Today is the Day! The Yarn Alliance is Open for Subscriptions!

04MarApril 22, 2016 By Stephanie

Today is one of my hands-down favourite days of the year, one of those days that I look forward to for months… because today the InterStellar Yarn Alliance opens for subscriptions!

It happens only twice a year and just for two weeks — a really special event –and it’s so exciting to see all the new and returning members come rushing in. I know it means we’re getting it right and making our members happy. And this last session has been a blast! From the deeply saturated colourways, to the awesome gifts, to all the creativity and fun our club members brought to the Photo Scavenger Hunt, being part of the Yarn Alliance is a ton of fun!

But don’t take my word for it. Here’s what our club members have to say…

So, what do you get when you join?

…beautiful yarns, colourways you might never have dared try but suddenly realise you love, and some seriously fabulous gifts!

As a member of the InterStellar Yarn Alliance, you’ll receive a fabulous parcel delivered to their door every other month, containing:

SpaceCadet^® yarn (light to medium weight) in an exclusive Yarn Alliance colourway (guaranteed not to be offered on the SpaceCadet^® website for at least 6 months)
A great Yarn Alliance gift tucked into every parcel!
The SpaceCadet’s Log exploring the inspiration for each colourway.
The InterStellar Yarn Alliance newsletter with periodic special offers exclusively for members.
A 15% off coupon every six months
And your entry to an awesome community of club members who share pattern ideas, cheer you on, and make our activities so much fun!

Plus, Sweater Quantities!

One gorgeous skein just isn’t enough? You also have an exclusive opportunity to order more skeins custom-dyed in the latest club colourway. You’ll receive an email with all the details about a week after your parcel goes out — and then all you have to do is pick your project!

A 6 month subscription (3 parcels) starts at $145
and a 12 month subscription (6 parcels) starts at $249

Ready? Let’s do this!

Click a button below to choose your subscription length:

Check Out our Gorgeous Colourways from Previous Parcels…

Hop on board and grab your spot!

Click a button below:

And we all know clubs are always more fun with friends, right? Definitely! So please share it!

On Twitter: Squee! The Yarn Alliance from SpaceCadet is open for subscriptions – check it out! http://ctt.ec/u9dZH+ @spacecadetyarn
On Facebook: Squee! The Yarn Alliance from SpaceCadet is open for subscriptions – check it out! http://goo.gl/1DqDkj
On Ravelry: Squee! The Yarn Alliance from SpaceCadet is open for subscriptions – check it out! http://goo.gl/1DqDkj

Important Details and Policies: Six month subscriptions include 3 parcels; twelve month subscriptions include 6 parcels. Parcels will be sent out in early January, March, May, July, September, and November. Subscription openings will be available in March and September. Shipping within the United States is included in the price; extra charges apply for shipping outside the US. Normal subscription openings for the InterStellar Yarn Alliance are two weeks only in March and September of each year. Cancellation policy: Because we often purchase supplies for all the parcels immediately after the subscription period ends, refunds are generally not available. However, if there are extenuating circumstances, please contact us as soon as possible and we will try to do what we can. By purchasing a subscription, you acknowledge and agree to these policies.

Any questions? We’re always happy to help: missioncontrol(at)spacecadetyarn(dot)com

A Reminder Worth Sharing

17Sep By Stephanie

I have to share with you something wonderful that happened this week that reminded me what all this is about. It’s easy to think that what I do as a dyer and what you do as a knitter or crocheter is about producing things… about making scarves and hats and sweaters and stuff. It’s not. What this is really about is what it does for us — you and me — on the inside. It calms our souls and quietens our minds. It gives us pause and focus and a kind of joy that I can’t explain that comes from working with beautiful yarn and our own two hands. And, even better, it creates connections with others who share our passion for the fiber arts. There is something there that is so much deeper than simply what we produce and, in the midst of all our busy-ness, it is good to be reminded of that.

And here was my reminder this week: I received a message on Ravelry, a spontaneous note from a Yarn Alliance club member to tell me how much the latest parcel lifted her. She said, “I was having a really crap day (24 years in the military left me with PTSD and severe depression…). Your little parcel was on my steps when I came home… The yarn is gorgeous and the colors just spoke to me. I know it sounds silly, but your yarn helped me find a happy place.”

It doesn’t sound silly to me, not at all. I understand completely the power of yarn to lift your soul — it’s why I do what I do. And spontaneous notes like that change it from something I have do on my own in a studio to a way of creating amazing, personal connections with other people — with customers, with club members… with you. To me, that’s something incredible and it makes me feel like I have the best job in the world.

Robin’s Chevron Blanket from Ina Braun on Vimeo.

