I Can’t Show You This Yarn

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

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

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?

The Perfect Yarn for the Season

This is the season of twinkling stars on cold, cold nights, of candles that glow cheerfully, and holiday lights on trees inside and out…  This is the season of virgin snow glistening in the silver moonlight, of shimmering icicles, of perfect crystalline snowflakes that catch the light in their icy lace. This is the season for Sparkles.

Introducing Lucina, a beautiful fingering yarn that sparkles with all the magic of the season and turns every colourway into something stunning. This is the kind of yarn that catches your eye instantly — that you pick up and don’t want to put down. This is a yarn perfect for the season of Sparkles!

yarn, fingering, merino, superwash, wool, sparklesLucina Yarn in Midnight Swim

The best light for photography is always natural light, outdoors.  And even though it was freezing today, I wanted to be sure to capture the way this yarn shimmers so gorgeously, so I braved the bitter wind and the icy temperatures and took the whole batch of Lucina outside for a photoshoot.  And just as my finger froze to the bone and I began cursing the winter, a gentle snow began to fall — big, fat, beautiful flakes that landed softly on everything and then… just stayed there, almost too perfect to be believed.

And so, the sparkles in these photos are the beauty of the yarn, but the snowflakes are courtesy of Mother Nature.  And as I was trying so hard to show off my lovely new yarn, didn’t she just go and steal the show?!?

Snowflake on Ripe

Snowflake on Evening Fog

Snowflakes on Nightfall

Yarn, fingering weight, sparkles, superwash merinoSnowflakes on Midnight Swim

yarn, fingering, superwash merino, sparkle, sock yarnSnowflakes on Mermaid’s Tail

Cooking Up Something Special

In every home across the country this week, the scene will be exactly the same…  There will be mixing bowls filled with the most amazing treasures, and pots gently bubbling on the stove.  There will be the old favourites and new recipes, last minute changes and quick saves when things go wrong.  A pinch of this and a dash of that…

And it’s been no different here.   Well…  ok, then, maybe a wee bit different here in the SpaceCadet house.  Here’s what I’ve been busily cooking up this week…

Stella Yarn in Spice Trade


BFL Fiber in SeaFoam


Stella Yarn In Funky Ballet Shoes


Celeste Yarn in Frost


BFL Fiber in Flock of Parrots

 

Celeste Yarn in Iris


…Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

 

Pattern Roll-Call: Perfect, Absolutely Perfect!

I know two little girls who are mad-crazy-keen about ballet. They begin dancing the moment they wake up, and they dance all through their day, and they don’t stop dancing until they go to bed. Actually, they probably don’t stop dancing until they fall asleep — I am quite certain they lie in the dark and practice their tondues under the bedsheets until sleep finally steals them away.

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And they would wear their ballet shoes every single day if they could. But they’re not allowed, because the ballet shoes get lost — absent-mindedly set down on the wrong shelf or accidentally kicked under the sofa or sinking slowly to the bottom of the toybox — and are nowhere to be found on ballet day. And so those most-beloved shoes get secreted safely away after each class and the disappointed girls must instead practice their dancing in their socks. It’s not at all ballerina-like!

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I’m always on the lookout to bring you great patterns that would make the most of single skeins of SpaceCadet yarn, and when I came across the Open House Socks by Kate Atherley, technical editor of Knitty and knitting editor of A Needle Pulling Thread, I fell in love them! They’re sweet, romantic, and cheeky all at once — and, as a bonus, each pair takes only about half a skein of yarn. They’d make a great quick-knit holiday gift — perfect for padding around the house on cold winter days. I looked at them and thought, they make me want to… dance!

© Kate Atherley, Used with Permission

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Wait… Make me want to dance?!? I thought immediately about those two little dancers… I could knit them ballet shoes! I could knit them lovely ballet shoes so they could dance all week whilst their real ballet shoes were safely tucked away. There could be no better Christmas present for them on Earth!

In the dyeing studio, I sat and thought for a while about the perfect colour. I could do them in the standard ballet-shoe pink-beige but… well, while these two are budding ballerinas, they are also little girls who love all the stuff that little girls everywhere love: sparkly and bright and fancy and pink. Plain ballet shoes would never do — if they were going to have custom knit ballet slippers, then they would have them in a pink to thrill their hearts. And I began mixing the dyes…

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I emailed Kate and told her my plan, and she wrote straight back and very kindly offered to help me adjust the pattern to suit these much smaller feet. What a lovely thing to do!

So once I’ve done my gauge swatch and worked out some calculations, I will cast on with this wonderful, crazy pink. And then I can’t wait to share with you my new works in progress!

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But shhhh… mind no-one tells the girls, ok?