fiber

A Giveaway for May!

By Stephanie

It’s May!  It’s May!  And May brings so many glorious things — lovely warm days, evenings that seem to stay light so late, and the start of the fiber festival season! — that I thought I’d add a little gloriousness of my own.

Do you subscribe to this blog?  No?  You silly Earthling!  Being a subscriber means you’re always up-to-date on all things SpaceCadet — and it’s completely free!

Ok, here’s the deal:   If we can get my blog subscribers to reach 75 by the end of the month, I’m going to give away a skein of my sock yarn — that’s 100g of soft and smooshy 100% superwash merino hand-dyed goodness — to one randomly-picked winner, and two 2oz bumps of beautiful, hand-dyed, soft-as-clouds BFL fiber to two runners up.  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 if you subscribe already, don’t worry — that just means you prebooked your entry!

Once you’re subscribed, you can earn up to six additional entries by doing the following:

Just leave a separate comment here for each that you do, and be sure to include your Twitter and/or Ravelry name so I can tie them together (and remember, you have to be signed up for a blog subscription for your additional entries to count).

So, that’s seven ways to enter!  And, best of all, free yarn and fiber to three lucky winners!  So get the word out — and when the subscriber numbers hit 75, everyone’s in with a chance.

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Contest ends 31 May 2010 at 11.59pm. Prizes will be awarded only if SpaceCadet’s email subscriptions reach 75.  Subscriptions must be via the email subscription form at the top of the right-hand column on this blog — subscriptions through other sources (such as online readers) are not visible to the SpaceCadet and so cannot be counted as entries.  All entrants will be verified and must complete the mandatory entry (that is, subscribing to the SpaceCadet Creations blog) before completing the ‘extra’ entries. Comments must include the commenter’s Twitter or Ravelry name (as applicable) in order for ‘extra’ entries to be included in the contest. Invalid entries will be disqualified.  Winner will be contacted by email for further details and must respond within 72 hours or we reserve the right to choose another winner. SpaceCadet Creations reserves the right to substitute prizes. Prizes cannot be redeemed for cash.

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.

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.

Adventure, Day 1

By Stephanie

When I was a kid and I’d do something dumb (the way kids do), my dad used to call me a “Space Cadet”. It was usually said with love, often with exasperation… but I knew it was always meant with affection. There was a lot of love in the house while I was growing up, even as we tried our parents’ patience time and again. But I did a lot of dumb things, and I got called a Space Cadet a lot. Eventually the nickname started to really stick, and I began to feel like I really was a space cadet, that I did a lot of things wrong. Sometimes I still do.

So I decided a long time ago that when I finally worked up the courage to break out of the mould of ordinary work and do something creative — something I wanted to be proud of — I was going to call my little venture “SpaceCadet”.  I could baptise that old nickname with a new meaning.

Opening SpaceCadet Creations on Etsy is my new venture — my adventure! — where I hand-dye yarns and roving for knitters, crocheters, spinners, and felters.  I hope you find something there that sparks your excitement, because it’s been very exciting for me creating all these yarns and rovings, watching all the colours develop.

I can say, at last, that I am proud to be the SpaceCadet.