I got another email a few weeks ago from a Mini-Skein Club member who wanted to share with me a fantastic chevron blanket she’s made with her Minis. It’s so beautiful and brought her so much joy that she created a delightful little video that I just have to show you. Isn’t it wonderful that our shared fiber-passion brought her to me, and then allows me to connect her with you?

The other day, I printed out the packing slips for the Knerd bag orders we’ll be shipping soon — there are so many that I wanted to get a head-start on writing the hand-written thank you I include on each one — and when I looked at how many there are, my wrist started feeling sore just in anticipation! But I am so grateful for our SpaceCadet community and customers that I always take the opportunity to make that connection. I love writing a personal note in every shop order that we send out. When I write the dyer’s notes for the Yarn Alliance or the SpaceMonsters Club, I’m sharing with each club member personally.

When you open a SpaceCadet parcel and it lifts your soul, I get that. When you knit or crochet with SpaceCadet yarn and it takes you to a happy place… oh, I totally get that. I feel exactly the same, and it’s why I do what I do every day. It is an honour to connect with the SpaceCadet community — with you — and I am so grateful that I get to do so.

Yarn Alliance subscriptions are open for only a few more days. When you join us, you receive gorgeous yarns in exclusive club-only colourways, fabulous gifts, a 15% off coupon, and entry to a wonderful community of folks who totally get your yarn obsession! Click here to see more and join us. But hurry — subscriptions close on Sunday.

PS — Before I mentioned the message above from our Yarn Alliance member, I wrote to ask if she minded if I quoted it. I hadn’t planned to include the part about her struggles with PTSD or depression, but she replied, “…you can use any part of it, even the PTSD…. I am not ashamed of it. I sometimes joke about my ‘earning’ it.” And y’know, I think she’s right — she has earned it — and the more I thought about that, the more I wanted to recognise it. I am so very glad she let me share that with you.

Arc Over Spiral — a Difficult Colourway

10SepOctober 9, 2015 By Stephanie

The latest Yarn Alliance parcels went out this week to our existing club members and I’m so excited to show you the contents, I just can’t wait! In all honesty, I struggled with this colourway but, once it finally came to me, it was tons of fun to dye. Ready to see it? Here we go…

(Spoiler warning! If you’re in the Yarn Alliance and you haven’t received your parcel yet, stop here and don’t scroll down!)

Arc Over Spiral (…what over what?!?)

The creative process can be like an arc spanning across a series of points or more like a spiral working round and round to the center as you explore the depths of a single idea.

When I began dyeing this colourway, I chose the hues that spoke to me most at that moment – until I realised I was more or less repeating the colourway we dyed for the Yarn Alliance in May. So I change my formulations a bit and dyed another set of skeins – and then realised they were similar to the July colorway. Now I knew I was in a spiral …which is all good fun, but won’t do for a club. Try as I might, though, I couldn’t pull my head out of that space – the same shades kept coming back to me — and so I put down the dyes and went home.

That night, as I was falling asleep, the whole colourway suddenly came to me. I knew exactly what I wanted to dye, and it was nothing like what I’d been trying before – a new mood, a new direction. No longer a spiral, this colourway was suddenly back on that beautiful arc.

The Yarn

Maia is an amazing yarn — light, smooth, so very soft — and perfect for these late summer days. Its drape is incredible and adds a wonderful swing to whatever you make out of it. But better than all of that is what it does with light — it captures it, rolls it around and then reflects it out again in a way that is just stunning!

The Gift — a Perfect Place to Stash Tiny Things

I found HipStrings’ fiber arts tools at a local Pittsburgh show and fell in love with their cool, modern aesthetic. Exclusively for the members of the Yarn Alliance, they’ve created these sweet little bowls featuring the SpaceCadet zooming across in his flying saucer, to hold stitchmarkers and safety pins and all the other little things that want to get lost. Aren’t they fabulous?!?

The Yarn Alliance is Open for Only One More Week!

Our premiere yarn club, the InterStellar Yarn Alliance is open for subscriptions from now until Sept 20. It opens only twice a year, so don’t miss your chance to get our best dyeing delivered directly to your door all year long!

Members of the Yarn Alliance receive gorgeous yarns in exclusive club-only colourways, fabulous gifts, the chance to order extra skeins, 15% off a future SpaceCadet order and so much more! Click here to see our gallery of colourways and to join this fab club.

A City Interpreted… In Yarn! The Colors of Cleveland Project

05MayMay 5, 2015 By Stephanie

Listen, I’m going to tell you a story that appears to be about Cleveland (also, about yarn but still, a lot about Cleveland) and you may be thinking to yourself, “Oh Stephanie, I’m not from Cleveland… I don’t care about this.” But stick with me because there’s something at the end that is for you too (or, if you really don’t want to read through this, you can skip on ahead to the bottom — I’m cool with that. Just check out the delicious yarn on your way down).

