fibre

Dyeing Disaster, Last Minute Save

By Stephanie

This yarn was a dyeing disaster.  I was aiming for Garden In Spring, one of my favourite colourways, and the colour just went all wrong on me.  I pulled it out of the dyepot and… Oh no! The pinks were crazy-bright, the greens were just plain ugly, and the purples totally non-existent.  I have a picture of it…  I can’t even show it to you, it was that awful.  It was embarrassing.

I set it aside and decided not to think about it for a few days.

When I finally went back to it and turned it over in my hands (cringing, cringing the whole time), I realised what I wanted to do with it.  I thought I knew the shade that would salvage it.  I mixed my colours and in went the yarn.  And a little while later, this is what I lifted out…

I had hoped to salvage it — instead, it has been saved.  It came out so much better than I could have hoped!

There’s one skein in Astrid DK and one in Celeste Fingering weight.  And now I just have to decide if they go in the shop or…  if I keep them for myself!!!  I may have to think about this for a spell.

Boy oh boy, it is soooo tempting…

How Thin Can You Spin?

By Stephanie

Do you remember this?

This is the bombyx silk I was going to spun for the second half of the Tour de Fleece, but…  life intervened and I didn’t manage to get that far.  So, running just a wee bit late, I’ve finally got it on my wheel now, and it is a dream to spin.

Not that silk is always a dream to spin…  Bombyx silk generally has a very long staple length, and that can make drafting a challenge.  The distance that you’re used to holding your hands for drafting wool simply isn’t far enough apart when you’re spinning silk, and it can easily become a struggle as you start tugging at both ends of the same fibers.

A few months ago, I spun pure bombyx silk for the first time in many years and, even though I’ve spun a lot of silk in the past, I realised that my hands had forgotten what to do.  It seemed to take forever to retrain my hands (…or more likely, my brain) and until that moment when it finally clicked, I was pulling and tugging on that silk as if I’d never spun in my life.  As a result, the yarn came out much thicker than I’d wanted and lumpier too.  There’s no doubting it’s beautiful to look at, and the colours ethereal, but because I spun so much thicker than I intended, I just didn’t get the yardage I was hoping for.  It’s come out to a measly 143 yards and I’m really not sure what I could make with it.

So now, as I begin spinning this second braid of silk, I am really focusing on spinning as thinly as I possibly can.  And, it turns out, I can spin pretty darned thin!  Now that my hands (and brain) are back in the groove with spinning silk, this is how it’s coming out…

That is, as long as I don’t get too involved in a scary movie on telly and forget to spin super thin (see the occasional thick bits in the photo below?  Yeah… that was when the film hit a tense spot…).  But overall, this is coming out exactly the way I want it.  And now that I’ve got the hang of it, it is just sooo much fun to spin.

And this time, I hope to come out at the end with a really good length of some truly beautiful, smooth, pure silk yarn.

Under the Influence: Your Opinion Please!

By Stephanie

A couple of weeks ago, I changed the theme of my blog (the “theme”, for anyone who is not familiar, is the template that creates the layout of a blog, the way it looks visually).  Previously, I’d been using a theme called Vigilance, which I chose for its clean lines, minimalist style and simple appearance.  I liked it a lot, but I was never happy about the sidebar — I always felt it was hard to see where one item ended and the next began.

So a couple of weeks ago, I went hunting for a new theme and found one I just loved — it’s called Under the Influence and I think it looks great!  It has the same clean lines and simple style that the blog had before, plus a few really cool features like the nifty footer at the bottom of the page (You hadn’t see the footer?  Ooh, quick!… scroll down and have a look!  I’ll wait for you here).  And I’m really happy with the new sidebar — much, much better.

But then, about four days after I installed the new theme, I realised it had one drawback: it’s really hard to see where to leave a comment.  It’s in the small print and it’s just doesn’t stand out that much.

And that’s a huge drawback, because a blog is a two-way conversation, and the comments are the lifeblood of that conversation.  I love hearing from you,  reading your comments, and getting your feedback.  And if it’s hard for you to see where to leave a comment, then all that is going to grind to a halt pretty quickly.

