Since around 2011, maybe 2012, my primary yarn has been what I called  Phydlbitz Sock, a solid sturdy sock yarn.  It was labelled as 75/25 Superwash Corriedale/Nylon, because that’s how it came to me.

Originally this yarn was spun in the U.K.   I found out just this week that the U.K. mill that created this yarn closed about 5 years ago, when I was still buying from my then-current supplier.  My former supplier contacted my current supplier and had them create the same yarn, but it was 75% 25-micron superwash Merino and 25% nylon.  And it is spun in Peru, well-known for excellent knitting yarns, so that’s not an issue for me.  This change was done several years before my former supplier retired and my current supplier took over the former’s line of yarn offerings.

But they kept the original mill’s yarn name on their label, and I have been buying, dyeing, and selling this yarn thinking it was the same yarn that I started with back then.

Doing a little research, it seems most Superwash Merino sock yarns use 18-22 micron Merino, so it is definitely a finer wool yarn than my Phydlbitz, but now I need to change my labelling.

Should I call it Phydlbitz II or Phydlbitz 2.0 or maybe some different name entirely?  I mean, I really like the Phydlbitz name as it has special meaning for me.  I could just keep calling it Phydlbitz Sock, much the same way other companies change the formulas for their product but keep the brand name.

Obviously I will change my labelling for fiber content.  I’m only disappointed that this change was made several years ago and I only just now discovered the change.

I am playing with an idea. I know I have described the process I use for making Twinsets in various techniques. Many (too many?) years ago I even made a video on YouTube showing me making a few Twinsets. I am thinking about making a new video showing how I do it, start to finish — pulling hanks from cones, the pre-dye soaker, laying yarns out for dyeing, steaming, the wash-and-rinse, the reskeining after drying …. the whole thing.

If I could trim it down to the salient points, is this something you’d like to see? Should I do shorter videos, breaking the steps down into a series? What techniques (dye application) techniques would you want to see?

Comment down below, or drop me an email (ray@knitivity.com) and let me know what you think.

While pondering my future I tried chain-plying sock yarn, on a size 8 circular needle. Now that I have the rhythm of it, I’m thinking it would be fun to see if a single skein of Phydlbitz Sock yarn would make a typical beanie in a basic pattern. My thinking is that chain-plying would be super for mixing up the colors in a wild multi-color skein, thus avoiding obvious pooling.

If it works I may try doing some more of my sprinkled or splattered multi-colored dye jobs specifically for that purpose, to be sold with instructions on how to do it.

What you think?

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.

I 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.

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.

I knew there was a leaking problem and the landlord has regularly been apprised of things.  We had a good strong rain several days ago (and there were a half-dozen or more tornadoes in the area), and the ongoing rain issues caused the mini-blind in the front window to simply fall out of the window frame.

So now that we have (mostly) clear weather, that section of the wall is torn out and the guy working on it has to get new sheetrock,  two-by-fours, insulation and assorted other stuff.   It was to be a one-day job.  It’s now mid-afternoon, and the guy running the work has to be with his aunt (off to the heart doctor, unavoidable), so this job will go into tomorrow.

Of course, that wall is where I run my skein-winder (it normally sits on the table pulled out from the wall), and the big etagere that usually sits in front of the window and all the way to the door is where most of my supplies and other materials live.

So the yarns that were promised to be shipping on Thursday probably won’t be shipping until Friday, assuming I can get my space back into some semblance of order in time to reskein the yarns on Thursday.

I am sincerely hoping this set of repairs will stop the rains intruding into my space.  The worker is also aiming to thoroughly seal all the outside areas in that space as well.  He said he also has to remove the window to seal all around it.  I suppose I will throw a sheet or something over the window tonight, and just twiddle my thumbs in the meantime.

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.  🙂