Last summer, sometime around July, I got a call from Erika, the owner of River Colors Studio in Lakewood Ohio (a suburb of Cleveland). I’d done a trunk show there a few years earlier and it had been a ton of fun — the shop is really beautiful and I’d met a lot of great knitters and crocheters that day.

Erika was calling with an interesting proposition — she wanted to create a yarn club for her customers, with monthly colourways each inspired by a different area in Cleveland. I knew it was a great idea immediately — Cleveland is made up of a patchwork of really distinctive neighbourhoods, and it’s the kind of city that sparks incredible loyalty in the folks who love it. This would be the perfect club for knitters and crocheters who live in one of those neighbourhoods, for Cleveland-natives who’ve had to move away, for newcomers just getting to know the city, for high-school grads leaving their hometown for college… for anyone who loves (or misses) the city they grew up in or have come to consider home. What a fantastic project!

And then Erika asked, would I like to be part of it? Would I be interested in being the dyer for the Colors of Cleveland club? Heck yes!

Now there’s a lot to love about this club (beautiful colours, delicious SpaceCadet yarns, detailed colourway notes) but, for me as the dyer, the best part is the collaboration. Instead of coming up with the colourways myself (as I do for all my other dyeing), River Colors Studio employee and long-time Clevelander, Rachel Metz, visits each featured neighbourhood and uses watercolours to interpret its vibe into a distinctive colour palette. Once that’s done, she sends it to me and I carefully study it to determine how to recreate it using our yarn dyes in primary colours.

And that’s actually a lot harder than it sounds because the nature of dyeing is different from painting. It’s one thing to dye a yarn freehand and simply see how it comes out, but it’s an entirely different thing to have a certain colour that you’re aiming for. Dyeing results are impacted by so many things — the fiber content and yarn construction, the hardness of the water, the speed with which it heats up, and on and on — and it can be incredibly difficult to get all those things to come together precisely enough to hit one specific hue exactly. So I warned Erika and Rachel: when you’re transferring a colour palette from one medium and technique (paint on paper) to a completely different medium and technique (dye on yarn), the results can be difficult to predict and hard to control, and that they should be thinking of this as more an interpretation of Rachel’s colour palettes than a literal translation.

They were completely on board with that — and the result has been an enormous amount of fun for me as a dyer, for them, and for everyone in the Colors of Cleveland club. Sometimes we’ve hit the colours exactly and other times the transition has been a little looser but always — always — the yarns are deliciously beautiful. I’m so glad Erika has asked me to be a part of the creation of the club and I can’t wait to see what the upcoming months bring!

Do You Love Cleveland? Or Know Someone Who Does?

Then click here to check out the club and start knitting or crocheting your city! There are options to pick up your yarn in person if you live nearby or to have it delivered to your door if you’re far away. And the club set up is just like our Mini-Skein Club: join whenever you like and leave when you have enough yarn (when you what?!?). It’s the perfect way to dip your toes in and see how you like it!

So You’re Not from Cleveland? You Don’t Care About It at All?

Ok, I hear you, and so I have a little favour to ask you. We have so enjoyed being part of the Colors of Cleveland project that we’ve already got something similar in the works for Pittsburgh. We’re changing it up so it’s a little different but we’re developing colourways and working on ideas now — look for more news in the autumn.

But what about your city? Do you live someplace with an interesting history, distinctive landmarks, and residents who just love the place they call home? Dyeing for this project has been so much fun that we’d love to explore other cities this way as well. If you think your hometown is a good candidate and you have a great, visonary LYS for us to partner with, then let us know! Email info(at)spacecadetcreations(dot)com with details of what makes your city special and who to contact at your LYS. You never know, you may just see your town re-interpreted in beautiful, smooshy SpaceCadet yarn!

Woot! The SpaceMonster Club is Open for Subscriptions!

05DecApril 14, 2015 By Stephanie

Woo-hoo! It’s my favourite time of year!!! Well yeah, it’s the holidays but even better than that, it’s SpaceMonster time. We have so much fun putting this club together — finding our colourway inspiration, dyeing those big smooshy yarns, picking the gifts, and seeing what you guys make with them — that I get so excited when it’s time to welcome new members.

The club is open for new subscriptions for two weeks only from today until Dec 21, and spaces always go fast. And the timing couldn’t be more perfect because it makes a fantastic holiday gift — just grab a spot and we’ll send the recipient yarny goodness for the rest of the year!

But, y’know, just because it does make a great gift, doesn’t mean you should deny yourself. I mean, sometimes you gotta take it in your own hands to make sure you receive the holiday gift you really wanted, right? *wink* I can’t think of anything more perfect than a year of SpaceCadet smooshiness!