When I first realised, I thought about going back to the old theme  …or maybe looking for yet another one.  But I really like this theme in every other way besides the comment issue, and I’d really like to stay with it.

And I probably will, but I thought I’d ask you guys as well.  Do you think the new theme makes it difficult to leave a comment?  To read others’ comments?  Do you find it confusing  …or did you not even notice the change?  Please leave a comment and let me know.  Just click where it says “Leave a Comment”  (or shows the number of comments) right at the end of this post.

Right there…  No, it’s right there. See it?  Down a bit, and over.  Small type, in red. See it?  There you go!

Cold Waters, a Treasury Surprise

By Stephanie

SpaceCadet yarns have been featured in an Etsy Treasury several times now, and each time I have been absolutely delighted to get the news.  There is nothing quite like having your work choosen by your fellow Etsians and highlighted right there on the screen to make you feel all warm, right down to you toes.

But the interesting thing is that, so far, every time my yarns have been included in a Treasury, it’s been the Freshly Cut Grass colourway that’s been picked — every single time!   And that’s great, because it tells me that the green I created for that colourway is as eye-catching to others as it is to me.  But at the same time, I couldn’t help wondering why none of my other colours were ever chosen — or if they ever would be.

So you can imagine my surprise when I clicked on the link in an email today and found that it was not Freshly Cut Grass but instead Cold Waters that had been chosen for the “I Feel Like a Blue…” Etsy Treasury.  I believe I actually let out a whoooop, I was that excited!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I proudly present you Cold Waters, the newest Etsy Treasury star in the SpaceCadet lineup…

Scenes from a Fiber Life: Skeining Off

By Stephanie

Sometimes when the undyed yarns arrive, they are already in skeins and sometimes they are on cones.  When it’s the latter, they have to be “skeined off” before they can be dyed.

Each skein is wound off individually onto an antique skein winder, and weighed as it goes along.  Then it’s twisted up into that familiar shape, dropped into the basket, and the next skein begins.

The skein winder goes incredibly fast for being such an old girl, and creates a nice breeze, but there’s no doubting that skeining off is hard work, and tiring if there is a lot of yarn to be wound.  But it certainly is lovely to look at.

But then, when isn’t fiber-stuff lovely to look at?

This post is in honour of the fact that a huge delivery of undyed yarn arrived on my doorstep today, beautiful and smooshy and ripe with colour possibilities.  Look for it to start appearing in the SpaceCadet Creations shop very soon!

A Little Lift for your Wednesday

By Stephanie

Wednesdays are hard, I know.  You’re still two long days away from the weekend, and too far from last weekend to go back.  You’re stuck right there in the middle of the work week.  There’s no where to go.

This week, I’ve been attempting to create some new graphics — an ad for Ravelry, and a new banner for the blog and my shop.  It’s all part and parcel of running a small fiber arts business and, while it’s something I’m having to figure out entirely from scratch, I have to say I am really enjoying the learning.  It feels good to stretch  …most of the time.  Sometimes it seems to morph from a learning experience to an exercise in pure frustration, and I am reminded that I am a dyer, a spinner, a knitter — not a graphic artist.

And so it was this week.  I took the pictures, loaded them onto the computer, opened up the software and…  nothing.  Nothing worked the way I wanted it to, nothing would cooperate.  I couldn’t get the graphics to come out the way I’d envisioned them for love nor money   …and so I stopped, and set it all to one side and decided to tackle afresh on another day.

So today is Wednesday, and Wednesdays are hard.  And at some point today, you will come across something that isn’t working for you either, and is just driving you crazy no matter which way you go at it.  When that happens, stop.  Set it aside.  You can tackle it tomorrow, when you are feeling a little fresher.   …When it’s Thursday and you’re that bit closer to the weekend.

And in the meantime, treat yourself to a momentary mid-week pick-me-up, and have a little peek at the one thing that did go right in my little foray into self-taught graphic design: the pictures — just a wee bit fiber eye-candy, to lift your Wednesday.