A Triple-Batch, including some DK!

Happy Wednesday!

I hope All Y’all are doing well today.  I’ve been busy, and am happy to share some of what I’ve been doing.

This week I have three (3!!) racks of yarns to share with you.

Thanks to a custom job I dyed over the weekend, I had some leftover DK weight yarns to play with.  Those are shown on Rack 3 down below, but first I have two racks of my regular Phydlbitz Sock.  I didn’t plan it, but it turned out that I did six Twinsets as solids, and six as two-tone fades, which made it easier to organize the racks for showing.

Because of the custom dyes I had a lot of leftover dyes to use, so I combined several of them for the dye session yesterday.  All of the colors you see here are the result of combining various dyes on-the-fly (i.e., without precise measuring).  I thoroughly enjoy blending dyes this way, as it allows me to create colors or combinations not normally seen and nearly impossible to reproduce.

Most of the first rack are fairly evidently solids.  The second rack is the set of Twinsets dyed as two-tone fades.   Twinset #61-62 and #65-66 were dyed at roughly 36-inch repeats; the rest were dyed at roughly 72-inch repeats.   I’ve tried to arrange them on the rack to show off their colors and repeats.

While I dislike trying to name colorways, Twinset #65-66 reminds me of Antique Dusty Rose, while #67-68 looks like it belongs on a logo for surfboards or some little Beach Dune burger joint.  🙂

The third rack is the DK-weight, mostly dyed as solids except for #81-82, which is a navy-turquoise fade. The ones at the end #83 and 84 are solo skeins, leftover from the custom job.  These two were dyed earlier and started drying a day before so they’ve drawn up and look shorter, but they really are the same base yarn.

Phydlbitz Sock (#49-72) is normally $27.50.  The Merino/Nylon DK is normally $28.00.   For Wednesday and Thursday, you can get 10% off your order when you claim any two or more, matching or not.

To claim the ones you want, just send me an email (ray@knitivity.com) with your numbered requests.

Given the cold and damp of the season, drying and processing may take a little longer, but I expect to have these all ready to ship by Saturday or Monday.

I plan to have another batch of yarns ready by Sunday.  🙂

Available Yarns: 
Rack 1 – 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60
Rack 2 – 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72
Rack 3 – 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84

Last Weekend of January Sale

Friday through Sunday (24-26 January), all yarns are at least 15% off; take three or more and get 20% off your invoice.

I put in an order for more yarn on Wednesday.  Initially I was notified they’d arrive today, but this morning I checked UPS tracking and it shows expected delivery tomorrow, but there was a warning on the UPS page indicating there may be weather delays, so I can’t guarantee I will be able to dye new yarns this weekend.

In the meantime, there are still plenty of yarns ready to ship on the Blog Reader Specials page.

In other news,  Houston seems to have begun thawing out, snow melting and temperatures rising a wee bit.  I am grateful for this, and doubly grateful I don’t live in an area where it is this cold for weeks or months at a time.

 

Our Arctic Blast in Texas

Okay, so it’s Tuesday, January 21, and literally freezing in Texas.   Currently it is 28ºF/-2.222 ºC and we have actual snow this morning. Here’s how it looked when I got up around 4:00 this morning.  I’m pretty sure there will be more later in the day as the snow won’t be ending until late-morning.

Picture of light dusting of snow on my porch, 4:00a.m. on 21Jan2024I live in an older mobile home that has lots of “issues,”  including a persnickety central heating unit.  It hasn’t turned on since last Thursday or Friday.  I can hear it trying to come on, but it keeps giving an error code for “Ignition Failure.”   Yes, the landlord is aware and will be working with his HVAC guy to work on a better solution, but he has brought me a couple of milkhouse-style heaters.  They work okay, and I have both bedrooms closed off to consolidate whatever heat I have into the living room, kitchen, and bathroom, but the poor insulation combined with the current Arctic Blast, I am always cold anyway, currently huddled under a heavy fleece-lined blanket.

I am grateful that ERCOT has kept the power grid alive this time, but until this cold moves on and the threat of freezing temperatures is gone, I’m not even trying to work this week.

