You can’t fight science (with possible spoilers!)

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The Jan.-March round of the Mad Geek Tour  has finished , and all packages have either arrived at their destinations, or should be there shortly.  (If you haven’t gotten your package and want to be surprised, look away and come back when you have it!)  We visited two themes this round — Doctor Who? and Steampunk.

For the Doctor Who round, I had more ideas than months to work with, but for Steampunk, things were a bit tougher.  My color aesthetic is a bit bolder than what folks typically expect from Steampunk, and I wanted to honor that but also balance it with the colors that I think many folks come to me for.  For January, I created Verdigris, inspired by beautiful aged copper,

and for February I took a more mythical inspiration and created Beware the Kraken, which I just love, and I hope was a bit fun and unexpected in a good way.

For the Whovians, I started the round off with Medusa Cascade.

I find it so hard to choose between Doctors and companions — I love them all! — and so I chose to work with the beauty of space itself.  This particular bit oI could not resist, however, putting the spotlight on Rory — MY Rory, as he is known in my household — for the February shipment.  Oh, if ever a girl could have a perfect Valentine, wouldn’t Rory be it?  I give you, The Last Centurion.

I had the colorways for both clubs for March planned for many months.  I knew I wanted them to be special, and sought out the perfect base yarn and fiber (I had to have the companion fiber!).  I dyed them, re-dyed some of the Steam colors as I just wasn’t very satisfied, and put them to dry and ran off to work a five day show.  When I returned to label and prepare the yarns/fibers for delivery I very nearly hyperventilated when I discovered that my sooper speshul yarns and fibers had been rendered rather flat and un-speshul.  The problem?  I was using a blend with a sparkling metallic fiber — an aluminum coated poly fiber — that I had chosen to give the colorways their shining quality.  The shine was GONE.  The metallic coating had been stripped from the poly fiber, leaving a faint twinkle (such as from Angelina) behind, but not the stunning shine I had been yearning for.  Why did this happen?  Well, there is a reason dyers don’t use aluminum pans.  Citric acid eats away at aluminum.  Apparently, my normal process of soaking the yarns I an acid solution and leaving them to cool to be rinsed the next day was too much exposure for the aluminum coating, and it simply disolved away. I hurriedly re-dyed new batches of yarn for the entire club, minimizing the acid exposure, and was rewarded with yarns that retained their lovely sparkle (although it is nearly impossible to show in photos).  I give you Petrichor 

and Clockwork.

I hope you all loved them!

As a consequence, there will be a fair amount of Petrichor and Clockwork in it’s more subtle form in the Extra!Extra! section of the shop for member purchase at a reduced price, as well as some over-dyed colors, also reduced, in the main shop in the coming days.  It is still a lovely yarn and fiber — 63% superwash merino/20%silk/10%nylon/2%sparkling poly fiber — but just was not what I had wanted it to be.

Also shipped this month were the amazing bags created for you by Jessalu —

The Doctor Who print is exclusive to us, as it reads Mad Geek Tour in Gallifreyan! (!!!) and was a first run design by the amazing fabric designer.  I also love love love the Steampunk bags — another first to Jess, but I hope not the last time she will use it.  I think it is a perfect pairing of fabric to bag.  I don’t even want to use mine!  I want to keep it in its perfectly pristine condition forever.

The new round of the Mad Geek Tour – another round of the Doctor – is presently open for sign-ups, and will be open until April 14.  Come along!