Superwash Merino

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…

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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!

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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.

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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!

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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!

Softness Radiates from the Screen

By Stephanie

New yarns in the shop are always exciting.  But not nearly as exciting as those yarns are in person — holding them in my hands, they are simply sooo much better than in the pictures.  How I wish you could just reach into this blog post and feel the softness, squeeze the smooshiness.  They are gorgeous!

But since you can’t, pictures will just have to do!  Have a look:

Clockwise from top left: Luna Laceweight in Calm Words, Stella Fingering Weight in City Park, Celeste Fingering Weight in Precise, Celeste Fingering Weight in Spluttermuck, Luna Laceweight in Old Money, Luna Laceweight in True Love’s Aura.

Now, I know it’s tempting but…  no, wait! No, don’t stroke the screen!  You’ll leave fingerprints!!!

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.

Sunshine Today, More Forecast For Next Week

By Stephanie

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.

The forecast for next week?   Bright Sunshine!

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!

Maybe I’ll Become a Cook

By Stephanie

Sometimes it’s good to push yourself outside your comfort zone.  And if it works, it’s such a boost to the ego!  And when it doesn’t…  well…

Well, indeed.  Last week I pushed myself right out of my comfort zone and straight into yellow.  I don’t do yellow a great deal — it’s just never been a personal favourite of mine.  But yellow is a great colour — sunny and bright, and filled with warmth.  It was time to tackle yellow.

And, while I was pushing outside my comfort zone, I decided to shake things up even more by trying a new dyeing technique.  It was something I’d never tried before — indeed, I’d never even seen it done before — and I got excited about it as soon as I thought of it.  The technique would create very short bursts of colour — just one, two, maybe three knit stiches long — and unusual blends of shades.  I couldn’t wait to try it.

And so I took a deep breath and mixed up my yellows…  and in went the yarn.

And what came out did not thrill me.  The yellows were beautiful, but The Technique had not worked the way I had expected at all.  The short bursts of colour were there, but were much more ragged at the edges than I had hoped, and the shading was simply too haphazard for my tastes.  I pursed my lips and shrugged…  Chalk it up to a learning experience and be done with it, I thought.

“I like them!  They’re interesting.  They’re… earthy!”  Turning these yarns over in her hands, my friend clearly saw something in them that I hadn’t spotted at first.  And she was right.  The shades are earthy, and the colour changes aren’t ragged as I first thought, they’re organic.  And the yarns, I suddenly realised, are beautiful.  Even if they weren’t what I was expecting and are completely outside my comfort zone.

So here they are!

The idea behind this one started as Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, but when it finally dried, I realised it makes me think so much more of Sunflowers, of their lovely golden yellow petals and dark seed-centers, of the earth they sprout from and the sun that nourishes them…

And this one… this one…  I am trying to think of a good name for it, but time and again, all I see is Pasta in a Garlic Pesto.  Even though the colours are exact, no matter which way I turn it, no matter how I look at it, that’s the only thing that comes to mind.

You know, if this dyeing gig doesn’t work out, maybe I could become a cook…