I’m sure many of you are familiar with stitch holders, like these:

I have several of various sizes. I’m not one for fancy stylish shawl pins, but these stitch holders work a charm to hold a scarf in place.  The tips are blunt enough to not pose a poking problem and wide enough to do a brilliant job of holding scarf ends together.

I suppose I could line the front bar with a variety of doodads and dangly beaded stitch markers, but I’m not that posh.  🙂

Anyway, wherever you are, I hope you are warm, dry, and safe.

A Winter Freeze?

I know, I know — much of the country is already freezing, and I am sorry about that.  I just learned that we here in Houston, Texas, will be getting a possible freeze with sleet, ice, and maybe even snow from Monday through at possibly Wednesday.  No guarantee how bad it will be, and no assurance that ERCOT will manage to keep the lights on with the Arctic blast coming our way.

So, I’m not planning to dye anything this weekend.  I do have a custom job to do before I make a new BRS collection, so I’ll be doing that first.

In the meantime, however, I have uploaded all of the unclaimed yarns from the most recent two collections, over on the Blog Reader Specials page.

Here’s the January 5 unclaimed collection:

And here’s the unclaimed yarns from what I dyed on Saturday:

That yellow and green could most definitely be worked double-stranded together (one yellow, one green) and come up with a soft green similar to what I did with the Devyn Rae shawl sample (it was knitted in a lace-weight of yellow and green).

By the way, if you would like a copy of the Devyn Rae pattern, named after one of my granddaughters, just let me know when you order yarns this week.  I’ll add it to your invoice for $7.00 and will email you a PDF copy.  It has pictures, charts, and other information for working a half-drop pattern repeat as shown here.

Another fine pair that will definitely work together is this foursome; the underlying red base on #27-28 is the same red that I used for #33-34.  Imagine the stunning stripes you could knit with these two … like maybe in a Fibonacci sequence, or in intarsia Harlequin diamond blocks or even Entrelac?  Just looking at these two Twinsets together fills my head with ideas.

Because I won’t be dyeing new BRS yarns this weekend but still have to pay the water bill and buy groceries before the freeze, EVERYthing on the Blog Reader Specials page can be yours for $24.50 per skein.   Offer is good through Sunday, so feel free to visit again over the weekend.

Just email me your requests (ray@knitivity.com) and I’ll get you taken care of.   Everything on the BRS page is ready to ship, but if you wait until Sunday, I don’t know if your yarns will go out before Thursday — it all depends on the weather and if I can navigate to the street for the mail carrier.  I lost my balance and took a fall last week and I don’t want to risk walk on ice if it occurs.  If you order today or tomorrow, I can ship out on Saturday.  🙂

Bright and Brilliant Color!

Happy Monday!

It’s been crazy time around the House of Knitivity, but I think I’m getting squared away.  We had some more rains last week, and the newly repair wall revealed some other leaks in the same area.  The worker came back and re-sealed other sections and expanded the work area, so that yesterday’s rains didn’t seem to penetrate.  I hope it holds this time.

And speaking of rain yesterday — all of outside was wet and rainy and disgusting, so I wasn’t able to get pictures of yarns from Saturday’s dyeing.  I was finally able to do that this morning, and I am so impressed that I might just start letting yarns dry 24-48 hours before posting pictures.

I’ve also discovered that with the weather and the house in disarray, I’ve fallen behind on many other things, but I’m catching up.  I know many people like winter, but I am not a fan and winter surely isn’t fond of me, either.

Anyway, let’s look at what was dyed.  I was particularly tickled with this week’s collection, both as I was dyeing and again as they came out of their steamer pouches and into the wash-and-rinse.  Not a single Twinset that I wouldn’t use myself.

These are all dyed on my regular Phydlbitz Sock (75/25 Superwash Corriedale/Nylon, 430 yards), dyed as Twinsets.  Several look like solids, but there are also several that were layered, and two are definitely confetti sprinkled (Twinsets #35-36 and #43-44); either of these would make happy vibrant socks.

