hand-dyed

Spotted in the Wild: Socks Knit with SpaceCadet Creations Yarns

By Stephanie

The thing that never fails to take me by surprise me is the way that the colour of a yarn can change as it is knitted up.  As beautiful as it looks in the skein, when the colour repeats are all long and stretched out, is nothing compared how to it looks as you start knitting and the stitches join the colours together in unexpected ways.  It’s so exciting to watch each row unfold!

So exciting, in fact, that it’s sometimes a bit hard for me to send my yarns off to customers…  because I want to knit them up myself and see how they come out.  And so the thing that never fails to absolutely delight me is when customers share pictures of their finished objects and I get to see my yarns all knitted up.   Let me show you two that I think worked out beautifully.

Cindy won this skein of Garden In Spring in the SpaceCadet Creations May Giveaway…

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And she used it to make these fabulous Dancing Diamond Socks by Wendy D. Johnson.  I love how knitting subdues the wild variegation of the colours but still allows the yellow to pop.  The result is just gorgeous!

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When I lifted my first skein of Plumberry out of the dye pot, I loved it — loved it — but I knew that it was the kind of wild variegation that needed a carefully chosen pattern to really bring out the best in the colours.

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And when Sarah chose to knit Pomatomus by Cookie A. with it, I don’t think she could have picked a better pattern for the yarn or a better yarn for the pattern.  These socks are absolutely stunning!

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Thank you so much, Cindy and Sarah, for sharing your beautiful socks with us!

And everyone else, when you finish a project with one of my yarns, please do share it — I just can’t get enough of seeing how those colours turn out!

Softness Radiates from the Screen

By Stephanie

New yarns in the shop are always exciting.  But not nearly as exciting as those yarns are in person — holding them in my hands, they are simply sooo much better than in the pictures.  How I wish you could just reach into this blog post and feel the softness, squeeze the smooshiness.  They are gorgeous!

But since you can’t, pictures will just have to do!  Have a look:

Clockwise from top left: Luna Laceweight in Calm Words, Stella Fingering Weight in City Park, Celeste Fingering Weight in Precise, Celeste Fingering Weight in Spluttermuck, Luna Laceweight in Old Money, Luna Laceweight in True Love’s Aura.

Now, I know it’s tempting but…  no, wait! No, don’t stroke the screen!  You’ll leave fingerprints!!!

Scenes from a Fiber Life: Laceweight NeverEnding

By Stephanie

With great beauty comes… great danger? Great sacrifice?  We all know that laceweight yarns are beautiful — there’s something inherent in its delicacy, and the luxury of its fibers, and the way it soaks up colour.  Laceweight is beautiful.

And dangerous, as I recently found out.  But sacrifice?  The beauty of laceweight requires sacrifice?  Not for you, dear readers, but it does for me.  Let’s talk about my arms.

My arms are going to fall off.  They ache, they’re sore.  And as much as my eyes love laceweight, my arms hate it.  At 1300 wonderful, delicate, luxurious yards per 100g, it takes a loooooong time to reskein.  I have to sit and turn that skein winder round and round and round and round…

When the dyed skein goes on the swift, it really doesn’t look much different from any other skein.  My arms are blissfully ignorant of what’s about to happen.

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But after a few minutes of winding, when my arm is expecting the job to be half done, I look and find there’s only wee bit of yarn on the skein winder…

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And so I keep winding.  Round and round and round and round…

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And after what seems like forever, I look up and…

.the swift looks as full as it ever was!  HOW can that be?!?

My arms are not happy with me.  My arms are burning and fed up and ready to quit.  It takes some convincing to get them to keep going.

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But after a long, long time, the skein winder starts to look lovely and full like this…

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And the swift finally starts to look a bit emptier…!

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And then just as my arms get to the point where they are ready to fall right off, we reach the end.

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And then it’s done.  And it’s gorgeous.  And I hold the finished skein in my hand and look at how all the colours blend together gently and I am in love!  Laceweight is worth it, I tell myself.

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Until I lay that skein aside, and pick up the next one and start to arrange it on the swift and my arms realise what’s happening… and they don’t like it.  They don’t like it one bit.

New Yarns in the Shop

By Stephanie

I’m really excited to show you some of the new colourways I’ve put in the shop this week!   I have to say, I just cannot get my camera to really capture them, but I hope you get a good idea here.

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Dragonfly

Dragonfly flitters by, catches the light and throws back iridescence — greens, lilacs, pinks that shimmer in the sun for only a moment… and then are gone. This skein is over 100g of Superwash Merino in Celeste, a wonderfully soft 3-ply fingering weight yarn.

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Mountain Mist

These are ancient mountains, gentle and rounded, that seem to go on forever, ridge upon ridge disappearing into the distance as the night falls and the mist rolls in — deep blue fading into soft purples that stretch as far as the eye can see. This skein is over 100g of Superwash Merino in Celeste, a wonderfully soft 3-ply fingering weight yarn

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Sunflowers

Happy yellow that welcomes the sunlight, stretching skyward, petals open to catch the rays. Yellow petals, deep brown seedheads — happy sunflowers basking in the mid-day sun. This skein is over 100g of Superwash Merino in Celeste, a wonderfully soft 3-ply fingering weight yarn, which has been dyed using a technique to create random, short bursts of contrasting colour.

