A gloriously cool(ish) September Saturday!

About 11 years ago I had some significant difficulties with a previous supplier and nearly had to stop dyeing.  Then, thanks to another dyer, I was able to establish an account with a different supplier that just happened to have a superior wool/nylon blend sock yarn.  Since I was (and still am) primarily interested in sock yarns, this was a great benefit to me.

But I still had to rebuild my clientele and following.  I called my yarn PHYDLBITZ  – Positively Helping Your Dyer Land Back In The Zone.  I’ve heard some interesting pronunciations, but I pronounce it “Fiddle-Bits.”   And every purchase helps your  dyer (i.e., Me!) land in and stay in “the zone” — the happy place where yarns come in and yarns go out.

Side note:  I’ve also heard some interesting ways to say Knitivity.  It’s definitely not “knitty-vitty”, cute as that may sound.   Knitivity sounds almost the same as Nativity.  🙂

Shortly after last week’s collection was shown, I posted this Twinset:

Since it was almost immediately claimed off the racks, I didn’t show the BRS numbers, but there were favorable comments about it, so I decided to use the same technique on this week’s collection.  I didn’t pre-mix any dyes this week, but used dye powder directly onto the acid-wetted yarns to let the dyes interact, separate, and migrate on their own.

I know I’ve mentioned how some of the dyes come to me from the manufacturer, having been preblended with various color molecules, and how sometimes the dye molecules don’t completely dissolve.  Since I didn’t prepare the dyes by dissolving first in boiling water, but simply sprinkled the dye powder onto the wet yarn, it is not surprising that some of the yarns are sporting “freckles” of color — tiny molecules of dye that didn’t break up until they were in the steamer.  When this happens, the little freckle of dye is just one of the colors that went into manufacturing the dye, and which would have gone unnoticed if I had prepared the liquid dyes and everything was dissolved and filtered.

One of the cool things about this technique is that I have little control how the dyes will react, so it’s usually a surprise how they turn out.  But, that is also one of the frustrating things, since it means I can’t easily duplicate a particularly spectacular dye job.  I guess that’s what makes me an artist rather than an automaton cranking out same-same yarn after yarn after yarn.

Obviously, when a client needs a larger quantity of a particularly colorway, I will make whatever notes are needed, and I’ll dye all the required yarns the same way at the same time with the same dyes.  I know how to do that, but I save that for special requests, and spend my days just playing with colors.

I hope you enjoy this week’s collection.  These are all Phydlbitz II sock (75/25 Superwash Corriedale/Nylon, 430 yards), and all were dyed as Twinsets.  Because of the technique I used, even though I tried to apply the dye equally across both hanks of a pair, each Twinset has the same colors, but not necessarily identical distribution or spread of colors.  I recommend alternating hanks every 2-3 rows to minimize pooling and avoid the obvious new-yarn change of pattern or sequencing.

Each of these will be available on the Blog Reader Specials page at $27.00 each, but for this Saturday and Sunday, each of this new collection (#782 – 805) is $25.00.

I expect these to be ready to ship on or before Wednesday.

To claim the ones you want just send me an email indicating the BRS numbers you would like.

Available Yarns
Rack 1:  782, 783, 784, 785, 786, 787, 788, 789, 790, 791, 792, 793
Rack 2:  794, 795, 796, 797, 798, 799, 800, 801, 802, 803, 804, 805

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