Gimme Gimme Gimme Your Questions About Hand-Dyed Yarns!

27MayApril 14, 2015 By Stephanie

I’ve been working on a lot of things that have got me pretty excited lately — things that I hope will help us to bring you more of the best and most beautiful yarns that we can create. And, for one of those things, I really need your help….

I’ve been putting together an eBook, a little guide to choosing and using hand-dyed yarns. Because they can be really special things, hand-dyed yarns, can’t they? Beautiful, enticing, intoxicating, and… sometimes overwhelming. When you first see them, you want to dive in the colours. When you hold them, the colours change as they catch the light. And when you cast them on, the results can be absolutely spectacular… or sometimes terribly disappointing. Yep, there is a real art to using hand-dyed yarns!

hand-dyed yarn, yarn, knitting, crochet, indie dyer — Celeste Yarn in Garden In Spring

So, as I’m putting this eBook together, I’ve been trying to look at my yarns through the eyes of my customers. I’m asking myself the questions that they have — that you have — when picking yarns and choosing colourways. And, as I was trying to put myself in your place, trying to come up with these questions, it suddenly dawned on me… why don’t I just ask you?

Huh! Now there’s an idea!

A gentler, less intimidating variegated yarn — Fingering Yarn in Bamboo, Superwash Merino, and Nylon, in Translucence

So, when you bought your first hand-dyed variegated yarn, what questions went through your head? Were you confident in choosing a pattern for it, or did you have trouble? Were you worried it would pool, or did you not care? Or maybe even hope it would pool? Did you shy away from wildest colours or gravitate straight to them? And did you do anything to tame them …or did you just let them rock?

When you work with beautiful, wonderful, variegated hand-dyed yarns, what are your biggest questions? What perplexes you? What do you wish you had a little guidance on? Go on and tell me! Put your questions in the comments below and you’d really be helping me out.

And if you have answers to any of the questions, leave them too! Because I suspect that the answers are actually just as individual as the yarns that inspire them…!

(Hey, by the way, I’m not guaranteeing I’ll have all the answers. But if life is about the journey, then the journey has to start with the questions, right? Hit me!)

Bamboo, to Shine in the Summer Sun

03MayApril 14, 2015 By Stephanie

Are you ready for summer? Ready for those warm breezes, some long cool drinks, and golden light filtered through the lush green that you missed so much these past months? Yeah, me too. I really, really am ready.

And those kinds of days call for a really special yarn. Something like… bamboo. Not only because bamboo really does evoke thoughts of those tropical breezes accompanied by tropical drinks but, more importantly, because it has a spectacular sheen that captures the warmth of the sun and reflects it back in way that is everything you want in a summer yarn.

Here’s to those lazy days to come, gentle days bathed in golden sunlight, and lot of glorious, shimmery, summer knitting…

Clockwise from top left: fingering yarn with bamboo in Soliel, Pink Sun, Juicy, Evening Fog, Translucence, and SeaFoam

Shop Update: Yarns for Spring in All Her Guises!

12AprApril 14, 2015 By Stephanie

Spring is a conundrum. One day it’s gloriously sunny and warm, and the next has a chill wind and grey skies. Spring is a tease. Spring is frustrating! Spring is fickle…

And today’s shop update reminds me a lot of Spring. Some of the colourways are light and bright and sunny, full of the colours of newly opened buds and warm days to come. And some of the colourways are dark and brooding, the days of wet and drizzle that are so necessary to process of Spring’s unfurling…

From left to right, starting top-left: Celeste yarn in African Violets, Poppies in the Fields, and Tiger Lilies; Estelle yarn in a Dept of Rocket Science colourway, Celeste in Baroque, Celeste in Carnival; Estelle in Cold Flame, Translucence, and Grave Goods; Estelle in Hieroglyphics, a Dept of Rocket Science colourway, and Celeste in Grave Goods.

Pattern RollCall: The Knits You Loved at HSYP!

05AprApril 14, 2015 By Stephanie

At HomeSpun Yarn Party, we had finished two pieces that got so many comments, so many questions, so many compliments, that I knew they had to be showcased in a Pattern Rollcall!

Paint the Sky

The first was the Paint the Sky wrap by Susan Wolcott of Y2Knit, a beautiful rectangular scarf with delicate yarn overs that rise up the length of it like bubbles through water. Knit in a semi-solid yarn, the pattern would really shine, but done in a varigated yarn, it becomes an absolute gorgeous riot of colour.

