Last week I asked you all to help me choose one of the four Tradewinds to go forward with as a colourway for the shop. As the responses rolled in, I was so pleased to see so many of you reply and it was really interesting to see which ones you picked. Thank youall for your comments! And please do remember to mention your comment on your next SpaceCadet order, so I can be sure to give you that $4 credit.
And so now, which one will it be…? Well, technically, The Sea Below got the most comments — by one, to be exact.
The Sea Below
However, as the week went on and I was visiting the post again and again to read your responses, and I kept seeing the pictures… and looking the yarns here on my desk… I realised that it was Westerly that was really calling to me. So my vote would be for Westerly — one extra vote that brings the count to even for Westerly and The Sea Below.
Westerly
So I think the only fair thing to do is to call it a draw and say that they both deserve to be in the shop! The next step is to do a few more test runs and make sure that the recipe that worked for the first skein will produce consistent results for future skeins. One that’s done, you can look for them to appear in the shop over the next couple of weeks!
“I’m inspired!” Heather said after reading Pattern Roll-Call: Something Gorgeous Around Your Shoulders, and she ordered a skein of Celeste in Red Brick. Last week, she showed me what she made with it. It’s a gorgeous, lacy cowl — I don’t think she could have picked a nicer pattern. And I thought you might like to see too…
.
The pattern is Eclipse by Jacquelyn Ridzy — so simple and really lovely.
.
It always amazes me how the colours in yarns totally transform when it’s knitted up. Look at the way the red flows into the purple! And those little flecks of gold really pop.
..
And it’s got this sweet little garter-stitch border. I love it!
.
I can’t tell you how much I love it when people share their projects with me. Thanks, Heather — your cowl is gorgeous!
When I tell people that I dye yarn, I get a variety of responses — from surprised to confused to intrigued. Occasionally, I find the person I’m talking to is a knitter, and that’s always a nice surprise for both of us. I love it when that happens.
.
Sometimes the person asks if I can teach them to dye, or if they can come and watch the process. And I always struggle with that, because I’m not sure what I’d show them. The mechanics of dyeing are no secret — they’re well documented in books and websites — and it’s easy to learn how to do it.
.
But the Process happens in my head — it’s when I think of the colours and the combinations I want to create, and I work backward to figure out how to mix the dyes to get exactly what I’m visualising. The Process is me experimenting with colours, making mistakes, learning from them, saving them at the last minute, and learning some more. And I honestly don’t know how I could show that to anyone without them actually getting inside my head.
.
But there is something I can show you. It’s the most important part of dyeing.
It took me a while to figure it out, but it’s the one piece of equipment you really cannot be without.
.
It’s not the wool. It’s not the dyes. It’s not the dyepots, nor a special magical stirrer that makes the colours come out just right…
.
The most important piece of equipment a dyer possesses is…
.
…her Sharpie pen, so she can write NO FOOD on every piece of dyeing equipment.
.
Because poisoning your family by accidentally serving dinner out of the bowl you’ve been dyeing in really takes the shine off of achieving even the perfect colour!
Megan was thinking of a cardigan, something simple, with a crew neck… maybe with snowflakes. The kind of go-to cardigan that could keep her warm and cosy all winter long. She was excited to get it on her needles, and asked me to dye the colours of Frost.
It would have white, of course, and a soft silver grey, and… and… ah yes, that lovely cool blue of winter shadows. I couldn’t wait to get started!
The key was getting the balance right: the amount of white to blue to grey, and the intensity of the colours. Frost can be soft and light, or it can hard and crisp; sparkling bright in the sun, or shadowy and blue. I wanted to make sure that Megan got the Frost that she had in her mind, so I dyed it twice and let her choose.
I loved pulling the yarns out of the dyepot, seeing how the colours came together. But, better than that, Megan loved the colours — she said her yarn was exactly what she was hoping for. And I can tell you that nothing is so nice for a dyer to hear!
I am a knitter and, to me, knitting is second nature. I knit without looking, I knit whilst reading and, when I’m really tired but I just have to finish one more row, I knit with my eyes closed. And I know that this looks like magic to non-knitters but, to me, knitting is easy.
The real magic is crochet. Crochet is knitting’s mysterious twin… It amazes me, it baffles me! I tried to teach myself to crochet once — I managed a little strip of fabric (that with the addition of some knitted flowers became quite a nice choker), but I quickly realised that it’s crocheters who make the real magic happen. Here are three patterns that really inspire me to pick up a hook and try my hand at crochet again.
Here is a crochet at its most spellbinding. I love the drama of Robyn Chachula‘s unusual cowl, the way the chain-stitched edging forms a striking cobweb that can be worn gathered up around the neck or draped dramatically across the body. I’d love to see this done in SpaceCadet’s Astrid yarn in a rich, deep colourway such as Desert Wine to bring a dash of glamour to a new winter coat.
Sharon Silverman conjured up something truly special when she designed this spectacular shawl. The magic is in the changing stitch pattern that creates distinct bands of lacy texture from top to bottom. Worked in lace weight yarn, this would look fresh and light in SpaceCadet’s Luna Laceweight in Old Money, or darkly dramatic in Luna Laceweight in Plum Wine.
The magic of Brittany Tyler‘s charming little hat in is the way it gathers up the colours of varigated yarns and distributes them in little pools across the crocheted fabric. Quirky and sweet with a flower detail, it would bring out the striking colours of SpaceCadet’s Astrid yarn in Sleep Deep or look cute as a button in Sailor’s Warning.
One thing I’ve discovered since opening SpaceCadet Creations is that I really love photographing yarn. I really love it. When I get the camera in there, in close, and the light is just right and colours are popping and I can almost feel the texture coming right through the picture, I get so excited. Mmmmm… yarn porn — is there anything better?
And I suspect that paragraph is completely incomprehensible to anyone who is not yarn-crazy… But you understand, don’t you? Yeah, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
But sometimes, it goes wrong. I’ve got my camera there, the light is right, the macro is doing its thing… but the colours just aren’t coming out right. It should be working, but it’s just not. And I can’t tell you how crazy-making it is when that happens — because I’ve put a lot of effort into the colours I put in my yarns, and it’s incredibly frustrating when I just cannot get the camera to capture those colours.
This week, I’ve put a bunch of gorgeous yarns in the shop. I love them! Some are sublimely coloured, some are subtle, and some are quirky, but they’re all beautiful to look at…
But see that one in the middle, down at the bottom? The one with a lot of blue and what looks like maybe black? That was one of those yarns that simply refused to be photographed. Flat out refused. Oh, it looks nice enough in the picture but, in real life, it’s just so much more — deep, vibrant purples, dark greens and browns, amazing blues. It’s so dark and rich and moody… truly stunning. But could I capture that on film? Could I heck! And it was driving me crazy!
So, if you can’t fight it, join it. So, here’s how I’m going to look at it: see that picture there in the middle, and the bottom of the page? That one is there to make all the other pictures look even better. Seriously — look at them. Doesn’t that one picture make the colours in the one above it look so subtle and soft? And doesn’t it just make the pinks in the one to the right look vibrant? See what I mean?
And so that bad picture serves a good purpose now. But what’s even better is what will happen when someone buys that yarn… Because when they pull it out of the box and see its true colours… they’re going to understand just how frustrating that camera can be!
