Superwash Merino

Iceberg — Fresh and Cold and Blue

By Stephanie

A friend of mine suggested I try a snow-and-ice colourway — and the easiest way, I suspect, might be to just leave the snowy-white wool undyed…!  But that would never do, so this is what I came up with instead.  Doesn’t it say icy-cold to you?.

Hand-dyed Combed Top, Superwash Merino, in Iceberg

Bright sunshine, falling from a dazzling and cloudless blue sky, carries with the promise of a warm midsummer’s day …but for the breeze, which belies the truth with its bracing chill, and the way light bounces back off the brilliant white snow that sits atop luminous blue mass of ice, melting at the edges, releasing gentle droplets which drip quietly down… down to the white-capped waves… down to the sea that hides the frozen mass of the Iceberg in its murky blue-black depths.

This is over 4oz of wonderfully soft Superwash Merino combed top. It spins up beautifully, and the final item can be machine washed.

Fiber Content: 100% Superwash Merino wool
Weight: Approximately 4.25oz / 120g
Colourway: Iceberg 100410-001
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 dyelots can vary noticeably and 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.

A Little Merino Top is Good for the Soul

By Stephanie

Not that I’m spin obsessed lately or anything (!), but something made me turn my dyeing attention from yarn to fiber.  I don’t know what that could be…  cough cough!

Anyway, my one-track mindedness is your gain.  Here’s a peek at the gorgeousness that came out of the dyepot.  I am sooooo tempted to pull it out of the shop and spin it up myself!

Hand-dyed Combed Top, Superwash Merino, in Pond Lilies

Nourished by the murky blue-green waters and coaxed by the warm summer sun, the Pond Lilies, with their heads turned skyward, open slowly to reveal a ring of white petals — as white as a dove’s wings — that surround a center so yellow it could almost be citrus, and they sway gently on the water’s surface as fish brush past their roots reaching down into the dark water beneath them.

This is over 4oz of wonderfully soft Superwash Merino combed top. It spins up beautifully, and the final item can be machine washed.

Fiber Content: 100% Superwash Merino wool
Weight: Approximately 4.05oz / 115g
Colourway: Pond Lilies 100412-001
Care Instructions for the final item: Hand or Machine wash, Lay flat to dry.

This item was individually hand-dyed by the SpaceCadet, using professional grade acid dyes which were mixed by hand from primaries. Please be sure to buy enough for your project as dyelots can vary noticeably and 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.

Spinning My Wheels, Mostly

By Stephanie

The weather has been a little too glorious to be inside blogging.  And the birds have been singing a little too sweetly to be on the computer updating the shop.  And so I have been spending a lot of time on the back porch, drinking tea and watching the children play in the garden, while I spend some quality time bonding with my new best friend:

It was my birthday last week and so my family and friends cobbled together and got me my heart’s desire — a beautiful Lendrum spinning wheel.  It is an absolute joy to to spin on, such a smooth and gentle motion that it fairly seduces the yarn from my fingers.  Spinning on it is all I’ve wanted to do.  A-a-and… I’ve hardly gotten anything else done all week!

But the garden is now in full bloom, and full of inspiration.  So when I have not been spinning, I have managed to bring a little Spring to the dyepots..

Sock Yarn, Fingering Weight Superwash Merino, in Sweetpeas

As you stand at the kitchen sink, doing the dishes and gazing absent-mindedly at the garden through the open window, a little breeze gently blows the curtain and carries a scent so beautiful and sweet that you instinctively breathe in deeply and, called out of your daydream, realise that it is the smell of the sweetpeas, climbing up the wall beside the window in a riot of wild pinks, their delicate heads bobbing gently in the breeze.

Each skein is approximately 100g of Superwash Merino in a wonderfully soft 3-ply, fingering weight yarn. Two skeins available, sold separately.

Fiber Content: 100% Superwash Merino
Weight: Approximately 3.50oz / 100g
Colourway: Sweetpeas, 100330-001
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 dyelots can vary noticeably and 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.

Getting So Much More than I Expected

By Stephanie

Because I mix almost all my colours directly from the primaries (blue, red, yellow, and black), it can be a challenge sometimes to control the colours.  I see a shade in my mind — or, more usually, a grouping of different colours together — and then I work back from there to figure out how I’d need to mix the primaries to get that combination.

It’s such a rush when I pull the yarn out of the dyebath and it’s exactly what I’d hoped.  I get so excited I could punch the air!

But sometimes what comes out of the dyepot is nothing like what I had expected.  That’s when I bite lip, turn it over in my hands, and look carefully at the yarn to see what adjustments I should make to bring out the best in the colours that have appeared before me.  A little more red, a single drop of black, a swirl of yellow at the very last moment… it can all make a world of difference to the final yarn.  And sometimes… sometimes what I get from that is far and away so much better than the colours I’d first hoped for in my mind.

Vineyard Stain was exactly such a yarn.  It was meant to be something completely different — I can hardly remember now what I was aiming for — but it surprised me completely when I pulled it out of the dyebath.  At first, I didn’t like what appeared at all.  But I made those little adjustments — a bit of this, a smidge of that — and put it back in the water.  And when it came out the second time, I fell head over heels in love.

This is an absolutely amazing yarn.  The colours — the depth of colours — are just gorgeous and I simply cannot get my camera to really capture them.  I may never be able to reproduce this yarn again but, oh!, how I hope I can!!!

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Sock Yarn, Fingering Weight Superwash Merino, in Vineyard Stain

When the grapes have been harvested and gathered into great piles at the end of each row, and the piles have been collected and taken to the winery, what is left in their place is a ruby-red mark where the sheer weight of the bounty crushed the succulent grapes and the dark juice escaped and ran down, leaving that beautiful, telltale stain — deep as burgundy in some places, soft as a rose in others — against the yellow-brown of the dry, sun-baked earth.

This skein is approximately 100g of Superwash Merino in a wonderfully soft 3-ply, fingering weight yarn.

Fiber Content: 100% Superwash Merino
Weight: Approximately 3.70oz / 105g
Colourway: Vineyard Stain, 100324-002
Care Instructions for the final item: Hand or Machine wash in tepid water, Lay flat to dry.

Each item is individually hand-dyed by the SpaceCadet, using professional grade acid dyes. 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.

Off the Porch and Into the Shop

By Stephanie

Sock Yarn, Fingering Weight Superwash Merino, in Seagrass

Nourished by the rich seabed and the soft, tropical waters, seagrass stretches up from the ocean floor in a spectrum of impossible greens, hiding clown fish and seahorses in its emerald fingers as it reaches for the sunlight falling through the clear, sapphire waters.

Each skein is approximately 100g of Superwash Merino in a wonderfully soft 3-ply, fingering weight yarn. Two skeins available, sold separately.

Fiber Content: 100% Superwash Merino
Weight: Approximately 3.50oz / 100g
Colourway: Seagrass, 100401-001
Care Instructions for the final item: Hand or Mashine wash, Lay flat to dry.

Each item is individually hand-dyed by the SpaceCadet, using professional grade acid dyes, 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.

Seagrass Drying in the Sun

By Stephanie

It is hard to believe that it was less than two months ago that the massive snowstorms hit and we were thigh-deep in snow and without power for several days.  Because today, it was over 80°F with blazing sunshine.

I brought the yarn out and let it dry in the lovely warm breeze.  In the natural light, the colours came completely to life, and then changed subtly as day melted into dusk…