Happy Monday!

I hope this finds everyone healthy and in good spirits.  Here in the U.S., Tuesday is observed as Independence Day, and that means we’ve already been “entertained” (?) by neighborhood fireworks, loud parties, and all the rest.  Never mind that we’ve been under extreme heat advisories for a few weeks, barely any rain, and people are out trying to water the front yard  kindling lawns.  Anyway, we’re supposed to be getting a bit of rain later in the week.  We had barely a spittle of rain last night but it didn’t really do much for the dry conditions.  Having high humidity doesn’t seem to help a whole lot, but I’m no expert. Moisture in the air does make it longer for the yarns to dry.

I managed to work around the heat of the day to dye up another amazing batch of Phydlbitz Sock (75/25 Superwash Corriedale/Nylon).  Normally when I dye, the resulting colors conjure up food-related names, but I ate plenty enough yesterday, so the names that came up in my head were Tortoiseshell (Twinset #613-614) and Smoked Algae (#611-612). Colors wet are almost never the same as when they dry, so these names don’t really make sense now.   The Smoked Algae had a more noticeable green-ish cast when it was wet, for example; now it looks more like a faint suggestion toward pale green.

I did most of the Twinsets as splatter dyes, all of which will look good in overall stitch patterns like seed-stitch where the changing colors will add to the visual texture of your handwork.  The clearly segmented combinations (#621-622, and 627-628) will look amazing as self-striping spiral stripe socks.  The two Twinsets that were done using the BabySoft technique (#625-626 and 629-630)  will look great on chevrons or ripples where you can depend on the changing colors to contributed to the visual effect of the stitch pattern.  The two nearly solid Twinsets (#611-612 and 623-624) will work especially well for lace or other openwork where you want to see the stitches.

Phydlbitz Sock is normally $27.50 per skein, but for today and tomorrow (July 3-4) you can have any two or more skeins (matching Twinsets or not) for $25.50 each.

To claim the ones you want, just send me an email (ray@knitivity.com) with the numbered items you want.  I’ll mark them off from the Available Yarns tally chart below and then I’ll send your PayPal invoice.  Please let me know if you are outside the U.S. so I can calculate correct shipping to your country.

It has been suggested (more than once) that in order to expand my audience I need to be doing videos — either showing off my weekly collections as they are done or even doing a live feed streaming as I dye.  I know how to do a straight video, but not a clue how to do a live feed as I dye.  This concerns me as I know live feed audiences like to interact with the host, but if I’m dyeing I can’t easily monitor feedback and answer questions.  I’m going to be looking at various options this week and see what I can do, but I am also open to your ideas and suggestions.

My Tuesday and Wednesday this week are already booked up, so this week’s yarns should be ready to ship on Thursday or Friday.

Available Yarns
Rack 1 –  609, 610, 611, 612, 613, 614, 615, 616, 617, 618, 619, 620
Rack 2 –  621, 622, 623, 624, 625, 626, 627, 628, 629, 630, 631, 632

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