fiber arts

Inspiration for Colour in Knitting and Dyeing

By Stephanie

A few years ago, I took a class with Brandon Mably that completely changed the way I thought about colour.  It was an intense 2-day course which challenged us to think about how we see and use colour from the minute we arrived in the morning, until we left at the end of the day.  Brandon had us doing a lot of crazy things to shake up our brains, from throwing all our balls of yarn into the center of the floor and mixing them all up, to free-knitting swatches that contained 10… 15… 20 different colours.  It was a great weekend (and if you ever get a chance to take Brandon’s Design in Colour class, I highly recommend it).

And there’s one technique that he taught that has translated particularly well from knitting to dyeing.  He suggested that we use artwork that we love — paintings that really spoke to us — and use the colours as inspiration.  If those colours work in the painting, then they would work in our knitting too.  He walked around the room and let us choose from a stack of fine-art postcards and greeting cards, whichever painting called out to each of us the most.

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The thing about using this technique is that you suddenly realise how many colours you don’t see, even as they are right in front of your eyes.  When you first look at a painting, you may see what you think of as a “yellow painting”…

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But when you take the time to really immerse yourself into the colour, you suddenly see so much more — little spots of red that jump out at you, the grays that fade into the background, subtle greens that you didn’t even notice.  They all work together — these colours that you never would have thought of putting side-by-side — and they create a depth and complexity that pulls you back again and again.

Just realising that really began to set us free in that class, and we dove into the pile of yarn in the middle of the floor.  Using our cards as a guide, everyone’s knitting exploded into wild colour —  combinations of shades far more daring than we would have tried before.

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And then Brandon showed us a something else that I hadn’t noticed: different areas of the the same painting contain their own micro-colourways, and give off completely different moods from what you felt when you first saw the painting.  So if you take a painting that you think of as mostly sunny and yellow, and cover part of it up, you might find an area that’s completely different…  that’s moody and blue…

And when you switch your hands around again, the whole mood changes back to the sunny and yellow you saw before.  Or maybe to a different section, and a different colourway and mood.  Here are little colourways that you can pull out for inspiration in your knitting, and that I use in my dyeing — a whole world of colourways in one painting, just waiting to inspire you, if you stop and look closely enough!  And once you start seeing them, you really can’t wait to start using them yourself…  to start knitting as though you’re painting.

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(When I lived in the UK, fine art cards like this one from Woodmansterne were available in any card shop for just a couple of pounds.  But here in the US, I don’t regularly see cards like this — the shelves seem to filled with the standard assortment of greetings cards with nice-but-not-overly-interesting artwork.  I’d love to find a good supplier of art cards like this one to inspire me…  Can anyone suggest where I might find something similar here in America?)

Cadet Credits, With Thanks to You

By Stephanie

The first few days of January are probably supposed to be about looking forward, but I cannot help looking back.  2010 was a great year here at SpaceCadet Creations — it’s been exciting, it’s been educational, sometimes it’s been a bit scary, it’s always been colourful!…  And most of all, it’s been successful.  And ladies and gentlemen, I know that success is entirely down to you.  You’ve been encouraging me, supporting me, talking to me… and buying my yarn and fiber.  I am incredibly grateful.

For a little while now, I’ve been thinking about how I can show you my thanks, how I can make it real.  And so I am very excited to introduce SpaceCadet’s Cadet Credits, a way to reward my loyal customers and let them know how much I appreciate them.  Here’s how it works:  I will give you a $10 credit every time your purchases accumulate to $150 (minus discounts, taxes, and shipping costs).  Your credits will never expire, you can use them right away or saved them up to be used all together, and they can be used on anything in the SpaceCadet Creations shop.  It’s my way of showing you how much your support has meant to me throughout 2010.

And that last sentence up there…  that’s not just some kind of marketing waffle to make you feel good.  I really mean it.  So I’m not going to implement Cadet Credits from just today onwards, I’m going to give credit to my customers for all their purchases throughout 2010.   Don’t worry — you don’t have calculate a thing.  I’ll kept track of all the numbers and will be emailing you shortly to let you know how much credit you have, or how close you are to earning one.

And with that, it is time to look forward to 2011 — it’s going to be an exciting year!  There are a lot of great things planned here in the SpaceCadet studio — some I’ll tell you about as they develop, and some that will stay top-secret until they’re ready for their reveal.  I can’t wait to get started.

But you…  You can start celebrating 2011 right away.  So go on!  Go spend those credits!

