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!

Well, till next time..May all your ovens work!

* I see a butterfly

Rainy Day....

It's really quite gloomy here today.  I love the rain, I love the gloom!

I'm trying to be a better blogger..and I figure that photo posts count, right?  Good!  I made some soap today:

 

It's just a nice simple Castile style soap.  No scents, no color, just olive oil, a bit of castor oil and the usual water and lye.  I'll be making quite a few more loaves of soap before we move...I don't really want to drive over 2000 some miles with lye in our vehicle.  And one can never have enough soap!

I ate some oranges..because they seemed sunny:

And I took a few photos of a Calla Leaf with rain drops on it:

  

I also knit a bit more on the Wing o' the Moth Shawl (very nice and sunshine-y):

I'm through the first skein of the Malabrigo lace and one repeat away from finishing the first chart.  Hopefully I can make some more progress on it this weekend..while it rains.

Annnnd.....Our oven, which has been broken for the past two weeks will finally be fixed tomorrow..or maybe Saturday...whenever they get around to it.  Thank the gods!  I want some comfort food hot from the oven (and I want to bake quite a few goodies as well).

In other boring mundane news...My ribs are feeling much healed and I plan to start dyeing this weekend or Monday.  Woot!  So hopefully there will be a shop update in a week or so (I'll announce it in my shop and my Ravelry group).

Hope everyone is having a happy Thursday!

Well Hello There! Remember Me? I've Been Knitting...

I've also been a naughty blogger.  My committee recommended I blog, so here I am!  I'll try to be better about blogging this year.  If I'm not, I'm sure my committee ( you know who you are Opal and Megan....) will do their best to prod me. 

So, what's up here?  Not much.  I haven't been dyeing much because I seem to have some inflamed rib cage cartilage which has kind of slowed me down.  It's starting to feel much better and I hope to get back to dyeing in the next week. I'm itching to dye up some more fiber for the shop.

In other news...I'll be moving this year!  My husband's job will allow him to work from  home and I've been wanting to move closer to my family.  So we're going to be packing everything up here and driving about 2100 miles back to where we came from (well, back to where I came from...G came from a much greater distance).  I'm so very excited to be moving home!  This shouldn't really affect the shop except that it will be in vacation mode for a few weeks while we make the move and settle in (and your packages will be coming from Wisconsin instead of California).

And finally...I've been knitting.  I'm trying very hard to finish items that I've started before casting on new ones.  So far I'm doing sort of ok with that....I finished these two items:

Hemlock Ring Blanket (pattern by Jared Flood) (Ravelry link)

 

Which is currently heading to it's new home.  I used Cascade Eco + in the "Lichen" colorway for this.  Used just shy of 2 skeins.  I love it, the pattern is well written and with no purling required, it just flew off my needles!  Woooo!

And the Reversible Cabled-Rib Shawl (pattern by Lily Chin) (Ravelry Link, yet again)

The above photo is of the shawl blocked, the photo below is of the shawl before blocking:

I wasn't sure at first if I wanted to block it.  I love the texture of the cables..but I think I love it even more blocked...so good decision...right?  I used 4 skeins Malabrigo Lace for this in the "Butter" colorway.

So, once I finished those two, I decided I could cast on another project....

That's the Wing o' the Moth Shawl (pattern by Anne Hanson) started in Malabrigo Lace in the "Sauterne" colorway.  I love the color...it reminds me of lemon curd.  Yum!

I couldn't be stopped there though... my need to cast-on new things took over and I also started the Woodland Shawl:

This is using Dream in Color Baby yarn in the "Chinatown Apple" colorway.

Two new projects really isn't that horrible, right?  Or is it?  I also have another Girasole on my needles and a new Log Cabin Blanket in progress (there may also be a few unfinished socks and um...well, other things...but I just won't get into that now).  Oh the shame. 

Anyway..I babble!  Lots!  To sum things up:

Ribs a hurtin' = no dyeing for another week

Two finished projects = a whole new slew of projects cast-on = I have no restraint

Maybe I for my next blog post, I should just sum things up right away and save you all the babble ;).

I'll try to blog every other week from now on with progress and shop news and moving news (no promises..but i will try!).

Happy Fiber Play!