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!)

Shop Update: a Lunchtime Meditation

24MayApril 14, 2015 By Stephanie

Green leaves on trees, green grass in the park, a barefoot lunch hour sitting in the sun. Summer knitting.

knitting, yarn, indie dyer, handdyed, fiber arts, crochet, sock yarn — Clockwise from top left: Celeste fingering yarn in City Park, Hedgerow, City Park, and Forget Me Nots

Dappled light through the leaves, warm breeze, songbirds calling through the green oasis in the city. Needles softly clicking.

Bright blooms bursting from neat flowerbeds, calm amid the bustle, soaking up sunlight and softening the city-grey. Stitched meditation.

Coming to a LYS Near You…

20MayApril 14, 2015 By Stephanie

When we did our first show earlier this year, the Pittsburgh Knit and Crochet Festival, I wasn’t sure whether I’d enjoy it or not. I mean, I’d never done one before and, to be honest, it was a pretty daunting prospect to meet so many people like that, to put my yarns and colourways out there for them to love or to… walk away from. I was nervous.

I was also being silly, as it turns out. We had a BLAST at Pittsburgh Knit and Crochet! And then again, at HomeSpun Yarn Party — sooooo much fun! I had no idea how exhilarating it would be to finally get to meet so many customers in person, to get that feedback, to make those connections. Just wonderful!

Wholesale? Well, um…

And an even bigger surprise was the requests we got from LYSs for our wholesale information. What a compliment! But, sadly, we were so swamped at the time with the shows and custom requests and the launch of the InterStellar Yarn Alliance that we had to say we didn’t have any ready and we’d get it to them as soon we could…

Does it sound like a brush-off? It wasn’t, honest! We really were that busy!

But the shows are done (for now) and the Yarn Alliance has launched with the first parcels already sent out… and that means we’ve had a little time to catch our breath and put together a wholesale information packet. I’ll be sending those out Friday to everyone who enquired about them

Wholesale? Heck yeah!

So you know what that means, right? It means there’s a chance that SpaceCadet Creations yarns will be coming to an LYS near you, so you can do more than just look at pretty pictures and wonder if it’s the right yarn for you… You can pick it up and pet it and squish it and snorgle it! And believe me, it is sooooo much better in person than it is in the pictures!

And if any other LYSs are interested in carrying SpaceCadet yarns, please do pop over to the Wholesale page and let us know!

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

Are You Ready?

29AprApril 14, 2015 By Stephanie

I’m a little bit excited… I’m a lot excited actually. But I can’t tell you about it because what I’m excited about is the yarn club parcels, which are all finished and ready to be posted out. We’ve spent the whole evening gathering the bits and pieces for them, putting it all together…

And I want to tell you all about it! …And I can’t!!!

But… I can tease you! I can, for instance, show you this…

(I have to admit, I’m really really excited about that one!)

And I can tell you that this goes along with it too…

There’s some of this sort of stuff…

And some nifty stuff to read…

And something else… Something else….

Hmmm… Now, what was it?

Oh yeah! This!

(Wait, you didn’t think I was going to show you the colour, did you?!?)

So… are you ready? Are you ready?!? ‘Cause I totally am!!!.

(And… should I ring your postman and just warn him that you’re gonna be stalking him for the next few days?)

Things My Non-Knitting Sister Says: This Time, It’s Physical

22AprApril 14, 2015 By Stephanie

If you attended either the Pittsburgh Knit and Crochet Festival or HomeSpun Yarn Party this year, you might have met my sister. She was the one running the credit card machine and handing the cash, and she does a great job at that, but she doesn’t know anything about knitting. She lives her life blissfully unaware of all things fiber-related (though I’m not quite sure how that can possibly be blissful!), except when I call and ask if she’d lend a hand.

knitting, yarn, sock yarn, handdyed, indie dyer — Celeste yarn in Baroque

So the whole fiber-festival thing was completely new to her, and it took her pretty much completely by surprise. I think she might have been expecting sweet little old ladies and crocheted toilet paper covers…

Her first words, as we walked past the huge line of fiber-fanatics waiting for the doors to open, were, “People are here already?!? They’re waiting?!?” Her eyes were wide with surprise, and I stopped myself from giggling. She really didn’t know what she was in for.

But she got her second clue a few minutes after the festival got started. We were sitting near to one of the entrances and a woman walked in, went right up to my sister, with a face that looked almost frantic, and exclaimed, “I’m so excited!!!” before rushing off into the crowd.

knitting, yarn, sock yarn, indie dyer, handdyed — Celeste yarn in Cove

“These people are crazy!” my sister said, looking a little frantic herself. “That lady actually grabbed me when she said that! What’s going on?!?”

I couldn’t stop myself laughing now. When you’re a fiber-freak yourself, when you knit and spin every chance you get, when you’re surrounded by all this all the time, you forget that this doesn’t look normal to outsiders. You forget that it seems a bit, well.. yeah… crazy.

But it’s not. It’s perfectly normal. You and I know that. …And my sister will come ’round in time.

yarn, knitting, handdyed, indie dyer, sock yarn — Lucina yarn in Most Ardently