Both of the browns (Twinsets #31-32 and #45-46) are very subtly layered.  The darked pair, #45-46, started as a blue-based green that didn’t much please me, so I dipped it in a deep rusty red; the blue-based green left the Twinset with tiny-tiny dots of the blue-dye that didn’t dissolve until the yarn went into the steamer.  That rusty red is also in #27-28 and #33-34, in different saturations.

I used Sunflower Yellow as a lone straight solid dye on #29-30.  It is softer than the yellow dye I normally use.  Bits of this yellow also appears on #35-36.

A rich peacock blue showed up on Twinset #37-38.  It’s a blend of teal and turquoise.  I love how strong this pair is.

Phydlbitz Sock is $27.50 per skein, but for Monday and Tuesday you can have a matching Twinset for $50.00.  You get Preview Pricing because I don’t have to photograph, edit, and post pictures of the claimed yarns to the Blog Reader Specials page.

To claim the ones you want, just send me an email (ray@knitivity.com) with your numbered requests.  Feel free to add any previously posted BRS yarns in your order as well.  I’ll mark them off the Available Yarns tally below and then send a PayPal invoice.  On payment, I will purchase your shipping label so it is ready when the yarns are reskeined and ready for shipping.

I expect to have these ready to ship on or about Thursday.

Available Yarns: 
Rack 1 – 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36
Rack 2 – 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48

I’m Okay!

I don’t normally post non-yarn issues here.

Tuesday afternoon the mail carrier took away all the many yarn orders, some of which should have been sent last week but were delays with repairs on the trailer.   I was standing there handing her package, with one foot up on the edge of her truck.  Got down to the last one and I lost my balance and fell backward, stumbling a few feet and then losing to gravity.

I ended up with a  cut on the back of my head.  The mail carrier turned off her truck and helped me up, then yelped that I was bleeding.  Eeek.  It looked far worse than it actually was, since head wounds tend to bleed a lot.

My daughter took me to an urgent care facility where they checked me out, cleaned up the wound, checked me for possible concussion, but thankfully it was just a cut on the head and not something worse.  I’m thinking since I fell first onto my butt, then shoulders, it wasn’t such a long fall for my head to hit the ground so there wasn’t a lot of damage.

I’m still really sore all over — amazing how many muscles jump into action to brace against a fall.  But I’m taking it (mostly) easy today.  I’m surprised that I hurt more today than I did yesterday. Anyway, I’m reskeining the most recent collection of yarns and then I’ll be pulling hanks to be dyed tomorrow and shown on Saturday.  I’ll have this week’s packages ready to ship out on Saturday as well.

 

Always Learning!

These are the unclaimed yarns from the collection shown below.  They have now been added to the Blog Reader Specials page:


Happy Monday all around!

I woke to discover it was 31º outside and 48º inside.  The central heating unit is “finicky” at the worst times, but I turned on both space heaters and it is now about 58º inside, so it’s getting better. But this is nothing compared to what others are dealing with in other parts of the country, so I’ll keep my complaints to a dull roar. <*grin*>

Moving on to the yarns.  I always enjoy playing with color, but last night’s dye session was particularly fun.  No Twinset was made with dye straight from the manufacturer’s jar. Between last week’s leftovers (most of which were blended in the jars) and this weeks new dyes, every Twinset has multiple dyes applied; some were splattered, but several were blended in the dipping  bowl and appear quite solid.

One of the thing that intrigued me about dyeing yarns was the way indie dyers could create small batches of bright multi-colored yarns.  Big commercial mills have to plan their palettes and color schemes months or years in advance, often consulting color experts and fashion trend planners, and then manufacturing thousands of the same skeins over and over.  I remember many years ago a particular custom colorway in memory of a beloved member of the old KnitList — there were 7 shades of purples, blues, violets, plus teal, and over 6 dozen skeins were created as custom orders.  I swore I would retire the “Aunt Gail” colorway. I shudder to imagine creating hundreds or even thousands of the same thing.  Not for me.

