Sock Wars 2006- over before it started

Well that competition was quicker than a scratch off ticket, I must say. All weekend the yarnmonkey site was showing up as "server down" on my computer, but apparently that was my server being picky, because as soon as I got on the site and saw my email was wrong, I emailed my assassin and my socks were already packed up! I'm halfway through one sock, but I'll finish the pair by the time the socks get all the way here from the US. I suppose I could hurry and finish them and express mail them to my target, but eh... C'est la vie, you know?

I dyed a truckload of yarn this weekend (since I couldn't knit my Socks of Doom) and my interest has been diverted. Here are some pics:

The colors aren't showing up quite right. The sock is lighter- the same Kingfisher and Havana brown I used the first time I dyed, but I dyed separate balls of yarn this time, instead of trying to get the repeats the correct length. The yarn on the right is 150g of that "sock yarn" I got from eBay. I dyed the whole thing Old Gold and then 1.5ish m section bordeaux and 1.5ish m section Madonna blue, so there are no white spots. It's actually darker than it looks. Quite a "happy accident" (I would link to the previous post here if I knew how ;-) ), if I do say so myself. Of course, my cat helped me wind it into a ball, so now it is in two pieces and there is one part that will need to be cut out. I seem to be getting the process down now. Very little dye rinsed out this time and the blue was exhausted. Usually the dye looks the same before and after. Of course, I got myself a little dye pot, so I'm not using the microwave anymore. That may have something to do with it...

Anyway, I have finished a submission for Knitty's December issue, but I'm sure I'll wait until the last possible second to send it in.

I'm going home in December for the first time in 18 months, so I'm starting to think about gifts.

I am a terrible mailer, so I've got 18 months worth of stuff that I've picked up here and there for some family members and nothing for others. So, I need to get on that. I also need to get on buying a ticket. EEK! A coworker is going home in December as well and tickets are over US$2000. Should I tell my family that my ticket is my gift to them? Haha. They might be a little disgruntled when I proceed to go to the mall and drop a month's pay. (I have to buy all the things I can't get here- like clothes that fit.) Hmmm...it is a conundrum.