Last Weekend of the Month!

Happy Saturday!

It is another full day of rain, with more forecast over the next few days, so I’m not even going to try to do.  I will likely try to dye on Wednesday or Thursday.   And this is timely, because once again it is time for a Last Weekend of the Month sale!

This is the best time to stock up on yarns for your winter holiday gifts — socks, scarves, shawls, cowls, and all the rest of projects you can make for your friends and loved ones.

Here is a group shot of all the yarns I posted to the Blog Reader Specials page.  (All the ones claimed were shipped out on Thursday.)

Everything posted on the BRS page will be invoice at 15% off on Saturday and Sunday.  Just make your requests by email, same as normal, and I will take your End-of-July deduction on the invoice.

I expect to have all orders from this weekend packed and shipping on Tuesday.

And just for fun, here’s a shot of BigBoy using my slippered foot as a pillow for his rainy dreary nap.  🙂  We’re both being a bit lazy to match the weather’s energy

Mostly Darks and Solids This Time

Happy Saturday!

I hope this finds you well.  It appears the post office is starting to get their systems back online (see previous posts about package tracking).  I just checked the tracking for a package I sent out on Thursday, a Priority flat-rate shipping box.

It shows a label was created here in Houston on the 13th. Suddenly it is up in Antioch, TN, and then it shows up back here in Missouri City, TX, and will then move on to its destination up in the Pacific Northwest.   For reference, Missouri City is sort of west southwest of downtown Houston, about the same distance west as I am east of downtown.  It is one of the main sorting and distribution hubs in my area.  I don’t understand why this package had to travel to Tennessee just to come back here, but I am happy to know things are once again getting tracked.

Anyway, back to the real reason you’re reading here — Yarns!

After considering all the yarns I’ve dyed still waiting to be adopted on the Blog Reader Specials page, I decided to do mostly darks and solids this week to encourage mixing and matching for those who like doing colorwork and contrasts.

All of these are done with multiple colors.  One Twinset in particular, #554-555,  is a true DumpDye done at the end of last night’s dye session.  I took the leftover portions of all nine colors I used (but not the black) and stirred them all together for a dip-dye.  When it came out wet it looks like a very dark-dark forest green, but now that’s been rinsed and spun out in the washer, I can see hints of all the colors.  It is fascinating to me how even mixing the colors in a bowl so it looks fully blended, the dyes strike the yarn to reveal a wonderful array of color.  Dye molecules are, of course, different sizes at the molecular level and so will strike the yarn in interesting ways.

All of these are Phydlbitz Sock and are normally $27.50, but for Saturday and Sunday you can claim any two or more of your choice (matching or not) for just $25.50 each.    And, when you claim any two or more of this week’s collection (#544 – 567), you can take any number of yarns from the BRS page at the same discounted price.

To claim the ones you want just send me an email with your requests, and I will mark them off the Available Yarns chart below and send you an invoice.

I expect to have these all dried, reskeined, and ready to ship on or about Wednesday.

Available Yarns: 
Rack 1 – 544, 545, 546, 547, 548, 549, 550, 551, 552, 553, 554, 555
Rack 2 – 556, 557, 558, 559, 560, 561, 562, 563, 564, 565, 566, 567

Picture of hand-dyed yarns drying on a rack

Picture of hand-dyed yarns drying on a rack

More Blog Reader Specials posted!

Okay, I have just posted the unclaimed yarns from the most recent collection of Blog Reader Specials!
Many of these will work amazingly well when used as contrasted sets. For Thursday and Friday, if you take any THREE UNmatched skeins I will let you have them for $70 for the three skeins. It is VERY OKAY to split up an existing Twinset, or select from any of the available single skeins. 🙂
https://knitivity.com/index.php/blog-reader-specials/

Update on Package Tracking

Good morning!

Yesterday I reported that my outbound packages were picked up on Monday but could not be scanned in because the power was still out at the local postal station.

A little side story — last week I needed something for the kitchen and ordered on Amazon.  Package Tracking on the Amazon Web site said it was to be coming via UPS Mail Innovations.  And the UPS tracking page showed my package was moving through their system, scheduled for delivery on Tuesday.

Tuesday came and went.  No package.    I last checked my mailbox around 7:00 last night, but no joy still.

This morning I went to feed BigBoy and noticed my mailbox door was down, so I went to check.  Yes!  My package had been delivered last night.  Yippee.   I checked the UPS tracking and it shows it was marked delivered at 7:38 p.m.   Terrific!

