellar Yarn Alliance parcel (at 14:24), her beautiful Tennessee accent, and the cat with the swishy-swishy tail on her couch.

And this is Melissa in her Single-Handed Knits podcast. I love that I can almost smell the Hawaiian sea breezes blowing through her window, and I love the wonderful things she says about her SpaceCadet Mini-Skein Club parcel (at 13:24). I love that she actually does knit with one hand, and I love love love her incredibly positive outlook.

Two More Ways to Connect

Trunk Show in Erie PA

First, don’t forget that I’ll be doing a trunk show this Saturday, June 2, at The Cultured Purl in Erie PA. If you’re anywhere in the area, please do come and meet the yarn — and I’d really love to meet you too!

Send Me a Video-Introduction!

But, better than that, Amanda and Melissa’s podcasts gave me an idea. If we haven’t met (or even if we have), I’d love it — love it, love it, loooove it — if you’d video-introduce yourself to me. Flip on that webcam, grab your SpaceCadet yarn, and for 30 seconds, just record yourself. Say hello, tell me who you are (and who you are on Ravelry), show me your yarn or — better yet! — your projects, and then fire it off to me in an email or on Twitter. (I have a little nugget of an idea that, one day — if it’s ok with you guys — I could take these little clips and do a video mash up showing off all the great projects you all have made with your SpaceCadet yarn.)

But far more important than that, it would just be so cool for me to be able to meet you guys — to make that connection that means so much to all of us.

The Questions I Love to Answer

25AprApril 14, 2015 By Stephanie

At Knitters Fantasy the other weekend, a customer was looking through the bundles of gorgeous, adorable mini-skeins that we’d brought to introduce people to the Mini-Skein Club. She was completely lost in them, studying each one intently as she moved her hand from bundle to bundle, looking for exactly the right colours.

The mini-skeins have sold like hot-cakes at every show we’ve taken them to. There’s something irresistible about hundreds of miniature skeins of SpaceCadet yarn all piled up together!

And even though we normally sell the mini-skeins exclusively through the SpaceCadet’s Mini-Skein Club, I love taking them to shows. Why? Because it’s so much fun to watch people suddenly spot them, come rushing over to look more closely, and then — just like the customer at the show the other weekend — get totally lost in finding their perfect combination of colours.

And the mini-skeins start so many conversations. “What do you use them for?” (answer: here) “What could I make with them?” (answer: here) And my favourite, “So, what is this club you do?” I love that one because it gives me the opportunity to explain how the club works. Each month, club members receive a parcel of mini-skeins in colours that I’ve chosen for them (as a complete surprise!). The mini-skeins are made up of a variety of SpaceCadet fingering yarns, so you get a chance to try the different yarn types. And that the best thing is that you can cancel your subscription as soon as you have enough Mini-Skeins for your project. See what I mean? It’s a great club!

After looking carefully every single bundle, my customer finally chose a favourite. And, as she walked over to me to pay for it, she clutched it in front of her chest with both hands. She had a huge grin on her face and light in her eyes that told me she had just found herself some treasure.

“So,” she said, as she reached into her bag for her credit card, “what made you start this club?” She had set the bundle of mini-skeins down on the table, but one hand rested lightly on them — protecting them, laying claim to them. I smiled to myself. If she could see herself in a mirror, the answer to her question would be obvious.

The shine in her eyes… her hand on the yarns… the little moment of joy they’ve already brought her and all the joy her new mini-skein project will bring her when she gets home…

That is why I started the Mini-Skein Club.