WOW!!  In the 80s on Friday, woke to 53F on Saturday.  I turned on the central heating Friday evening as temperatures were dropping, just to be ready.  Hmm… it didn’t turn on.  At all.  The whole night.  Not a good thing.   I messaged the landlady who said her husband would come take a look at it.    Suddenly, around mid-day yesterday, the heater finally decided to cycle on, without assistance.  I was about to start dyeing (and looking forward to the steamer’s warmth) when I heard the heater unit start churning as it normally does before starting to blow warm again.   Go figure!

Since my granddaughter was coming yesterday to learn more about knitting, I had originally planned to dye this morning, but her plans changed so mine did as well.   I was able to muscle through and get both batches done fairly well yesterday.  Turned out yesterday was an excellent day for dyeing.

I did my regular two dozen Phydlbitz Sock (75/25 Superwash Corriedale/Nylon, 430 yards).  There was a technique I wanted to try, but after a couple attempts it was clear that the results were not much different from what I normally do.

The purple-ish pair (#816-817) was done with a dry-on-wet technique — dry dye powder on acid-wet yarn.   I should know better than to do purple in the dry-on-wet technique, because the purple dye isn’t a solid purple; it’s a composite dye powder made up of blues and reds. Sprinkled lightly on wet yarn, those itty bitty tiny single dye molecules bloom in their own colors. Thus, the “purple” looking yarn will has specks of blue and red scattered around.  See what I mean?

Anyway, most of these came up as I expected them to do, so I’m happy with them.   They were all dyed as Twinsets, and when appropriate, I have rotated one of each pair so you can see the color distribution on both hanks of each pair.   The final pair on the second rack (#832-833) was actually the last pair I dyed; it was a Dunk-Dye, done by pouring the remains of all the reds and yellows/golds into the acid bath, and it came up as a rich deep orange-almost-red color, into which I dunked the yarn.

Since Monday is a postal holiday, these will be ready to ship out Tuesday or Wednesday.  To claim the ones you want, just send me an email with your numbered requests.   Phydlbitz Sock is $27.00 per skein.  Shown here so you can see the original color distribution, these will be reskeined and shown in their individual presentation photos (the way you’d see them on the shelf) on the Blog Reader Specials page on Tuesday.

Already claimed: 812, 813, 814, 815, 816, 817, 818, 819, 830, 831, 832, 833

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