Update

Alert for those of you that live in or around Philly: on July 13th, Rosie's Yarn Cellar is doing a handpainted yarns promotion. We're having a get-together at the shop to showcase some of our existing handpainted lines (including Black Bunny yarns, in a superwash DK and nonsuperwash bulky weight, that you can only get at Rosie's -- not even in my Etsy shop) and to introduce some new patterns and samples, and to show off some of the cool new yarns we're bringing in. A special batch of Black Bunny wool-nylon sock yarn will be making an appearance, along with some yarns that Rosie's hasn't carried before. Rosie's blog is going to do some posts specifically addressing the issues that arise when working with handpainted yarns (pooling and splotching, anyone?) so I'll let you know when these posts are up.

Reader question

Anonymous (if that's her real name) asked the name of a Phildar yarn shown in one of my swag photos. It doesn't even have a regular label on it yet but appears to be called Auteil, 80% acrylic/20% wool, in a color called Persan.

Knitting

How can someone with a knitting blog do so little knitting? I'm about to turn the heel on my pink Black Bunny sock, and I just mailed off some swatches to see if I can add to my extensive collection of rejection letters. I'm about to cast on for a sock pattern for Rosie's handpaint extravaganza, and then we'll see what's cooking next. I'd really like to play with my self-striping yarn that Amy sent me from the Dye-O-Rama, and Lars sent me a gorgeous skein, so who knows?

By the way, if there's any knitting-related topics you would like me to opine upon (and you know how much I love to opine), let me know.

Dyeing

I will repeat my offer of a free skein of sock yarn or 4 oz. of roving to the 200th customer of Black Bunny Fibers. Right now, we're in the 170s. I've been having some shipping delays in getting undyed wool; wool-nylon blend has been particularly hard to get but I should have at least a few skeins up in the Etsy shop soon. More spinning fiber, too.

Flood Watch

Thanks to everyone for their kind wishes. My parents (and about 200,000 other people) lucked out: the levees held and the Susquehanna River did not rise as high as was feared. So after an overnight evacuation (which they spent in relative comfort at my brother and sister-in-law's watching Aunt Mary hit on their elderly next-door-neighbor), they were back home today. I understand that many, many others were not so lucky, and I am truly sorry for them. In fact, I think I feel a Red Cross donation coming on.

Coming soon: Sneak Preview of Fall Stuff, and hey, didn't I go to New York a while back and forget to post about it?