Purple Yarn & Rhinebeck

As promised the results of the Purple Yarn Experiment are in, and I'm happy to say that they are much better than the Fall Colors Yarn :-)

This was a lot of fun to make! I don't think the range of colors come through very well in the pictures. It ranges from very light lavander to dark blue/purple. It did speckle a bit, as I thought it would, but I really don't mind those spots. Yeah for successful dying!! Even if I am the only one who sees this as success I'm still happy!! LOL! I want to get some Jacquard dyes now & some Bare Knit Picks yarn & play around with those :-) The two yarns I've dyed are both sock yarns, and being that I don't knit socks I may have to gift them to Juli :-P I really wanted to make a lacy scarf (thinking Branching Out??) with the Fall Colors yarn, but I'm still undecided about the colors.

Next weekend is Rhinebeck! WooHoo!!!! Juli & I are playing Blogger Bingo :-) We're both squares (Catch us ifyou can!!) and I decided like yesterday that I want to be a player too. I got my card like 6 minutes ago & I have to find some printer paper so I can print it out.... Time to start stalking blogs to see what my targets look like!

Also, I've been pimping our podcast and I'm pretty excited to say that several people have atually downloaded it!! Hopefully they found us interesting enough to come back for Episode two, which we plan on recording on Friday. Juli will be in town for Rhinebeck on Saturday then Mama Mia on Sunday (I *heart* ABBA!!!) to celebrate my Gma's 80th Birthday, so we'll all get together at my house to record. Our first recording was pretty craptacular since we just pressed *record* and blathered on, but next time we'll organize an outline & try to stay on topic for more than 3 seconds at a time!

One final picture: my Lil Man playing Football this weekend. He's #95 (second from the left in the red).... notice his size compared to the other team :-X

They don't have to submit birth certificates in the 5 & 6 year old division, so I'm 99.9% sure the kids on the other team were NOT 5 & 6!!!! They were freaking HUGE!!!! I know my kid is small (he's 42 pounds & will be 6 in 2 weeks) but REALLY!!!!! The kids you see in the picture were the smallest from the other team. Their *A* team was twice the size. We had about 10 kids on our team & they had about 26. We have more kids in this age group, but they got split into two teams so the kids get to play more. Apparently the other team was more concerned with winning than anything else. Lil G sat on the sideline most of the game, which was fine by me.... not only were these guys huge but they were playing dirty too!! The coach said he was afraid to put G in against these kids. I can't wait for wrestling to start back up, at least then I know he's matched up with someone his own size! This game was a few miles from my Grandparents, which I didn't realize until I got off the Expressway at their exit, so I called them & they came to the game then took us out for pizza. We then went back to their place & hung out for a bit. It was nice to spend some time with them.

Copied From Juli's Blog:::

I'm a podcaster!!!
Me and my sisters are starting a podcast. I know, pretty silly, but Val (Make that Juli here since I am Val) and I are pretty knitting obsessed and this was the next logical step. Here's the link to our podcast shownotes and here's a link to download our first episode. Gloria was absent since she hasn't downloaded skype yet. We're working on getting it onto iTunes, apparently you have to go through an approval process. Keep your fingers crossed that someone will actually want to listen to me and my knit sibs!

Catching up

I haven't been doing much new knitting... I'm trying to finish up all the random little things I have laying around over the summer, so in the fall I can work on the big things that I don't want to think about while it's so hot- like Juli's shawl & Gloria's shrug. I have about a billion dishcloths that I made recently, most of which will be gifted, and I have what WAS the beginning of a pair of socks that I'm turning into leg warmers for Devin. George asked that I make the kids Harry Potter scarves. Ummm.... let me think about that one... OF COURSE!!!! I want to place an order @ Webs for some superwash wool for the project. Knit Picks doesn't seem to have the Gryfandor colors in Swish superwash. Although they did put the new Fall line out & I haven't had a chance to look it over yet. Maybe I'll make Georgie a Gryfandor and Devin a Ravenclaw... Have to think about it before ordering. Bottom line though is that I don't want to start anything new until I have a few projects off the needles. And speaking of needles, I'm eyeing the DPN set on Knit Picks which I see that my sister just ordered. Let me know how you like them Juli! I'm a big fan of Clover Bamboos, but I do really like my Knit Picks options, so maybe I would like to Knit Picks DPNs too.

Georgie starts summer school tomorrow. I can't believe my 5-year-old has to go to summer school. He'll have the boy aross the street with him though, and he doesn't seem to mind the idea of going to school tomorrow, so I'm not gunna make a huge deal out of it.

I entered a contest through the Stash and Burn podcast, and I didn't win, but got an e-mail that they're sending everyone who got the correct answer a little gift :-) Juli got hers already, so I hope mine comes tomorrow! I love getting stuff (other than bills) in the mail!!! Juli has been on a kick that we're gunna do our own podcast, along with Gloria. She's got segments worked out, I named us, now we need to work out the logistics of podcasting from different states! I bet we would be able to do a decent pod cast!

And speaking of Gloria, there was a fire in her apartment building last week. Several fire fighters went to the hossy for smoke inhalation, but other than that there were no injuries. She's out of the apartment for a few months while they do repairs, and she needs some new furnature and whatnot... all her clothing needs to be dry cleaned... and she LOST HER STASH!!!! GASP!!!! Now, it's wasn't the world's most impressive stash, but it was a stash none the less... and what do you want to do most when you're stessed out and have to stay at your parents house?? Knit, of course. So, she came over and took a ton of yarn from the craptastic garbage bag of doom, needles and a back issue Knit Simple magazine with a log cabin blanket pattern in it. I just told her to be careful with the blanket when she's done with it, b/c since it's acrylic it may melt to her if it's ever in a fire :-X I think the deal worked out well for everyone. I unloaded a boatload of craptacular yarn, Gloria got a project to work on, and I brought most of what was left in the bag to a drop box, so George is thrilled that we no longer have a ginormous bag of yarn in our living room. The way I see it, being that I destashed like 80 skeins of yarn right there that I should totally be able to buy whatever I want at Reinbeck :-D Juli will be coming with us this year, so I'm pretty sure spending will be completely out of control, but I'm OK with it!

G & I spent the day on the boat today- he worked (installed the radio) while I started re-reading HP: The Order of the Phoenix. We got HP7 yesterday, but G is reading it first since I can't keep a secret, so I'm re-reading the last two in the mean time. I can't wait to read the new one! All the buzz I hear has been that it's great. I found HP inspired sock patterns (Bellatrix, Fawkes, and Nagini a few minutes ago, with the help of Ravelry. I love that site!! Maybe once I get a few projects off the needles I'll cast on for some socks.

OK, I feel like I'm still on the boat, and I'm getting dizzy, so that's it from me for now. Bad Blogger, I have no pix today.