Indie dyers could change of their own accord and work in small batches.  Much of my dye work was finding various ways to apply multiple colors, like segmented, splattered, or overdyed.  I tried for years to create solid colors and only just recently figured out how to get solids that weren’t overly splotchy, which makes me quite happy.  But taking dye powder straight from the manufacturer’s jar and putting it onto yarn isn’t exciting; after all, there is a limited number of dyes from the manufacturer.

So in the coming months I plan to spend at least part of my dyeing energies into creating unique solid colors by blending in different ways.  I am pretty sure the folks at Pantone have identified and named far more colors than I will ever create, and they have formulas and recipes for all of them.  But I want to create my own colors, one at a time.  I will still make multi-colored yarns as well, of course, but now that I am close to perfecting my technique for dyeing solids in little operation, I want to apply that to creating unique solids one Twinset at a time.  At least, for the Blog Reader Specials.

In this week’s collection, I can’t identify a single Twinset that doesn’t please me, but I am particularly tickled with the Teal and Brilliant Blue (Twinset #9-10) and also the  Red and Brown (Twinset #21-22), which reminds me of a brick red.  I can think of several patterns to make “brickwork” with this red and a skein of gray to act as the mortar.  If nobody claims the reds I just might have to make a bias brickwork scarf.  Both of these Twinsets seem well saturated.  I didn’t use any straight purple dye this week, so all the various purples you see are blended reds and blues.  I also notice that my Silver Gray sometimes seems to have a pinkish cast.

All of these are on  Phydlbitz Sock (75/25 Superwash Corriedale/Nylon, 430 yards each) and will be $27.50 after tomorrow.   For Monday and Tuesday, you may claim any matching Twinset for just $50.00.

To claim the ones you want, just send me an email with your numbered selection. I’ll mark your request off from the Available Yarns tally chart (below) so others can see what remains available when they visit here later.

Available Yarns: 
Rack 1 – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
Rack 2 – 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24

 

Don’t need more yarn, but want to help support my work?
You can always Buy Me A Coffee.

New Year, New Wall, New Project

Okay, so we are now in 2025.  Welcome to a new year full of hopes and dreams, inspirations and aspirations.

The wall around the window is still not entirely fixed.  I showed you on Tuesday where the wall had been torn out, preparing for repairs.  It should have been a one-day job.  The work isn’t being done by a regular contractor; I’ll leave it at that.  I spent Tuesday night without insulation in that area.  Ditto for last night.  Framing was done today, with insulation and sheetrock, but there was trouble sealing the window back into place, but that finally got fixed near dark this evening.  And, of course, there was some sealant material to prevent further leaks.  But he’ll come back tomorrow to tape and float the sheet rock, and do some other repair work.  Meanwhile, my space is all a-jumble.  Once he fixes everything and cleans up alllll the equipment, tools,  fasteners, and working debris strewn about my space, then I can spend an afternoon putting all the furniture and equipment back into place and I can start regular working again.

Meanwhile, since I can’t do actual work, I’ve used some free time to continue working on The Thing.  I thought I had established a patterning sequence, turning it into a rather mindless busy-work:  starting  with about a dozen knit rows for a garter stitch border, then establish the pattern:  a band of teal with purple squares, then a band of purple with teal squares.  Alternating back and forth, carrying the inactive yarn up the right side, caught up and hidden behind the working yarn of whatever row it is.  Easy-peasy, right?

Wrong!  I somehow wasn’t paying attention and made a double row of teal boxes in the purple band.  I wasn’t keen on ripping out, so I just did a double row of purple boxes on the teal band.  Basically I just turned a mistake into a design feature.

I know I have plenty of both colors, all purchased together long ago.   The piece is 14 inches wide, and currently more than 12 inches long. I have more than enough yarn to make this into 6 or 7 feet long.  So there is plenty of room to just go hog wild and play with variations on the theme; i.e.,  solid bands of color with the contrast color as boxes strewn across.  I could increase the height of the bands.  I could play with the number and/or width of the boxes or how many rows of boxes.  As long as I stay within the framework of color bands with contrasting boxes, I see a lot of room for playing with this.

Or I might just frustrated and frog it out to make a different project but still in the same theme.  I don’t know. The year is young.