It is officially one of the most exciting days of the year! So exciting that I left my knit group early — bolted right outta there — to get the website updated for the stroke of midnight. So, what is it that’s got me so excited?
I love everything about today. Everything! I love the weeks leading up to it when I can feel the buzz in the air, and everyone is asking what day subscriptions will go live. I get so excited as the new memberships come rolling in, and even more excited to see the current members renew. The tweets and the emails and the chatter on facebook… Ohhhh, it’s all so much fun!!!
And you know why I love it so much? Because I get to dream up the most fabulous (and exclusive!) colourways for you guys, and share my inspirations in the dyer’s notes. Oh, and I love putting together cool extra gifts for you! Most of all, I love getting to know all the members, and seeing all the different projects you guys create with your yarn. The InterStellar Yarn Alliance has got to be one of the best parts of my job!
And when I hear that the members love it too, it puts me over the moon…
All The Details
Members of the InterStellar Yarn Alliance receive fabulous parcels delivered to their door every other month, containing:
SpaceCadet ® Creations yarn (light to medium weight) in an exclusive Yarn Alliance colourway (guaranteed not to be offered on the SpaceCadet website for at least 6 months)
A great Yarn Alliance gift tucked into every parcel!
The SpaceCadet’s Log exploring the inspiration for each colourway.
The InterStellar Yarn Alliance newsletter with periodic special offers exclusively for members.
A 15% off coupon every six months
Subscriptions are for either 6 months (3 parcels) for $125, or for 12 months (6 parcels) for $235.
Want to join the fun?
C’mon! We’d love to have you! Click here to learn more.
I have been working like a mad woman — there have been trunk shows, and more coming up (see below for details), I’ve been dyeing for the next Yarn Alliance parcel and for some great new shops, and getting ready for Rhinebeck… Oh, and building a new online shop. Let it never be underestimated how much work goes into a new shop!
Y’know, I could say that again. Neverrrrrr underestimate. Never never never never…
But there’s good stuff in all that work too. One of the most fun: I’ve gotten to explore some fun new photography techniques to take some luscious new colourway pictures. What do you think to these?!?
A-a-a-and, if you know my colourways, and you’ve looked closely at that photo, you’ll have spotted that there’s a new one in there. It’s called Five Rings, and I created it for the latest bundle of yarns for the SpaceCadet’s Mini-Skein Club. The seed of inspiration was planted when Mindy at Clotheshorse magazine sent me one of their mood boards and asked me to dye a colour to go with it. And I just couldn’t stop! From that colour, I just kept mixing dyes until I’d created a whole new collection of gorgeous sun-baked spice colours, tempered with the cool of a silver-grey. And Five Rings is the one that ties all the colourways together.
This is one of the mini-skein bundles that went out to the Club members (clockwise from top left, they are: Five Rings, Burnt Clay, Mars, Drizzle, and Sun-Baked). Would you be understanding if I told you that I very very nearly didn’t send out the parcels this month? That I very nearly kept all the skeins for meeeeeeee?
Well, after all the bundles went out, I went into the studio and quickly dyed a whole bunch more, in at least five different yarn types. Look for them as soon as they are dry!
Mark Your Calendars!
If you live in the Baltimore/DC area, you do not want to miss the PLY party (Peace, Love, and Yarn) at Lovelyarns on Sept 9. It’s a hand-dyed extravaganza with fresh yarns from a ton of indie dyers. Make sure you’re there!
Just one week later, on Sept 15, we’ll be doing a trunk show at the fabulous KNOTS (Knitting On The Square) in Chardon Ohio. I was up there earlier in the summer for a fabulous class with Brenda Dayne, and I can’t wait to go back! Will you be coming?
And… Oh oh oh! Mark your calendars and set an alarm, because the InterStellar Yarn Alliance will open for subscriptions from Sept 1 to Sept 16! The Yarn Alliance is the SpaceCadet’s fabulous yarn club, full of gorgeous yarn, exclusive colourways, and fantastic goodies. Spaces are limited, so click here to check it out!
I want you to pity me, ok? I mean, if you’re a knitter or crocheter, you’ll get what I saying. Because last week, we sent the InterStellar Yarn Alliance parcels to the club members and, while I was so excited to send them out, you have to consider the situation I was in only the day before…
The day before the parcels went out, I was surrounded by an enormous pile of smooshy, wonderful yarns in a colourway that Iloved. …That I just loved. Oh, and right next to that pile? There was a stack of goodies that were making my whole house smell incredible and which made me just want to sit there and breathe… breathe… Mmmmmm…
So the pity… Well, that comes in because I knew that the very next day, I’d have to send all that loveliness away. And I wanted them all. I wanted them all for meeeee. My dear members of the InterStellar Yarn Alliance, you very nearly never got your parcels!
But you’re a yarn addict too, so I know you understand.
The colourway for this parcel is called Juicy, and it is inspired by all the colours of the fruits and flowers that the heat of summer produces. And the gift is hand-made candles from Debbie at Divine Scentsations, in one of three sets of delicious scents perfect for the season: Fruits, Florals, or Clean & Fresh.
See what I mean? Reallllly hard to send away.
The InterStellar Yarn Alliance will open for subscriptions for two weeks only in September. If you’d like to be one of the first to hear about it, make sure you’re signed up for the SpaceCadet Creations mailing list. Click here to join it.
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.
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.
I was really nervous when I sent out the InterStellar Yarn Alliance parcels this month. Really nervous. I knew I’d taken a risk — I knew it — but I also knew I had dyed the colours that I’d had in my heart, the colours I needed to dye… And if the dyer follows her heart, that surely must be right. …Right?
But still, I was nervous. Because I know a lot of people buy hand-dyed because they love deep, rich, saturated colour, and this colourway was anything but that. I’d dyed a washed out colourway, of the sort that I’ve fallen head-over-heels for lately, where I gently swirl layer upon layer of colour into the dyebath, and then watch as it settles delicately onto the fibers. Watching it happen is breath-taking, the yarn it creates is beautiful. And the result when you cast on and begin to knit is ethereal, sublime …simply amazing.
Are you ready? Here it is…
It was exactly what I hoped it would be. From every angle, I was in love! I just wanted to grab it and smoosh it and… oh!
I just hoped the Alliance members loved it as much as I did.
In the SpaceCadet’s Log, I explained my inspiration — the colours in my garden as Spring arrived in sudden rush, then retreated and the cruel cold returned, and then Spring began anew. And so there are flowers in my garden both dying and blooming, and I wanted to capture the colours of Nature’s confusion.
And then…! And then there was the goody, and this I knew would be exciting. I’d asked Melissa of Melissa Jean Design to create some custom buttons for the InterStellar Yarn Alliance. And when the parcel containing them arrived, I was so excited, I spent a full five minutes bouncing up and down in my kitchen. They’re ADORABLE!
And what’s more, she did a bunch of different colours! Mix and match, everyone!
But the very best bit? I got to keep all the extra buttons that Melissa made — all her experiments and test runs. I love them! And I feel like I should make something wonderfully crafty and clever with them, but I don’t know what. What would you make?
Hey, don’t forget: this weekend is the SpaceCadet’s Grand Tour of Cleveland! If you’re anywhere in the northern Ohio/PA area, come on out and see us.
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…