We knit ours in one skein of Lucina yarn in a gentle pink-and-purple colourway called Sweet Dreams, and it was gorgeous! But it would look stunning in any of these yarns that have just gone in the shop:

yarn, hand-dyed, sock yarn — (clockwise from upper left): Lucina sparkly yarn in Most Ardently, Swollen, Carnival, and Baroque

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Fleurdelise

The second finished piece that got so much attention was the Fleurdelise One Skein Triangle Shawl by Michelle Miller of Fickle Knitter Designs.

This was knit for me by my friend Natalie (as my birthday present!) using one skein of Lucina in SouthEasterly, a yarn that is varigated but all without a great deal of contrast in the colours. With a more complicated lace pattern like this, it often works best to use a yarn that’s either semi-solid or has a simpler change of colours. Personally, I’d love to see how it comes out in two of our most popular colourways, Sugared Violets and Beguile.

yarn, sock yarn, hand-dyed — (left to right) Lucina Yarn in Sugared Violets and Beguile

You can see why these patterns got so much attention at HSYP, can’t you? So beautiful!

Last Day to Join the InterStellar Yarn Alliance!

31MarApril 14, 2015 By Stephanie

Sunday was the HomeSpun Yarn Party and we had a FABULOUS time!!!! Thank you to everyone who came out to Savage Mill — it was great to meet you all, and to talk about yarns and fibery things. You guys made it so much fun!

And SpaceCadet yarn was popular too. The booth was packed for most of the day…

spacecadet, space cadet, yarn, sock yarn, knitting, hand dyed — The booth was packed!

We really didn’t expect to be so mobbed — at times the line seemed to extend right out of the booth space itself!

hsyp, spacecadet, space cadet, yarn, sock yarn, knitting — The line!

.And it’s wonderful to get that kind of support, but we were very sorry that our customers had to stand in line so long to buy our yarn. So, we’ve all talked it through and come up with a couple of ideas that should make everything a bit faster and easier for our customers next year.

Speaking of fast… The opening time for subscriptions to the SpaceCadet’s yarn club has flown by: Today is the last day to sign up for the InterStellar Yarn Alliance!!! If you’ve been thinking about it, wanting to do it…. but haven’t made it happen yet, sign up TODAY! You can click here to read all the details of the club, or click here to go straight to the shop and sign up. Come on! We’d love to have you join us!

And finally, we’ve been busy this week getting things organised and getting yarns back in the shop. There are some in there now, but lots and lots more to go in over the next few days — and lots of new colourways. Keep your eyes open for them!

(And, just between you and me, if you liked Beguile and Sugared Violets — the chocolate-and-pink and chocolate-and-purple yarns that sold out at Pittsburgh Knit&Crochet — make sure you keep checking in!)

Emptying the Shop!

25MarApril 14, 2015 By Stephanie

Don’t panic! There’s a good reason to empty the shop and it’s only temporary. More on that further down. But first, we head out this weekend to Savage, Maryland to be part of the HomeSpun Yarn Party on Sunday, and this place is a flurry of activity getting last-minute prep done. And I know I mentioned in my last post what a busy time it’s been around here, but I did I forget to mention what an exciting time it’s been? I think I did..

Profiled on the HomeSpun Yarn Party website

Exciting is not just because of all the prep Homespun, but also because HomeSpun Yarn Party did a feature post about SpaceCadet Creations on their website. It was such a rush to see our name and our yarns up there with all the other fantastic indie dyers and spinners who go to HomeSpun!

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Interviewed on Falling Stitches

And, to add exciting on top of exciting, the designer Ariane Caron-Lacote interviewed me on her blog, Falling Stitches. I’ve been a fan of her designs for a while, and I was so delighted that she asked me to be interviewed. Pop over and have a read and, while you’re at it, check out her designs (including my favourite, Dalia).

Emptying the Shop

I will remove most of the yarns and fiber from the shop while we’re at Homespun (to ensure that we don’t inadvertently sell any of the same yarns twice!), but I will get everything back in again as quickly as possible. I will probably take the stock out on Saturday night, and then you can look for the shop to be fully stocked again sometime between Sunday night and Tuesday morning. If there’s something in the shop right now that you really love, grab it now!

And, of course, I will keep the subscription buttons for the InterStellar Yarn Alliance live, so that you join and become a member any time you like! Remember, there’s less than a week left to sign up for the Yarn Alliance — subscriptions close March 31, 2011!