The package came with the UPS number but also the USPS tracking number for when UPS hands it off to the local P.O. for delivery to me.
So I went to USPS.com to see what they showed for the 9239 number.

So the postal station is still not even acknowledging receipt of the package from UPS.  But the package is here in my hand.

What all of this tells me is that while they aren’t able to track packages locally, somehow things are moving and I expect the customers to whom I mailed things on Monday will get their packages even if a day or two later than expected.

And with that all sorted, I have confidence in handing off today’s packages.  They might not get scanned in by the mail carrier or at the local P.O. but they will travel as they need to.   After all, electronic bar code scanning has only been around a few decades at most, but the post office has been figuring out packages since the U.S. Postal Service was written into the Constitution back in  1787 and ratified in 1788.

And now I will pour myself a coffee and get into the day, but I had to share a bit of somewhat good news.  Or at least hopeful news.  🙂

About those packages….

There were some packages that were supposed to have been picked up and carried away last Thursday.  In reality, the packages were ready but the mail carrier never came around to take them.  I was not here for the carrier on Friday, but I put in another pick-up request for Saturday and still no pick-up.   So I put in yet another request for Monday, but this time I kept a close watch and stalked the mail carrier to ensure the packages were taken away.

Y’all know we had a hurricane a week ago Monday.   I got my power back later that same day.  The mail carrier on Monday told me the local postal station, which serves my ZIP code and a neighboring one, was still without power on Monday, so he was unable to scan the packages in.

I just checked and there is still no tracking available on the packages that were picked up on Monday.  If they had no electricity to power their scanners I’m pretty sure there was no power to automatically sort mail and packages and it was all being done by hand.

It is all very frustrating for me trying to send packages out, and I’m sure it is frustrating for other customers awaiting incoming mail and packages.  But even more, I can only image the frustration of the postal workers and mail carriers trying to do their jobs on the clock while also many of them don’t have power in their own homes.

One of my daughters finally got power back on Sunday night, and my other daughter got power back last night.

I just looked at the CenterPoint outage tracker.  There are currently over 51,000 customers STILL without power around the Houston metro area.  These are meters without power, but many of those meters are attached to homes with families and pets.    I suppose this is better than the 2.7 million customers without power right after the storm, but golly gee this is ridiculous.

Anyway, I just wanted to give an update on what’s happening with your yarns.  The sooner I give yarns to the mail carrier, the sooner those packages starting winding their way through the system, so I will still do my part to have packages ready for pick-up tomorrow as promised for the most recent collection of Blog Reader Specials.

 

It’s Been A Wild Year All Week!!

Happy Saturday all around!

As most folks may have heard, we had a hurricane come through on Monday.  I was without electricity from around 5:00 a.m. until late afternoon on Monday.  CenterPoint Energy is hoping to restore power to at least 80% of the Houston metro area by tomorrow — a whole week into this recovery!  I am thankful I got electricity back early this time, yet sad so many others are still without, including three of my children who live in the great metro area, one of whom also has solar panels and battery back-ups which for some reason also failed him.

Even though I do have power and water, it has been nearly impossible to order groceries or meals delivered.  I tried to order groceries on Wednesday, and the Instacart system tried to schedule me for delivery on Monday.   And (more relevant to my Knitivity customers) the mail systems were impacted, with packages and mail being delayed.  I have four yarn packages for which I put in a package pick-up request for Thursday, and the packages are still here.  I will try again on Monday.

I’m not a fan of Big Storms.  I had hoped Beryl would have remained aiming more toward the Texas-Mexico border area, but it turned almost directly toward Houston, mostly on the west side which put me quite firmly on the “dirty” side of the storm.  It is called the dirty side because it is where most of the winds and torrential rains occur.  It was just me and BigBoy in the trailer, and the noise was absolutely terrifying to me, with the trees whipping around beating the trailer, dropping branches and debris on the roof and all around, and generally creating an unpleasant time for me.  As we are always reminded in these storms, it’s not so much how the wind blows but what the wind blows.  I had my patio chairs and outdoor trash bins stacked and wedged next to the steps behind the porch.  The neighbors on the other side of the property had loads of stuff blown about, making the whole yard look like a disaster.

