Megan was thinking of a cardigan, something simple, with a crew neck… maybe with snowflakes. The kind of go-to cardigan that could keep her warm and cosy all winter long. She was excited to get it on her needles, and asked me to dye the colours of Frost.
It would have white, of course, and a soft silver grey, and… and… ah yes, that lovely cool blue of winter shadows. I couldn’t wait to get started!
The key was getting the balance right: the amount of white to blue to grey, and the intensity of the colours. Frost can be soft and light, or it can hard and crisp; sparkling bright in the sun, or shadowy and blue. I wanted to make sure that Megan got the Frost that she had in her mind, so I dyed it twice and let her choose.
I loved pulling the yarns out of the dyepot, seeing how the colours came together. But, better than that, Megan loved the colours — she said her yarn was exactly what she was hoping for. And I can tell you that nothing is so nice for a dyer to hear!
I am a knitter and, to me, knitting is second nature. I knit without looking, I knit whilst reading and, when I’m really tired but I just have to finish one more row, I knit with my eyes closed. And I know that this looks like magic to non-knitters but, to me, knitting is easy.
The real magic is crochet. Crochet is knitting’s mysterious twin… It amazes me, it baffles me! I tried to teach myself to crochet once — I managed a little strip of fabric (that with the addition of some knitted flowers became quite a nice choker), but I quickly realised that it’s crocheters who make the real magic happen. Here are three patterns that really inspire me to pick up a hook and try my hand at crochet again.
Here is a crochet at its most spellbinding. I love the drama of Robyn Chachula‘s unusual cowl, the way the chain-stitched edging forms a striking cobweb that can be worn gathered up around the neck or draped dramatically across the body. I’d love to see this done in SpaceCadet’s Astrid yarn in a rich, deep colourway such as Desert Wine to bring a dash of glamour to a new winter coat.
Sharon Silverman conjured up something truly special when she designed this spectacular shawl. The magic is in the changing stitch pattern that creates distinct bands of lacy texture from top to bottom. Worked in lace weight yarn, this would look fresh and light in SpaceCadet’s Luna Laceweight in Old Money, or darkly dramatic in Luna Laceweight in Plum Wine.
The magic of Brittany Tyler‘s charming little hat in is the way it gathers up the colours of varigated yarns and distributes them in little pools across the crocheted fabric. Quirky and sweet with a flower detail, it would bring out the striking colours of SpaceCadet’s Astrid yarn in Sleep Deep or look cute as a button in Sailor’s Warning.
One thing I’ve discovered since opening SpaceCadet Creations is that I really love photographing yarn. I really love it. When I get the camera in there, in close, and the light is just right and colours are popping and I can almost feel the texture coming right through the picture, I get so excited. Mmmmm… yarn porn — is there anything better?
And I suspect that paragraph is completely incomprehensible to anyone who is not yarn-crazy… But you understand, don’t you? Yeah, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
But sometimes, it goes wrong. I’ve got my camera there, the light is right, the macro is doing its thing… but the colours just aren’t coming out right. It should be working, but it’s just not. And I can’t tell you how crazy-making it is when that happens — because I’ve put a lot of effort into the colours I put in my yarns, and it’s incredibly frustrating when I just cannot get the camera to capture those colours.
This week, I’ve put a bunch of gorgeous yarns in the shop. I love them! Some are sublimely coloured, some are subtle, and some are quirky, but they’re all beautiful to look at…
But see that one in the middle, down at the bottom? The one with a lot of blue and what looks like maybe black? That was one of those yarns that simply refused to be photographed. Flat out refused. Oh, it looks nice enough in the picture but, in real life, it’s just so much more — deep, vibrant purples, dark greens and browns, amazing blues. It’s so dark and rich and moody… truly stunning. But could I capture that on film? Could I heck! And it was driving me crazy!
So, if you can’t fight it, join it. So, here’s how I’m going to look at it: see that picture there in the middle, and the bottom of the page? That one is there to make all the other pictures look even better. Seriously — look at them. Doesn’t that one picture make the colours in the one above it look so subtle and soft? And doesn’t it just make the pinks in the one to the right look vibrant? See what I mean?
And so that bad picture serves a good purpose now. But what’s even better is what will happen when someone buys that yarn… Because when they pull it out of the box and see its true colours… they’re going to understand just how frustrating that camera can be!
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:
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…
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.
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.
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.
