Well, I suppose we could call this weekend a Comedy of Errors.

Or maybe I should just hang my head and wear this name tag:

Yeah, it’s been one heck of a weekend.  I messed up preparing the dyes and had to make more than I normally have room for in my work space.  Then one of my work gloves tore apart as I tried to pull it up.  And then before I even got started actually dyeing, my yarns somehow got whipped around in the spin cycle (a regular step to remove pre-dye soaking solution; they normally come out just fine) and nearly all of them had random strands pulled hither and thither, took a good 20 minutes to delicately separate the hanks from each other, and then I had a mangled mess to deal with in dyeing each one.  (More on that in a moment.)

For  health and sanity, I aim to get to bed around 10:00 each night.  Last night, I couldn’t turn the steamer off until almost 11:30, and then had to wait another 30+ minutes before I could release the lid to let it all start cooling.   It’s not a pressure cooker, just a large tamale steamer onto which I rest a couple of cast iron bacon presses to keep it hot with a lower flame AND minimize the amount of steam releasing into the house.  This is, after all, southeast Texas in the summer, we have plenty enough heat and humidity.

And today is the 17th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina turning my life upside down and putting me on a path I never expected to be on.  It’s been one heck of a ride, but (as I wrote on a plaque after Hurricane Ike in 2009) “I might get blown over, but I won’t get blown away.”   I’m still here.

Anyway, on to the yarns…

So, as I mentioned, most of the yarns got messed up during the spin cycle so I could not lay them out as I normally do, all neat and orderly.  I did manage to get some into fairly normal shape and was able to make Twinsets, but the rest had to be done individually as there was no way to lay two hanks side by side to make them look matching.  As you’ll see on the rack photos, especially the second rack, the yarns do look sort of scrambled.  The messy hanks didn’t interfere with the actual dyeing, putting color onto fiber, and thankfully they all had their regular binding ties to keep them in circular hanks.  This will allow me to mount them onto the umbrella swift, but it will take a slow and gentle hand to move them from the swift to the skein-winder and thus avoid tangling and making a right royal mess of things.

So, for that reason I will say that I aim to ship on or about Friday this week.  It could be sooner, but I wanted to let everyone know that there is some added time required in order to do it right.

Most of the colors are self-explanatory.  #772 is a charcoal, similar to the charcoal I did last week.  #762 and 763 are the same color but dip-dyed in different saturations; definitely NOT a Twinset, but would work as a monochrome two-tone project, like for stripes or something.  When I dyed #768 it made me think of Mint-Chocolate Chip, and then #771 told me it wanted to be called Vanilla Chocolate Chip.  Since I failed to eat properly yesterday, that may have affected my perspective.

These are all Phydlbitz Sock, 75/25 Superwash Corriedale/Nylon, 430 yards each.  Normally Phydlbitz Sock is $27.50 on the Blog Reader Specials page, and normally I give a Preview Pricing discount, but because I’ve run into multiple bills all coming due at once (rent, electric, phone, and insulin), I’m giving everyone the additional Knitivity Insider discount.  For Monday and Tuesday, everyone can have any of this new collection for $23.50.  And if you’re not a regular Knitivity Insider subscriber, you can sign up on the Blog Reader Specials page and start getting the weekly Insider Deals with each new collection of Blog Reader Specials. It’s FREE to sign up and I never put people on the list if they don’t want to be (I dislike when merchants stick me on a list just because I bought something once.)

To claim the ones you want, just send me an email with your numbered selections and I’ll send you an invoice.  Let me know if you are requesting international shipping so I can calculate the additional charges for that.

(Be sure to scroll below the rack photos to see the special Mardi Gras deal)

Available Yarns: 
Rack 1:  748, 749, 750, 751, 752, 753, 754, 755, 756, 757, 758, 759, 760, 761
Rack 2:  762, 763, 764, 765, 766, 767, 768, 769, 770, 771, 772, 773, 774

Next year, Mardi Gras is February 21, and one customer has already put in a request for a set of Mardi Gras colors, like tthese shown below.  Normally Phydlbitz Sock is $27.50, but when you put in an order for the 3-Skein Mardi Gras set, each skein will be $25.00 each and will include instructions for the Mardi Gras scarf show down below (I will email you the PDF file for it).  It is a reversible cable knit scarf, with the intarsia joins cleverly hidden between the stitches.  If you’d like to pre-order the 3-Skein Mardi Gras set this week, drop me an email.  I will be dyeing the pre-orders next weekend and shipping next week, so you’ll have plenty of time to knit your scarf and wear it all through Carnival season; it starts January 6 (Twelfth Night) and goes through Mardi Gras.