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Midnight Swim

Dark waters, dark night. Soft waters, cool and still, flashing deep blue, purples, greens. Water dark as bruise, quiet as the night, so cool on the skin… Irresistible. This skein is over 100g of Stella, a beautiful and distinctive 2-ply fingering weight yarn in 80% Superwash Merino and 20% Nylon.

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These skeins are over 100g of Superwash Merino in Celeste, a wonderfully soft 3-ply fingering weight yarn. There are two skeins available, sold in separate listings.

And there are more new colourways going into the shop later this week.  Keep your eyes open for them!

Beautiful One-Skein Knitting Patterns for Hand-Dyed Yarns

By Stephanie

One of the most exciting things about buying yarn from small, indie dyers like SpaceCadet Creations is that each skein is hand-created and unique, dyed on its own or in a very small dyelot, and not like any other skein in the world.  But now and again, someone will look at my shop and then contact me to say that they love my colours but… what can be made with yarns from such small-batch dyelots?  What can be knit out of a single skein of yarn?

Now, there are legions of addicted sock knitters who could probably jump in with an answer that question (“Socks!”) but, in reality, there are just so many beautiful projects that can be created from just one or two skeins of hand-dyed yarn!  Let me share a few patterns that have caught my eye…

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Simple Things by Mary-Heather Cogar

© Mary-Heather Cogar, Used With Permission

This beautiful shawlette was designed to show off the colours of a of a single skein of sock yarn.  Mary-Heather chose simple stitchwork  to compliment the colours of even the most wildly variegated colourway, such as those in Sunset over a Stormy Sea, and the regular increases help reduce the chance of pooling.  The shawlette looks fantastic tucked into the top of a jacket — stylish and functional at the same time.  And I think it’s a perfect first project for anyone who is experimenting with hand-dyed yarns.

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SweaterBabe.com’s #87 One Skein Lace Fingerless Gloves

© SweaterBabe.com, Used with Permission

I fell in love with these the minute I saw them!  The lace pattern is delicate without being fussy, and the gloves look warm and lady-like at the same time.  Using just a single skein of yarn, I think this pattern would look stunning knit up in an autumn colourway.

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Dalia by Ariane Caron-Lacoste

© Ariane Caron-Lacoste, Used with Permission

This little cowl is so sweet, so perfect, that I every time I see the picture I just want to cast on for it RIGHT NOW.  It’s always at a moment when I’m busy dyeing or blogging and so I can’t cast on but… still, as soon as I see it…  I want to start it RIGHT NOW!  I love the simplicity of it, how quick it would be…  how it would be a little gift just for me.  I’m seeing it in a warm colourway such as Bramble Rose.  You know…  I really am seeing it.

In fact, I may just have to stop blogging and go cast it on.  Right now.

Maybe I’ll Become a Cook

By Stephanie

Sometimes it’s good to push yourself outside your comfort zone.  And if it works, it’s such a boost to the ego!  And when it doesn’t…  well…

Well, indeed.  Last week I pushed myself right out of my comfort zone and straight into yellow.  I don’t do yellow a great deal — it’s just never been a personal favourite of mine.  But yellow is a great colour — sunny and bright, and filled with warmth.  It was time to tackle yellow.

And, while I was pushing outside my comfort zone, I decided to shake things up even more by trying a new dyeing technique.  It was something I’d never tried before — indeed, I’d never even seen it done before — and I got excited about it as soon as I thought of it.  The technique would create very short bursts of colour — just one, two, maybe three knit stiches long — and unusual blends of shades.  I couldn’t wait to try it.

And so I took a deep breath and mixed up my yellows…  and in went the yarn.

And what came out did not thrill me.  The yellows were beautiful, but The Technique had not worked the way I had expected at all.  The short bursts of colour were there, but were much more ragged at the edges than I had hoped, and the shading was simply too haphazard for my tastes.  I pursed my lips and shrugged…  Chalk it up to a learning experience and be done with it, I thought.

“I like them!  They’re interesting.  They’re… earthy!”  Turning these yarns over in her hands, my friend clearly saw something in them that I hadn’t spotted at first.  And she was right.  The shades are earthy, and the colour changes aren’t ragged as I first thought, they’re organic.  And the yarns, I suddenly realised, are beautiful.  Even if they weren’t what I was expecting and are completely outside my comfort zone.

So here they are!

The idea behind this one started as Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, but when it finally dried, I realised it makes me think so much more of Sunflowers, of their lovely golden yellow petals and dark seed-centers, of the earth they sprout from and the sun that nourishes them…

And this one… this one…  I am trying to think of a good name for it, but time and again, all I see is Pasta in a Garlic Pesto.  Even though the colours are exact, no matter which way I turn it, no matter how I look at it, that’s the only thing that comes to mind.

You know, if this dyeing gig doesn’t work out, maybe I could become a cook…