news

That self-striping sweater yarn you've heard about...

Posted on December 03, 2017 by Gauge Dye Works

self striping baby sweater knitting yarn

You're probably here because you saw the yarnharlot's post. (And if you're not, go read that one first...)

To answer your questions:

1. Self-striping sweater yarn is a thing now. Starting with baby sweaters - a single skein gets you a nice striped yoke plus enough of a solid colour for the body and sleeves. 

2. When I say "is a thing now" I mean that I dyed a single skein and then handed it to the most famous knitter in the world who then knit with it and wrote a glowing post about it.

3. Current mental state: *OMG! ...play it cool... WHAAAAAAAT! ...super cool... HURRAY! ...so chill... YAY! repeat from * until basically forever. 

4. So obviously I'm going to be making more of this yarn ASAP.

5. Even the skein pictured above is not the sweater yarn - it's the SHAWL version of the same colours. 

6. I'll let you know as soon as I've made more yarn. The best way to make sure you hear about it is to sign up for my mailing list. (Thank you!)

7. Thank you for all the enthusiasm!

Posted in knitting, shop news

Pre-orders open Saturday, February 21 at noon PST

Posted on February 19, 2015 by Catherine Gamroth

 We will be opening up pre-orders this Saturday, February 21, at noon PST.

We will be accepting pre-orders for all our colourways. Large (~600 yd) skeins of our shawl yarn will be available in our gorgeous MCN base, and regular (~400 yd) skeins of our classic/sock yarn will be available in our soft-but-sturdy Merino Twist base.

All yarn will be dyed-to-order, so please keep in mind it may take 6-8 weeks for orders to ship. 

If you'd like to do some window shopping ahead of time, you can check out our colour ways here. The bar across the bottom of each image shows the striping pattern.

Our last few updates have sold out quickly and we've had several requests for tips on how to snag a few skeins. I don't think I have any brilliant insights for you, but here are a few thoughts:

1. Check the website right at noon. If you get there a minute or two early, refresh your browser until you see the new products. 

2. Pre-order products will appear at the bottom of the home page - one for shawls and one for classic yarn. Choose the one you are interested in, and then select your colourway on the product page. 

3. Once you've filled your cart, proceed quickly to the checkout. Have your payment info handy. [Digression: It feels crappy to have items disappear from your cart, or to have PayPal tell you, at the final second, that the products are sold out.  It's an unfortunate and unavoidable part of selling and buying things online. I do apologize for any frustrations. We are working our way towards bigger and more frequent updates so this becomes less of an issue!]

See you Saturday!

Posted in knitting, shop news

Update, Update: Knit City and Fibrations and self-striping shawls

Posted on September 29, 2014 by caterpillargreen yarns

Self-striping shawl

 

Oh, hi there. 

1. We are going to be at Knit City in Vancouver this weekend. Booth 28. All stripes all the time, including our brand spankin' new self-striping shawl yarn. Come one, come all. 

2. If you can't make it to Knit City but have been eyeing that shawl yarn, we will (finally!) be launhing it in our online shop on Sunday October 12 at noon PST. Happy Thanksgiving, eh?

3. From now on, we will be doing big batch updates in the shop rather than dyeing to order. We will be following a strict schedule of an update "probably every second Sunday". 

4. Fibrations happened and it was glorious. A HUGE BIG THANK YOU to everyone who stopped by our booth. 

5. See that picture? It's a triangular shawl knit up using a single 600-yard skein of our self-striping yarn in Concrete and Tulips. I'm super excited about it. I tried to take some pictures - we were on a beautiful, scenic farm, the sun was just going down, and I just could not get the exposure right. Apparently great photography is an actual skill one has to develop? Quote of the day: "Wow, if Jared Flood were here, he would be taking some amazing pictures."

Posted in knitting, shop news

Call for testers: self-striping shawl yarn

Posted on July 13, 2014 by caterpillargreen yarns

Et voila! 

A little peek at something that has been in the works for over a year now: self-striping shawl yarn. Cue the exclamation points: !!!!! 

This is just a teeny swatch to check my math. Conclusion: happy dance. 

Anyone up for a test drive? I am looking for a few intrepid knitters to 1) make sure the stripes work out on a full-sized shawl, and 2) take some glamour shots of completed shawls that I can use on the blog and in my shop. The yarn (and finished shawl) are would be yours to keep.  

CALL FOR TESTERS IS NOW CLOSED. THANKS EVERYONE!

Here are the details: 

    • Yarn testers should have knit at least one top-down/centre-out triangular shawl. 
    • Yarn will be mailed anywhere in the world asap. I would like testers to cast on within a week of receiving the yarn, and have pictures of the finished shawl within five weeks. 
    • There are different colourways and shawl sizes (400 yd, 600 yd) to be tested. First come, first served! 
    • No pattern will be provided but the shawl should be simple stockinette (with occasional garter ridges and garter edging at the knitter's discretion). No lace. The yarn should be the star of the show. Possible patterns include Boneyard Shawl, Simple Yet Effective Shawl, or the plain vanilla shawl pattern you have in your head.  

If this sounds like fun, and I really hope it does, send me an email with the subject line YARN TESTING. Please provide your Ravelry ID or a link to your blog/flickr/etc to show off your knitting and photography skills. 

CALL FOR TESTERS IS NOW CLOSED. THANKS EVERYONE!

Posted in knitting, shop news

A blue and green kind of week

Posted on September 24, 2013 by caterpillargreen yarns

I have been making slow but unsteady progress on this sock over the past week or so. I got walloped by a cold, or possibly a few different colds simultaneously, and sometimes sleep is just the best option. 
But it now appears I will live after all. I'm at the point in my recovery where I have the energy to plan out my next 700 projects, but not quite enough energy to make any real progress on any of them. (Actually, not entirely true since this is self-striping yarn.  Sometimes it only takes two or three rows to make the yarn change colour and if that isn't an accomplishment, I don't know what is.)
In related news, I will be doing a big batch of dyeing this weekend and shipping off orders on Monday. A big thank you to everyone who has waited so patiently for your yarn; it won't be long now.  And if you have been debating putting in an order, anything that gets ordered this week will be ready by Monday. 

Posted in knitting, shop news

Surprise Yarn

Posted on September 19, 2013 by caterpillargreen yarns

The September shipment of the Tanis Fiber Arts yarn club arrived in my mailbox today. Beautiful stuff, as always. This club is like getting an extra six Christmases throughout the year. And, if you are the right combination of busy and forgetful, they are surprise Christmases. So great.

Posted in knitting

Mutant Colourway

Posted on September 12, 2013 by caterpillargreen yarns

Some knitting in progress.  The colourway is "whoops what happened there but actually that's quite a nice ombre effect". 

Posted in knitting