For full details of the Cadet Credit Programme (it’s not complicated!), click here.

This Post Is Not For You

By Stephanie

This blog post is not for you. Unless you are my mother or my sister. If you’re not, that’s ok — you can still read it — but it’s not for you.

It’s for my sister, firstly. Are you there, meine kleine Schwester? It’s for you because, while you were staying with us over Christmas, and we were sitting at the table and enjoying that wonderful holiday feast and a few glasses of wine, you mentioned something that that showed me just how much work there is to do.  Hang on, let me explain for everyone else…

My sister is not a knitter or a crocheter — if you handed her a pair of needles, I’m certain she’d hold them like chopsticks. But she’s been really supportive of SpaceCadet Creations. She’s proud of the work I do, she comes into my studio to see the dyeing in action, and she promotes the fiber arts on her Facebook stream… in her own particular way.  A few weeks ago, she posted this:

Knitting is not just a hobby which reduces stress and improves manual dexterity, but it’s also an eco-friendly way to buy your clothes.

And a few days before that, this:

All the cool kids buy their clothes from knitters, because sweatshops are so uncool.

And also this:

The Knitteratti are ready for Christmas. Are you?

She’s a kook, yeah, but she’s a supportive kook.  And then, there we were, sitting at the table and drinking the last of the wine and sneaking a few extra bites of spice cake, when she mentioned that she’d had some good feedback on my yarn from a couple of friends, but that they hadn’t bought anything because they don’t knit socks.

For a moment, I was taken aback.  “Well… erm… you know, they don’t have to knit socks with it,” I said.

“They don’t?” She was genuinely shocked by the revelation.  “But it’s sock yarn!  You called it sock yarn!”

“Um, well… yeah, it’s sock yarn if you’re going to knit socks with it.  But… it’s just yarn.  You can knit anything with it.”

“You can?!? Like what?!?”

“Like hats, or scarves, or mittens, or sweaters, or…  well, anything you want.  It’s… y’know, it’s yarn.”

“You never told me!” And she actually jumped up a little in her seat as she said it.  “I thought it was just for socks!  I’ve been telling everyone that it’s only for socks!”

So, for my sister — my lovely, kooky sister who has been so supportive but totally doesn’t get knitting — (and for you, just in case you might be similarly confused), let me just clarify:  sock yarn is not just for socks.  It’s only called sock yarn because it’s the right weight to be used for socks, but you can use it to make whatever your heart desires.  Don’t let that label hold you back!

In fact, that’s really important.  Let me say it again, with Center and Bold this time:

Sock Yarn is Not Just for Socks!

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The rest of this post is for my mum, who really wants to knit something with my yarn but, so far, neither of us have had a chance to sit down and pick her a colourway and a pattern.  I suspect she is thinking of a scarf, because that’s her comfort zone, but (ignoring everything I’ve just said above!) I’d love to see her try a pair of socks.  I think it would really stretch her knitting skills and, more than that, she’d have a lot of fun in the process.  And I know she finds that prospect of socks a little daunting, so this is the bit that’s for her (and for you too, if you’re feeling a little intimidated at the thought of knitting socks):

Mum, go ahead and choose your colourway, pick up your needles and knit your gauge swatch.  There’s nothing to worry about.  Because we’ve got some blog posts coming up in the next couple of months that are going to take you by the hand and guide through starting off as a sock knitter.   It’ll be good — trust me.

And, Mum…  you are going to love sock knitting!

I Can’t Show You This Yarn

By Stephanie

I’ve dyed two skeins of my lovely sparkly Lucina yarn in the colourway Southeasterly.  It’s an amazing blend of deep purples and seaweed greens.  The sparkles in the yarn shimmer in the light, and it is absolutely gorgeous.

And my camera simply won’t photograph it.

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My camera has always struggled with purples.  Time and time again, they come out more blue than they really are.  I’ve tried adjusting all sorts of things on the camera — the white balance, the colour settings, the exposure compensation — but to no avail.  I’ve tried manipulating the colours after I download the picture to make them more realistic, but they refuse to play. Purples come out blue, and a horrid garish blue at that.  And so I have no way to show you what this yarn really looks like.

Which is a real shame, because it’s beautiful.  It took my breath away when I pulled it out of the dyepot.  The colourway is Southeasterly and is much like the yarn I dyed in this colourway before…

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But this time, it’s so much more intense, so much more striking.  And then with the sparkles too…

I wish I could show it to you, I really do.  But you’re just going to have to believe me when I say it doesn’t look like this.  It really doesn’t look like this — it is so, so, soooo much better.

