Hungry for Handspun: The Cursed Oven...

*Warning: Photo and Babble heavy post*

Last time I posted, I had said our oven was about to be fixed. Well, um..it's still broken. It's now been 3 weeks and it was supposed to be fixed today. One of the minions was just here with a new element in hand! I turned off the power to the oven! He unscrewed the old mangled sad element! He got ready to put in the new happy pretty element! Um...wrong part. So the wait for nice baked goodies continues. I don't know if he'll be back today with a new part or if it's going to take another week. Once I know how long it will take, I will know when I can dye again. It's not that I use the oven when I dye..it's that I don't want to have to bring out all my dyes and get my wool soaking in the tiny little kitchen only to have to put it all away at a moment's notice so the oven can be fixed...so sadly and annoyingly my dyeing is on hold yet again...and I had just set a date for an update in the shop, but I may have to change that....

Otherwise I've kept busy making more soap:

Here's one I experimented with just after I made that nice Castile soap. This one is made with Calendula tea, Calendula petals and orange essential oil as the fragrance. I love how the color turned out..and I'll know how well it bubbles and such once it's cured in a few weeks time. It's got a nice light orange scent to it as well. Here it is just after I poured it into the mold (next time I make it I'm probably not going to put the petals on top...I like how it looks, but I think they will just wash off after the first soap use and they seem a bit silly now that I look at it):

And here it is out of the mold and sliced:

Yesterday I made some "Lavender Swirl" soap (I'll think of a better name, really I will). Which has quite a few nice oils in it and some lavender essential oil for the scent. I just cut it, so here are the photos....just poured in the mold:

Out of the mold:

Sliced and ready to cure:

I thought this slice would make a great Rorschach test:

What do you see in it?*

I love the smell of lavender, so this one is a favorite already.

As for my knitting..there has been a problem with the Wing o' the Moth Shawl...It seems I can't count, or I can count and I like to add mysterious extra stitches. When I finished the first chart (with carefully marking each row and repeat after I had finished it) I had 35 extra stitches. I have no idea where they came from, I don't know who invited them to hang out on my shawl. I looked it over and over and over and checked and doubled checked everything...and then I frogged it. sigh. I am to sad to photo the frogged pile o' yarn. I'll start over once I am feeling the love for it again.

I have made progress on my Woodland Shawl :

It's nice easy knitting and I'm loving the color!