It’s the last few days to enter the giveaway to win a skein of SpaceCadet Creation’s hand-dyed Sock Yarn or two 2oz braids of hand-dyed fiber! The giveaway will come to a close at the end of Monday (11.59pm on May 31st to be exact) so, if you’re not entered, make sure you get entered before the end of the holiday weekend!
All you have to do is put your email address in the subscription box over there on the right, just above the SpaceCadet’s head. And, once you’ve done that, there are six ways to earn extra entries — for all the details, click here.
But remember, those extra entries will count only if you’ve subscribed to the blog using the subscription box right over there at the top of the right-hand column. While I am sincerely grateful for all my followers, I can’t see the people who subscribe through other feed aggrigators (such as Google Reader, Bloglines, etc) and so I’m afraid those subscriptions can’t count as entries. If you prefer to follow me through another feed aggrigator, please go ahead and do that, but also subscribe through the blog just for a few days, so your entry can be counted for the giveaway.
Thank you to everyone who has subscribed and entered so far. It’s been so exciting to “meet” all of you! Now go out there and tweet, post, follow, and friend your way to extra entries. And GOOD LUCK!
Beautiful sunshine and a lovely warm day, I sat in the dappled shade of the trees and spun silk into heathered shades of blue, green, and purple.
Just before I finished and came in, the wind picked up and the skies transformed from blazing and blue to an angry dark grey. A summer thunderstorm rolled in, and then ended as quickly as it started, leaving everything drenched but fresh again. Perfect!
When I finally bought an MP3 player last year, I thought I’d be using it to listen to music, but it turns out that what I really listen to are fiber podcasts. I love ’em! Ever since I discovered there were these people out there just talking away about knitting, spinning, weaving, and dyeing, I’ve been addicted. Who wouldn’t be? A nearly endless source of people who get it and are right there, on tap, ready at any time of day or night to whisper in my ear about all thing fibery — while I’m doing the dishes or sweeping the floor or stuck in traffic or inexplicably wide awake in the dead of night. Who wouldn’t be hooked?!?
Well… ok, I know there are a lot of people who wouldn’t be, but that’s only because they’re not fiber freaks like you and I. In fiberista terms,the people who matter are the people who understand the allure of fiber, and that’s me, and you …and the podcasters. Here are some of my absolute favourites:
Cast-On from Brenda Dayne is the first fiber podcast I discovered and I think it is the absolute best — a benchmark for all other podcasters to work toward. Thoughtful, whimsical, educational, and always so beautifully put together, Cast-On is always a treat. Brenda is taking a sabbatical at the moment to recover from some health issues but, if you’ve never listened, it’s worth working your way through the archives while we wait for her return.
FiberBeat is what I imagine the B-52s would come up with if they decided to record a fiber podcast. WonderMike has created a zany podcast that, while always full of interesting interviews, news, and information, is also chock full of crazy random audio madness that has me laughing out loud. You’ll have to listen to see what I mean, but that’s no hardship.
Insubordiknit from spinning artist Jacey Boggs is a rare treat — rare because she produces episodes randomly and seldom, but a treat because they are so completely worth the wait. Jacey is famous in the fiber world for her art yarns — unique, creative, and stunning… but always stable and balanced. Listening to her talk through their creation is wonderfully inspiring.
These great podcasters keep me wrapped in fibery goodness even when I can’t be spinning or knitting — a wonderful thing. And you know what? I’d like to find more fiber podcasts just like them! What are your favourite podcasts? Who should I be listening to? I’d love to know.
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?.
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.
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!!!
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.
No sooner had I begun to wax lyrical about Spring than the weather decided to teach me a lesson and get cold again. In honour of that, I dyed a new yarn.
In a still northern sea, the prow of a ship plows through cold waters, dividing the waves into a pale, frothing wake. The water is dark, foreboding… a deep blue broken by white wave caps, and chunks of silver-gray ice. Beautiful in its strength… beautiful, these endless Cold Waters.
This skein is approximately 100g of Superwash Merino in a wonderfully soft 3-ply, fingering weight yarn.
Fiber Content: 100% Superwash Merino
Weight: Approximately 3.75oz / 105g
Colourway: Cold Waters, 100324-001
Care Instructions for the final item: Hand or Mashine wash, Lay flat to dry.