Well here, let me share all the details…

Woot! It’s SpaceMonster time!

You love big smooshy yarns, doncha?

This is the yarn club for you!

There is nothing in the whole world like a skein of lovely, smooshy, thick yarn to make you want to pick it up, squish it… dive right into it! Big, bulky yarns call out to you, beg you to pick them up and press them against your cheek. And when you cast on, they always work up so fast! Big yarns are gorgeous.

SpaceMonsters, the SpaceCadet’s Mega Yarn Club

Specially designed for those who love working with thicker yarns!

6 months: $99———————————–12 months: $194

So, whaddya get?

As a member of the SpaceMonsters Mega Club, you receive:

a fantastic parcel delivered to your door every other month, containing a beautiful skein of SpaceCadet^® Creations yarn in worsted or bulky weight, hand-dyed in an exclusive colourway* created to bring out the best in thicker yarn
The SpaceCadet’s Log exploring the inspiration for each colourway.
A fantastic SpaceMonsters gift tucked into every third parcel. We’re known for the fabulous gifts we include in our club parcels — and for this club, we’re seriously upping the fab. You’re going love it!

*guaranteed not to be offered on the SpaceCadet website for at least 6 months

But bigger yarns mean bigger projects, right?

Don’t you worry — in this club, you can buy extra skeins! For a whole month after you receive your parcel, you’ll have an exclusive opportunity to order more skeins custom-dyed in the latest club colourway. You’ll receive an email with all the details a few days after your parcel goes out — and then all you have to do is pick your project!

And the price is pretty exciting too:

a 6 month subscription (3 parcels, starting in February) is only $99, and
a 12 month subscription (6 parcels, starting in February) is just $194

…Who do you know who’d love to receive a right-to-their-door supply of gorgeous, smooshy yarn?

But subscriptions are open only until Dec 21 and spaces are limited… so you’ve gotta be quick!

Ready to join the SpaceMonsters?

Click on one of the buttons below to grab your spot in the SpaceMonsters Mega Yarn Club

6 months: $99———————————–12 months: $194

Very Important: if you are giving this as a gift, please remember to include the recipient’s postal and email addresses in the notes when you check out. We gotta have that to send the recipient their parcels!

Six month subscriptions include 3 parcels; twelve month subscriptions include 6 parcels. Parcels will be sent out at the beginning of February, April, June, August, October, and December. Shipping within the United States is included in the price; extra charges apply for shipping outside the US. The first parcel for new subscriptions is the February 2015 parcel. Normal subscription openings/renewals will be available in June and December of each year. All club members are automatically subscribed to the club mailing list to receive email notification of club updates, special offers for extra skeins, and similar stuff. We never, ever sell or share your email with anyone. Because of the nature of the club set-up, we can accept returns or exchanges of club shipments for faulty yarns only. By joining the club, you are agreeing to these terms and conditions. All images here are examples of past yarns/colourways/gifts — please note that new members will not receive the same items, but will receive yarns/colourways/gifts of approximate equal value and fab-ness.

Any other questions? Ask us! info (at) spacecadetcreations (dot) com

A Colourway for Languid Days

22JulApril 14, 2015 By Stephanie

According to last night’s 11pm news, the temperature here in western Pennsylvania is about to get miserable: 92 degrees F (33 C) with humidity that you can cut with a knife. I’m no fan of hot weather and I know it’s not due to last long but, while it’s here, I’ll be taking shelter in the coolest spots I can find.

So, it seemed a perfect time to share with you the latest Yarn Alliance parcel, because the inspiration for this colourway is all about finding refuge from the hottest summer temperatures.

Inspired by a languid summer’s afternoon spent in the shade of a lush tree, its branches draping lazily above and letting the sunlight through only in little pools here and there. No matter how harsh the sun’s ray or how wilting the day, the shelter of that cool, dappled shade is the most refreshing place to be.

Y’know, if I’m honest, this is not a colouway that I feels natural to me — I am not often a yellow kind of girl — but the truth is that I just love this colourway! There is something about that just feels so summery and hot… a little singed around the edges… and yet with that wonderfully cool streak of blues and greens. I just cannot wait to see how this knits up!

And every Yarn Alliance parcel comes with a gift and, this time, it was a perfect match for the colourway. When those long, languid days turn into perfect summer evenings, there is nothing nicer than sitting out in the cooling air with a beer (or, in this case, a cool English cider). Renee from Knerd made us these custom beer cosies with the idea of “cold beer, warm hands, dry knitting”.

And y’know, no matter how hot and miserable the day, I think that just has to be the perfect way to end it. Don’t you agree?

The InterStellar Yarn Alliance will open in September for new subscriptions. Want to be the first to hear when it does? Click here to get on the mailing list and get early-bird notification of the opening dates!