Knitivity

Happy Saturday!

The day started well enough, putting my yarns into the pre-dye soaker bin.  Normally, I take these from pre-dye soaker and put them into the washing machine spin cycle to remove as much of the pre-dye water as I can.  I put the yarns in the same way I always do.  I turned the dial to Spin.  I turned it on.  And the machine went into Rinse-and-Spin, filling the machine with water, and agitating the yarns around.   Yikes!

Here’s a picture of some of the tangled mess that I pulled from the washer.  Only a few hanks weren’t a  mess,, but most had strands pulled out and tangled among other hanks.

It took over an hour just to separate the hanks, but each individual hank still had strands pulled out.  What a mess!   (By the way, my cousin Ruth made that beautiful quilt for me, including fabric from some of my old go-to-work shirts from my days in New Orleans.)

I wanted to dye solids or nearly-solids anyway because a long-time Knitivity friend (“Hi, Vicki!”) has designed a new shawl pattern using Phydlbitz Sock.   It is her “Hooked On A Feeling” shawl, available on Ravelry.  It’s been several years since someone used my yarn for a published pattern so I am very happy to share it.  You can click over to her Ravelry patterns to get 50% off this pattern at introductory pricing until December 15.  Here are a couple pictures of Vicki’s design:

Two of the Twinsets (#1152-1153 and 1160-1161) appear solid, but there is some slight variations along the strand.  Personally I think one of 1152/1153 would make amazing contrast stripes with one of 1154/1155.   The rest of the Twinsets are sprinkled-splattered randomly.  All of the Solo skeins were dyed individually with fairly well-saturated dyes, and several of these would coordinate into stripes or other colorwork patterns; for example #1162 and 1163 would work well, in my opinion, as would #1164 and 1164 for a bold contrast.

All of these are  Phydlbitz Sock (75/25 Superwash Corriedale/Nylon, 430 yards), and are normally $27.50 each.  For Saturday and Sunday, you can claim any one or more at preview pricing of $25.50 each; they don’t have to be a matching Twinset this time.

I expect to have these all straightened out and ready to ship on or about Thursday.  At least a handful of them will not easily mount on my swift and I will likely have to rewind them by hand first and then put them on the swift, so I expect this week’s collection to take longer than normal.

To claim the ones you want, just send me an email and I’ll take care of it.

Available Yarns:
Rack 1 – 1150, 1151, 1152, 1153, 1154, 1155, 1156, 1157, 1158, 1159, 1160, 1161
Rack 2 – 1162, 1163, 1164, 1165, 1166, 1167, 1168, 1169, 1170, 1171, 1172, 1173

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Happy Sunday:

I just let BigBoy in for his morning kibble (because a local feral tom has been eating from BigBoy’s outside bowl on the porch and I want to discourage that), and noticed it is pretty foggy outside at the moment.  Checking the weather at Wunderground.com is a little confusing this morning.  One weather station tells me it is 54º in Channelview, but only 47º over in Sterling Green, both of which neighborhoods are about equidistant from me, a couple miles in either direction.  Unfortunately, the weather station closest to me just a half mile from me in Cloverleaf seems to have gone offline.  Anyway, I appreciate having access to local weather units — much more accurate than telling me what the weather is at the Houston airport.  As big as the Houston metropolitan area is, there are fluctuations across the region, and I want to know what it is like in my area, not an hour away from me.

But enough of that. Time to talk about yarns!  🙂

With the previous batch of yarns I used up all the available prepared dyes, so I was able to start with a whole new palette of 10 colors this week.  I think I managed to create a good mix of techniques for different effects — some sprinkles, some hand-slaps, some fades … but no solids this time.  I do like the hand-slap technique because it creates a random sort of cloud-like effect, as on Twinset BRS23 – #1142-1143.

Two Twinsets are clearly segmented (#1126-1127 and 1146-1147).  These will work up into wonderful self-striping spiral striped sock or tubed scarves.   The sprinkled Twinsets (#1130-1131, 1138-1139, and 1146-1147) will knit up into terrific socks, but can also be used for simple-knit shawls, scarves, or other garments.   Combining these with previously posted BRS can make some incredibly unique larger shawls, baby blankets, or light weight sweaters for early springtime.

There are six Twinsets dyed in the fade technique, most of which were dyed using the run-off from the other Twinset dyeing, so they are mostly a range of neutrals, although this week there are some fades in shades of blues.  The fades will work for stripe-effect socks, but when used in an assortment of fade colorways or contrasting solids, they will be amazing blankets or shawls.

Since I dye Phydlbitz mostly as Twinsets, I like to show them with one skein rotated a different direction, and then the lower half of each skein turned so that you can see all the colors or sequences that appear on both skeins of each Twinset.

All of this week’s collection are Phydlbitz Sock (75/25 Superwash Corriedale/Nylon, 430 yards) and are normally $27.50 each.   For Sunday and Monday, you may claim any skein(s) from this new collection (#1126 – 1149) for just $25.50.  After they’ve been dried, reskeined, and labeled they will be posted to the Blog Reader Specials page.

To claim the ones you want just send me an email with your numbered selection(s).  I’ll send you a PayPal invoice and mark your selections off the Available Yarns tally chart shown below.

This collection should be processed and ready to ship on or about Thursday.

Available Yarns:
Rack 1 – 1126, 1127, 1128, 1129, 1130, 1131, 1132, 1133, 1134, 1135, 1136, 1137
Rack 2 – 1138, 1139, 1140, 1141, 1142, 1143, 1144, 1145, 1146, 1147, 1148, 1149

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