Dye-o-rama!!

Look what I got for my Dye-O-Rama swap!!!! Can you believe it! I waited a few days to post, we had no sunny weather all this week and I wanted to take the best photo of the colors. KitKatKnits dyed it for me, she used Louet Gems and Wilton Icing Dyes!! ICING DYES!! With those colors! She sure knows her stuff! I've always been to scared to try icing dyes. Now I sure know better. She included a bag of gummi bears in the packages, too– you don't see them because they are looooong one. I love gummi bears.This week at work was awesome, awesome, awesome. My boss said, "Now you know what research is really like!!", and I was just like, "COOL!". Give me more of it! I was basically beta testing software/hardware for an upcoming study, and we had major bugs with it. I was like, "Bring it on!"

Mike and I woke up early yesterday morning and drove down the shore to eat breakfast. We like to do this during the summer, it's been our thing for a while. We get up at 5, drive down to Point Pleasant, then drive around until we find something open. The place we found was at Point Beach, and it was open for the fisherman crowd. They used real, fresh potatoes for their hash browns (not frozen!), but they didn't serve pancakes until 8 and the coffee was terrible! So we got eggs, bacon, and hashbrowns and toast. 'Twas pretty good, greasy just how I like it.

Then Mike spent the day working outside, of course, while I ran errands. He had to make a lip in front of the garage, because it dips down and water gets all in there when it rains, getting everything wet. Here is is working it out 3 Little Pigs style!
I went to a jewelry party last night, and this was the hostess. Her name is Top Dog, and boy is she ever! What a friendly, sweet angel baby princess. She adopted her Mom and Dad by constantly coming up on their deck, and boy did she pick the right parents! Sue leaves a buffet of five different kinds of food out for her, and will even call the house when she is at work and talks to it over the answering machine!!How funny is that??

This little lady says, "Why don't you leave me a buffet??"

One more thing

Please, can I look any more fangirlish??

If you've ever seen the movie MURDERBALL, that is the FAMOUS (!!!) Keith Cavill and I at United Spinal's Grand Central Station Spinal Cord Injury/Disease Awareness day!!!!! He is SO nice in person– and so is his girlfriend (sorry ladies!!)!! Look at my cheesy grin– I was so excited to meet him and his girlfriend, I could hardly say anything to them. Sorry guys!

 The even was last Tuesday, you can go to the news page on United Spinal, and read all about it. United Spinal is an awesome advocacy group devoted to SCI/D, and althought they used to only allow Veterans, they now allow civilians and kids with SCI/D to join. They've accomplished SO much in their 60 years as an advocacy group– just go to the news page, alright?? The research organization I work for was there promoting our stuff– I had an awesome day and I really enjoyed myself. I was happy to meet so many awesome people (especially the 4 Wheelz City men! Hope to see you at Kessler soon!).

Been sooo busy!

Well, I’ve had a busy month! We went to 2 weddings, been busy doing outside stuff, been super busy at work, and this week I kept getting hives (allergy to *something* I ate, don’t know what yet, I think it’s beef, but isn’t that a little rare??).

First off, I didn’t neglect my dye-o-rama swap pal. Swear. I’ve just been too busy to get a card to put in it, and you know how you just forget… BAD PAL! I’m mailing the package out today.

I couldn’t figure out how to insert the photo correctly. For some reason, iPhoto let me rotate it, but it didn’t upload it that way. For some readon, there isn’t a save feature, but it just automatically saves your photos as you change them (??). I’m used to Photoshop… ANYWAY, I used 4 different color dyes: chocolate, ecru, seafoam green, and robin’s egg blue. The brand of dye is Dharma, the type of dye is their standard wool day (just add vinegar and water!). I used 4 jelly jars immersed in a big boiling bath inside a canning pot, and just draped sections inside the jelly jars. I wasn’t sure I would like the yarn after I pulled it out and it dried, but I reskeined it and I love the colors!!

Here’s a swatch: As you can tell it’s blurry, but I cast on 60 stitches on size 2 Addi Turbos, to mimic what it would look like as sock yarn. I would recommend to my pal to use SIZE 3 needles, as the resulting gauge is a bit stiff on the 2s (I included the swatch in the package). There should be enough yarn for a big pair of socks, it’s definitely over 450 yards. I didn’t really measure it, but I can tell by the weight that there’s plenty of yarn. Especially if you do toe-up socks. I think there may be a tiny bit of pooling with the natural color that I left in it, if my pal is worried about that, she can utilize a slip-stitch pattern to limit that. The Crusoe socks on Knitty would be cool, I think.

And for the record, I am able to put on a dress and lipstick when I go out to weddings. Not so much for work or anything else, but yeah! I think I even wore… PANTYHOSE! WTF?!?!