news

I'm working on some fresh, summery colourways and am looking for some intrepid knitter/photographers to help me test them out! 

Would you like to test knit? I'd send you yarn - you choose the pattern and keep the finished item. What I want in return is photos. Lots of photos! I'd like you to share your progress on social media as you knit (#gaugetestknits everyone, keep an eye out for it!), and take some good quality shots of the finished object. 

I will have yarn in the mail by next week, and you would have four weeks after receiving your yarn to do the knitting and have FO pictures ready. 

The picture above shows the three colourways, and a glimpse at the sock I'm testing out. As you can see, I've done simple two-colour stripes but played around with value - darker and lighter versions of the two colours. There will also be shawl versions of the same colourways. 

I mentioned test knitting on Instagram last week and got an enthusiastic response (yay, thank you!) so I suspect I will face the difficult task of having to choose between many talented volunteers - I've only got six skeins to give away, so please understand I won't be able to say yes to everyone! 

Come join us for a summer of yarn and patterns inspired by outdoor adventures. 

We’ve teamed up with designer Andrea Rangel to bring you a collection of three knitting projects to keep your needles happy this summer. Each month we will send you an exclusive colourway and a perfectly coordinating pattern that lets the yarn shine.

All the club colour palettes are all drawn from nature: the deep greens of foliage, the earthy greys and browns of a rocky shore, the subdued blues of mountains in the distance, and, here and there, a bright burst of autumn leaves.

The patterns offer an adventurous twist on basic designs, with classic shapes and comfortable knitting occasionally giving way to a more challenging moment of intarsia, short rows or stranded colourwork. It’s a great chance to learn a new technique or two, with well written instructions and plenty of support in our Ravelry group.

For more details or to sign up, click here. 

Welcome to Gauge Dye Works!

My husband and I have spent quite a while searching for a new name and overall look that would be a better fit for who we are as people and as a company, and where we see ourselves going. If you've ever written a social media profile for yourself, you'll know how awkwardly challenging it can be to condense the very essence of your being into 140 characters or a 100x100 gif.

But I feel like we really nailed it. Gauge Dye Works. It's classic and memorable, knitting-related but also science-y.

Our designer, Aleya, did a fantastic job of capturing that clean, nerdy aesthetic by drawing inspiration from old pencils, wooden rulers, and scientific manuals. 

Nailed it. 

I'm so excited to finally finally be able to share this with you!

I'm rolling out the new website this week and will have all our new branded stuff to share soon. The full transition will likely take at least a few weeks; please bear with me as I work my way through all of these updates! 

After sharing a picture of this stunning shawl on instagram and being inundated with customer requests, I've created a two-skein kit so you can knit your own Rising Dawn!  

This is a pre-order: I will start dyeing the yarn first thing next week and should be able to ship within about 2 weeks (although I always officially quote 6 weeks for a pre-order because I'm a one-woman dyeing operation and sometimes life is unpredictable!)

Already have some yarn in your stash you want to use? Here's the details: the shawl pictured above required about 700 yards of our classic weekend colourway - one full XL (170 g/6 oz) skein plus about a quarter of a regular skein. The pattern can be modified to use less yarn (either a single 115 g or 170 g skein) by working the final edging sooner than directed. 

ETA: Both skeins in this kit are dyed with an orange-to-blue gradient; the effect in this shawl comes from casting on with the orange end of the first skein, knitting the full skein, then joining the blue end of the second skein and knitting "towards" the orange. This is different than our classic weekend yarn, where each skein has orange at both ends and blue in the middle, allowing for a matching pair of socks.

I'm happy to announce a new member of our self-striping family: Merino Sport. With 297 yards per skein (446 yards in an XL skein), it sits perfectly between a fingering and worsted weight.

Our first four sport weight colourways are (clockwise from top left): TGIF, concrete and tulips, weekend, and spaceship. 

We've knit up cowls to use every last inch of the skein and show off the full colourway, but don't let that limit you! This cowl is Oats from the (free!) Simple Collection by Tin Can Knits. And from socks to mitts to baby sweaters, I think all of the pieces in that collection would look gorgeous in this yarn (with some minor modifications for those patterns written for heavier-weight yarns). Personally, I'm itching to cast on a tiny rainbow baby sweater, despite the lack of tiny babies in my household.

If you'll be at Knit City this weekend, come say hi! We'll be at booth 200. It's a busy weekend, and the market place will no doubt be crazy on Saturday morning, so I thought a little preview of some of our newest colourways might be helpful. 

All these new colourways will be at Knit City, and I'll also be adding them to our online shop later in October. 

Last year's custom colourway, Shorn This Way. 

Shorn This Way's sister colourway, weekend (aka OMG YOU GUYS). 

Green Light, one of three new "Light" colourways. The classic version, shown here knit into Linden Mittens, will make a pair of matching socks or mittens.

Orange Light, Sapphire Light, Green Light and Pink Light in both classic and shawl stripes

The shawl version of the "Light" colourways. (Shawl is A Certain Darkness....)

Macaron, the classic/sock version of one of our recent small batches, knit into Linden Mittens. 

A few skeins of each of our recent small batches in both classic and shawl stripes. 

Final, gratuitous image of shorn this way and weekend, having a quiet moment together.

If you're able to make it this weekend, don't forget that you can get a weekend pass for the marketplace! Saturday morning is wild and crazy in the best of ways, while Sunday is more relaxed and has a few extra giveaways and demos to keep you entertained. 

We're getting ready for our local fiber fair, Fibrations, this Sunday. See you there? 

Sunday, Aug 21, 10:00 - 4:00

Fairfield Gonzales Community Place, 1330 Fairfield Rd, Victoria, BC

We will be bringing lots of self-striping yarn for shawls and socks, plus a few special extras: studio seconds and a Fibrations-inspired limited-edition colourway. 

Fun, right? It absolutely looks like clown barf in the skein*, but knit up, it's a stripy-gradient starting with rich reds through oranges and yellows to bright, grassy greens. These socks** are too short to fully show the greens, but can you tell we are heading in that direction? 

I only dyed up about a dozen of these skeins, so if this is your thing you have two options: A) be in Victoria on Sunday and swing by our booth at Fibrations, or B) go check my instagram account for a chance to win one. 

I'm loving this new dyeing technique, so there will be more of these stripey-gradienty colourways in the shop soon! (Soon-ish, anyway. September is crazy busy for us all, right?)

Finally, a quick note about studio seconds. These are all high-quality yarns that didn't quite make the cut for being sold in the web shop. Some of them have a knot or bulky join in the yarn. Some are underweight. Most are simply one-of-a-kind and that's awkward to sell online. All of them will still knit up beautifully and since I can't manage that much personal knitting, I'm selling them at a huge discount. Win-win. 

* You might think it still looks like clown barf when knit up? That's fair. But it's organized clown barf. 

** These socks being Rose City Rollers by Mara Catherine Bryner.