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And if there are any photographers out there who can tell me what I am doing wrong, I’d be incredibly grateful for any suggestions.  …Or, better yet, if there are any knitting photographers who want to come round and give me a lesson on capturing better purples, there might be a skein or two of yarn in it for you..!

A Bad Week with a Good Ending

By Stephanie

I like to do my shop updates for Monday or Tuesday, and start your week with a little fibery eye-candy. But this past week was completely hijacked by a terrible winter cold that has hit the whole family. Everything has come to a complete halt.

And rather than my days being filled with steaming dyepots, they were filled with steaming cups of tea…

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Well, actually more like this. When I’m not feeling well, I want a lot of tea…

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We-e-e-ell…. ok… When I’m really ill (and I’ve been really ill), I always turn to my mother’s never-fail cough medicine: warmed honey with a (generous) splash of Scotch.  Taken by the teaspoonful and poured down the back of the throat, absolutely nothing soothes a scratchy and nagging cough so well.

So… ok…  ok!  Maybe my week looked a bit more like this…

Tea, honey, Scotch, a box of tissues, me under the duvet…  and no shop update.

But something wonderful happened this week too — something really exciting that’s saved the whole miserable, cold-filled week…  SpaceCadet Creations made its 100th sale!  And that makes me want to celebrate.  So this week, instead of a shop update, I’m giving you a wee treat: every order placed between now and midnight on Thursday will get 10% off.  It’s just a little thing, a little gift from me to you to say thank you for all of your support.  Just enter the code “100Sales” at checkout to claim your discount.

And if you happen to have a bit of a cold too… Well, come over here and sit next to me.  I’ve got a box of tissues, and we can share a nice pot of tea.  …And maybe some of Mum’s cough medicine too — it really is lovely.

Small print: Offer ends Friday 17 December 2010 at 12.00am (EST). Discount excludes shipping and any applicable tax.  Discount cannot be redeemed for cash.

A First Day, Knitting

By Stephanie

I remember the moment I decided I wanted to learn how to knit.  I remember the very moment — and I have no explanation whatsoever.  It was the weirdest thing.  It was Thanksgiving morning, I was 19 and home for the weekend from university, and when I woke up — even before I sat up in bed — the first thought that entered my mind was, “I want to learn to knit.”  I have no idea why — this was long before knitting hit its recent popularity and long before the internet existed.  I knew no one who knit, I had no knitting influence whatsoever…  and yet, when I woke up that morning, I just knew in my bones that I wanted to knit.

I padded down to the kitchen in my bare feet and PJs.  The Macy’s parade was on television in the other room, and my mother already had the turkey in the oven and seemed to have fifteen other dishes on the go at once.  If I’d have had any sense, I’d have got stuck in helping her, but I can remember standing there, at the corner of the kitchen island, next to a bowl of stuffing and an uncooked pumpkin pie and announcing as if it were the most important thing in the world, “I want to learn to knit.”

My mother probably wanted to throw a wooden spoon at my head and demand to know why I wasn’t helping her, but she didn’t.  She first promised she would teach me — later.  And then she ordered me to help with dinner.  Quite right too.

After Thanksgiving dinner, my mother and I sat down with some mismatched metal needles she’d found in cupboard and some cheap acrylic yarn.  I can remember my excitement even now.  But it had been years since my mum had knit and it turned out that she could hardly remember how…  She couldn’t work out how to cast on and then, when she did, she realised she could knit but couldn’t remember how to purl!  And she had no recollection of binding off at all.  But, none of that mattered to me: I had stitches on the needles and, as I discovered that lovely rhythm of making knit stitch after knit stitch, something magical began to happen…  That special magical thing that knitting does, that all knitters know.  And so that day — my first glorious day of knitting — I worked acrylic yarn into endless rows of garter stitch, and I was happy.  Deeply, meditatively, knitterly happy.

I think the moment that any knitter or crocheter first picks up needles or hooks and learns how to turn yarn into fabric is something special.  No one ever realises it at the time — they’re just “trying it out” — but they have started on a journey…  One that goes from cheap yarn and simple scarves and eventually moves onto more challenging projects, more beautiful yarn, sometimes works of art and, most importantly, that need to create — at least a little — every single day.  It’s a wonderful thing  …and no one ever realises on that first day.

When was your first day?