Happy Friday!

Okay, that title is a pretty lame attempt at humor.  My eyes are (theoretically) fine, but in actual reality I’m waiting and watching (hahaha) as my vision improves and settles into a ‘new normal,’ which will be another month or so.  I’ve been incredibly near-sighted most of my life, to the point of being functionally blind without my glasses.  And now with the cataracts removed and new lenses installed, I am having to adjust — like leaning away from the computer instead of leaning into it.

GIMP has been my image editing software of choice over 20 years, across its many updates along the way.  It will do practically everything the expensive programs will do (like PhotoShop) but it is FREE and I highly recommend it.   But if you have used GIMP, you know that its menus and control panels have extremely tiny fonts, and I’ve not found any way to make the fonts larger.  I can expand the actual images, of course, just not the menu fonts.

So this morning I’ve been editing this week’s Blog Reader Special  images, and ever-so-grateful that I have been doing the same things in the same ways for years and years, so I can follow the cursor across the screen to where it needs to go, but I can’t actually read the text of the menu items.  At one point I must have jiggled something with my mouse, because the Drop Shadow filter that I use on the text portion was suddenly HUGE and made a blob of a dark mess across the yarns, and I had to futz around for several minutes with the mouse in one hand and my 5x magnifier in the other to figure out what went wrong.  Minor problem, and I will eventually have a new prescription for glasses suited to me.   But it’s these little things that make the adjustment a challenge.

The ophthalmologist who did the surgery said I could “resume normal activity” within a day or two but it would take a month or two before my eyes fully heal and then we can see if I need new glasses. Meanwhile, I can definitely see things more clearly, just not as sharply and focused as I would like.  Would I do it again?  Heck yeah!  Would I have liked to know these little annoyances ahead of time. Most definitely!   The benefits absolutely outweigh the little annoyances.

But that’s all  probably more than you needed to know, so let’s move on to the first Blog Reader Specials collection post-cataract surgery!

Because I wasn’t sure how my eyes would behave with colors and focus, I didn’t even attempt to do any segmented colorways, and just stuck with the techniques I could do without having to hone in on details.   I knew I could do Midnight Green (Twinset #946-947) because that is a standard recipe from way back and it usually comes up fairly consistently, although this time it looks less than perfect.  I used the leftover of that jar on several other Twinsets in varying degrees on  #958-959, 968-969, and the two-tone #952-953, which also has a darkened beach sand. A lighter version of Beach Sand appears in #960-961 as an overall monochrome solid.

I had a few jars of leftover dyes from an earlier dye session. What I normally do is combine leftover dyes into fewer jars, which creates new colors for the next time.  This time I had a jar of combined red-influenced colors, which I combined  with some fresh dyes that I used on Twinset #966-967, 962-963, and then faded it on #951-951.  I also had a jar of “something dark” — I think it was mostly leftover black with some leftover navy and a bit of purple.  I used the dark as a saturated solid and it came out as a really deep charcoal sort of color (Twinset #954-955), but in the light you’ll see a hint of the navy coming through.  When I combine leftover dyes, I aim to blend related colors so the resulting remixed blend is not just a muddy brown or dull green.  Fortunately there are no ugly colors, just unfortunate combinations.  🙂

All of these are Phydlbitz Sock (75/25 Superwash Corriedale/Nylon, 430 yards each), and while they were dyed as Twinsets, there is never an obligation to take both skeins of a Twinset.  I have rotated one skein of each pair, and also twisted all skeins so you can see all the colors available on each pair.

To claim the ones you want, just send me an email with your selections.  I will mark them off on the Available Yarns tally chart below as requests are received.

Phydlbitz Sock is normally $27.50 each skein.  For this Friday and Saturday you may claim any of this new collection (BRS22 – #946 – 969) for just $25.50 each.

With high humidity over the next few days, drying may take a little longer, so I expect to have these all ready to ship on or about Wednesday.

Available Yarns
Rack 1 – 946, 947, 948, 949, 950, 951, 952, 953, 954, 955, 956, 957
Rack 2 – 958, 959, 960, 961, 962, 963, 964, 965, 966, 967, 968, 969

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