Anyway, the storm has passed, the yard mostly cleared, and I decided to dye some yarns last night, failing to realize today was forecast to have rain all day.  I prefer not to try photographing yarns in the yarn, but was able to catch a brief pause in the rain this morning and got a couple good pictures.

All of these are Phydlbitz Sock, dyed as Twinsets.  I didn’t have a particular theme in mind, but several came out looking like something from the Dark Forest (in a hauntingly pleasing way, of course) and others are a delightful mix of garden nursery displays. Or perhaps a children’s nursery.  Very lovely either way, in my opinion.   Several of the multi-color Twinsets would look terrific being knit in high-contrast vertical or diagonal stripes.

Twinset #540-541 is solid navy, but the rest are a variety of dye application techniques with multiple dyes on each Twinset.   I started Twinset #536-537 with a dipped brown, but for some reason my brown came up as a dark slate gray, so I topped that twinset with some gold ochre and sun yellow.

Phydlbitz Sock is normally $27.50 each skein, but when you claim any two or more of this new collection (BRS24 – #520 – 543) matching or not you may have them at $25.50 apiece on Saturday and Sunday.

To claim the ones you want just send me an email with your numbered requests. I’ll mark your requests off the Available Yarns tally chart shown below and then send you a PayPal invoice, which you can pay with a credit or debit card even if you don’t have a PayPal account.  If you are outside the U.S. please let me know so I can calculate your shipping costs.

Due to wet weather, it may take an extra day or two for this week’s yarns to dry and get reskeined and ready to ship.  Even so I hope to have these all ready to ship on or about Wednesday or Thursday.

Speaking of shipping costs, I noticed last week that all rates were increased on July 1, both domestic and international, so shipping will cost a little more.

Available Yarns
Rack 1 – 520, 521, 522, 523, 524, 525, 526, 527, 528, 529, 530, 531
Rack 2 – 532, 533, 534, 535, 536, 537, 538, 539, 540, 541, 542, 543

Here Comes Beryl!

If you’ve been following the news you may have noticed Tropical Storm Beryl is coming to Houston tonight or tomorrow.  At one point it was a category 3 or 4 major hurricane out in the Caribbean, then it went over the Yucatan Peninsula and was downgraded to a Tropical Storm.  It is forecast to increase to a category 1 hurricane as it crosses the Gulf of Mexico before slamming into the Texas coast just southwest from Houston.  Far too close for comfort.

I knew the storm was coming, but hoped it would still take a more westerly route instead of arcing northward.   I also knew I had more Phydlbitz Sock yarns coming (they arrived yesterday afternoon, btw) but I didn’t want to be dyeing during a storm.  So I finally collected all the once-posted Phydlbitz Sock yarns that weren’t re-uploaded with the big Website Disaster a couple months ago.  Shown below are those  yarns, which I laid out and sorted for reposting.

I would really love to see these and all the other yarns on the Blog Reader Specials page to be adopted to find new homes and new projects.   So, for now, through Tuesday, everything on the BRS page will be invoiced at 20% off.

I am hoping we will not lose power this time, but I am able to edit the BRS page as claims are made, prepare invoices, and do most of what I need to do at this end, thanks to my new phone and better access.  But if the power is out I can’t print packing slips or shipping labels — my phone is not connected to my printer.  I hope to pack and ship all requests by Thursday.   I will, of course, update here on this page as well as on Facebook any status updates that may be needed, in case power does go out.

Back to Cones

I just put in an order for more Phydlbitz Sock coned yarn.  I really prefer the pre-made hanks as they are easier for me to prepare for dyeing, but the price difference between the cones and the hanks is such that I can more easily afford the cones.   Oh well, it is what it is, and it is the same yarn from the same mill.

The issue this week is that Thursday is a federal holiday and I don’t know if UPS will deliver by Saturday.  I could either fret about it, or make up my mind to reject the stress and do something different this weekend.  Considering Hurricane Beryl is already formed and aiming for somewhere in the Gulf, I have enough stress for the week.  Honestly, based on what I’ve seen and read, it will most likely hit the east coast of Mexico, but since it is already Category 5, there will likely be rain bands up  as high as Houston, creating a bit of a mess.

So, once I get the current BRS collection processed, I can finish reposting allllll the unpost previous Blog Reader Specials yarn and have a big holiday Empty The Bins sale.  And hope the storm avoids Houston.  And further hope my holiday sale discounts are enough to cover the bills due next week.  🙂