Good morning! If you have been following the news, you’ll have heard about all the power outages here in Texas. The weather got down to right about 5 degrees, and I guess none of the power generation plants were prepared for cold that only occurs every 30 years or so.

That meant that we spent from early Monday through part of Wednesday mostly without power. They were doing so-called “rolling blackouts,” but in our case that meant we got electricity one hour at a time a few times each day. Monday was pretty bad. It got down to 49 degrees inside the house! After that, our next-door-neighbor fired up his generator and kindly allowed us and the neighbor on the other side to plug into it, which meant that we were able to power the electric blowers for our gas heaters. He couldn’t run it all the time, but he was able to run it enough that between the generator and the occasional one-hour-long bouts of electricity, we were able to stay safe. Thank Heaven for good neighbors!

We’re fine now. It definitely makes me grateful for something I ordinarily take for granted. The problems have just begun for many in our area who have burst pipes and who were probably a whole lot colder than we were.

Meanwhile, our 4-year-old and our 6-year-old had lots of fun playing in the snow when it got up above about 15 degrees and I let them go outside for short bursts with hot cocoa in between.

They also built a snowman with the help of their big brother.

You may notice that the hand-knit hat and handwoven scarf my 4-year-old was wearing in the first picture made their way to the snowman! I made them bring those in right after the photo.

There wasn’t a lot I could do in terms of making yarn with the cold and lack of power, but I did get all the orders packaged up during the brief interludes of electricity, and I was finally able to dye most of the dyed-to-order orders yesterday. They are drying now.

Unfortunately, we have not gotten mail since last Saturday, so even though the packages made it to the post office thanks to my husband, they don’t seem to be moving yet. I apologize for the delay, and I wish there was something I could do to speed your yarn and fiber on its way to you. It’s supposed to get up above freezing today, and I’m hoping the mail will start moving again.

One thing I was able to do this week without electricity was make stitch marker sets. This has been on my to-do list for almost two months, so I was happy to be able to get them made.

If you like them, I’ll keep making them. Each set has five stitch markers with lobster clasps, so they work great for both knitting and crochet. They’ll fit up to size 10.5 US knitting needles. Personally, I like using stitch markers that open for knitting because that means I can move them when (not if) I make mistakes.

They come on a gourd-shaped safety pin so you can pin them to your project bag. Each set has 4 glass gems and 1 “made with love” heart. They come in a variety of colors, and I made sure that each set had 4 different colors so you can use them to keep track of different parts of your project.

In terms of dyeing yarn, I have been working my way through all the colorways on Splendid Sock. I think Ball at Netherfield is my current favorite. Here it is on Splendid Sock:

Here it is on several different bases plus a hat I knit:

As I write this, I have it available on Splendid Sock, Squoosh DK, and Aran Go Baa.

It feels pretty weird focusing on spring colorways given the weather, but I still am. Speaking of spring, here’s one more colorway I wanted to bring to your attention.

Crocuses are the first flowers to peak their heads above the ground in early spring, often in the snow. Crocuses in Snow has all the different shades of purple speckled on a white background.

Here’s a closeup on Splendid Sock:

I have Crocuses in Snow available on Splendid Sock, So Silky Sock, and Squoosh DK right now.

You can see all the other new goodies in my shop right here. Even though I couldn’t dye anything until yesterday this week, I got a lot done the week before, so the shop is still well stocked.

I hope you are staying warm and cozy and finding a little time for the fiber arts this week.