knitting

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!

Dyes Mixed by Hand, From Primaries

By Stephanie

Tucked away in the description of my yarns, right down there in the last paragraph, are these words: “Each item is individually hand-dyed by the SpaceCadet, using professional grade acid dyes which are mixed by hand from primaries”.  That last bit is really important to me — mixed by hand from primaries.  Every colour you see in my yarns and fiber has been created by hand, conjured up from only the primaries and black.  It’s both the entire reason that making hand-dyed yarns excites me so much and the source of more than a little pride for me.

I see a colour in my mind (or, more usually, several colours together) that I know I want to dye and I start dissecting them.  If it’s a purple, is it a red purple or a blue purple?  If it’s a darker shade, I gauge how much black is needed to darken it.  If it’s lighter, I work out the dye-to-water ratio it requires.  And then I calculate in the personality of the fiber — every fiber takes dye in its own unique way, so the same colours can come out wildly different.  And taking all that together, I mix up the dyes in the way that I think is going to create the colour I see in my mind, submerge the yarn, and… wait.

And the moment that I pull the yarn out again, and see whether my calculations — and my instinct — were correct, that is the most exciting moment in the whole dyeing process.  When I get it right,  I go a little wild, grabbing friends, family, any passers-by and saying, “Look! Look! this is the colour I was going for and this is what I got!”

Thinking abou this the other day, I wondered if all this excitement wasn’t really a bit ridiculous…?  I mean, really, it’s just colour.  Painters do it all the time, don’t they?  And they not only mix their own colours but then go on to create something with them.  They don’t just sit there crowing over all the little puddles of colours they’ve created on their palettes!

But then I realised that, unlike painters, when I mix my dyes, I’m doing it blind.  The colours in the water are sometimes a good indication, but often not.  And besides, the insides of the dyepots aren’t white so what I see in them is always distorted anyway.  No, there’s no way to know if the colour is right until the yarn goes into the water.  Dyeing is a one-shot deal.

So when I pull the yarn or fiber out of the dyepot and it’s exactly the colour I had envisioned, it’s pretty darned exciting.  For this yarn, I imagined cornflowers, that lovely soft violet-blue that seems to be everywhere this time of year.

Merino and Silk Laceweight Yarn in Cornflowers

When I lifted the yarn out of the dyebath, I knew I’d nailed the colour.  And, yeah, I am really proud to be able to say I mixed these colours by hand from primaries.

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!

Dyeing Disasters and Silver Linings: Take Two

By Stephanie

I dyed some fiber in the Sailor’s Warning colourway, but I wasn’t happy with the way it came out.  Don’t get me wrong — it was beautiful — but it just wasn’t quite Sailor’s Warning to me.   It wasn’t different enough to be its own new colourway, but I wasn’t happy putting it in the shop when it didn’t look exactly as I’d intended.

…But how can I waste 4oz of beautiful, soft-as-clouds merino fiber?!?  I can’t!  And besides, I know that, even though it wasn’t exactly perfect as fiber, the colours will blend and soften when it’s spun and it will look gorgeous.

So I am spinning it up, and it will go in the shop as hand-spun.  Keep your eyes open for it!

How Much Yardage to Expect with Handspun Yarns

By Stephanie

A customer recently wrote to ask me how much handspun yarn she could expect get from a braid of my hand-dyed fiber and, to be honest, I was at a bit of a loss.  How much yarn you’ll get varies from spinning style to spinning style  …and from spinner to spinner.  The thicker the yarn, the less yardage; the thinner it’s spun, the more yardage.  Beyond that, it’s a very hard question to answer.

Hand-dyed BFL Combed Top, in Garden in Spring

And especially for me, because I hardly ever calculate the yardage on my handspun.  I have no idea why — I just never do!

So I turned to my friend Natalie who is a more experienced (and excellent) handspinner and posed my customer’s question to her.  She replied, “It’s usually 20 – 30 % less yardage than you’d get from the same amount (grams/ounces) of commercially spun yarn of the same weight (worsted, dk, fingering etc) because handspun tends to be denser. From 4oz, I’d expect 300-400 yards fingering; probably 200-300 of a dk/worsted range.” A much more technical and useful answer than mine!

The yarn spun by my friend from the Garden In Spring BFL

And then she added, “Hard to judge though… It’s all very variable.” Which made me feel a bit better!

Dyeing Disasters and Silver Linings

By Stephanie

When I’m dyeing, I always go into my studio with a fixed idea of the colours I’m hoping to create.  I see them in my mind and that’s what I’m aiming for as I mix up the dyes.  And most of the time, I hit pretty close to the mark.  But sometimes…  sometimes what I pull out of the dyepot is nothing like what I was expecting.

And I’m always so disappointed, because I really wanted the colours I saw in my head.  But then I realise that even though the result wasn’t what I was expecting, it’s alright, because for someone else, it will be exactly what they were looking for.

Vineyard Stain was exactly that kind of dyeing disaster.  I was aiming for something else entirely, and couldn’t believe what came out of the dyepot.  And then I looked at it and realised it was lovely, with all the complexity and depth of a beautiful red wine.  When that skein sold, I was almost disappointed to not get to keep it myself!  And, because the colour had been a complete fluke, I wasn’t really sure I could reproduce it.

But I’d kept very careful notes as I dyed it and so, when I tried to create the same colourway again, I was relieved to see that what came out of the dyepot, though slightly more intense, was most definitely Vineyard Stain.  Maybe even better the second time around.

Into The Deep, on the other hand, was a completely different type of dyeing disaster.  What came out of the dyepot actually was what I’d been visualising in my mind but, in real life, it just didn’t look good.  Not at all.  I quickly tried a few different things to remedy the situation — a little more of this dye, a quick dip in that one — and I didn’t write any of them down.  And then I realised what shade this yarn really needed to make it alright, and I mixed it up and quickly submerged the skeins.  And what came out of the pot thirty minutes later was just breathtaking!  The silver lining to my dyeing disaster.

But I hadn’t written any of it down.  And I know — to my deep regret — I will never be able to produce Into The Deep again.