birthday boy

it's the start of birthday

works in progress

we're keeping busy around here. this arrived the other day:hundreds of pounds of soap making and shipping supplies. last year i wasn't prepared for the holiday season and quickly sold out of all of the good stuff. i had thought about making a lot of things in August - it just never happened. this year i would like to do some craft shows with my friend Abby who does jewelry, and i want to have lots of inventory for the holidays, so i'm making lots of soap now.

the handmade paper that i use for soap labels comes from www.paperworks.biz. a fine company that ships very timely and has a gorgeous selection. the website was down in july and i almost had a heart attack, but luckily it came back up even though they closed their retail location.

here's the progress on the Hourglass sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. Nothing extrodinary, i got bored. not sure i like the color/handpaintedness of the yarn. something more subtle might have been more to my liking. but i will finish it. right after i finish this:
the Child's Tunic from Knitting Pure and Simple. i'm using Treliske organic merino, which is growing on me. i love the color, and i think it will be pretty soft after blocking but i did here that it pills easily. we'll see how it goes. So far the knitting has gone well, but i overlapped the placket with the buttonhole on the inside and had a bit of an issue picking up stitches for the hood on the first side. that's okay though. i'm not so much a perfectionist or habitiual frogger.

knitted baby kimono

The baby kimono from Mason-Dixon Knitting in Blue Sky Alpaca Dyed Cotton, color Shell. This has been a WIP for ages, slow going at first because I prefer knitting in the round to the knit/purl/knit business of going flat. And then I ran out of yarn. For the reference, this patter takes 1 full skein plus a very little bit of a second. I order this yarn from The Yarn Tree, and it took me a long time to get around to ordering that second cake (they cake it up for you). In fact, I wasn't inspired until they emailed to say it's 20% off all this month because of their anniversary. So I got this and yarn to make my boy a sweater.

Speaking of the boy, look how amazing this tower is:
and you know he's only two and a half...

One final shot, here are some custom wool wash soaps that I'm sending out for a mama today. Normally, all the wool wash soap that I make is unscented (unless you want the liquid). But she asked nicely and I made her some flavored balls. They look like candies and smell divine too!