soap soap soap soap soap

so part of keeping my soap business means making a lot of soap. here's the first batch. 9 absolutely gorgeous logs of wool wash soap. they turned out brilliant and i will have only a few 2nd quality bars. This entire pile of soap plus one equally as large will be headed off to Green Mountain Diapers. Seems she sells quite a few of these. So many that I actually struggle to keep her in stock. Thankfully Karen has been very understanding and continues to order from me.
There's been a bit of knitting. More sock yarn arrived from Australia so I've been working away on my striped socks. On Saturday night I was having a bit of wine with my knitting, and somehow skipped a very important step of the heel. whoops. So i put the whole thing down and got myself back on the straight and narrow the next morning and it's coming along quite nicely.

Funny thing about the stripes, I do believe that they make boring ol' stocking stitch fly right by.
Hey, what's this? Hello second sleeve for Arisaig.
(sarcasm)You're practically knitting yourself it's going so quickly (/sarcasm)

we have sleeve

one sleeve down.

that took forever. and i still have yet another sleeve to go. onward.

this is taking forever.

Oh Arisaig. You are taking forever. I cast on in August. Little by little I've completed the right front, the left front and even the back. Then I put you aside for a while. For months you languished in my knitting basket - not sleeping, still a work in progress, just not progressing.

Last week I pulled you out wondering just how much I had to do and low an behold I've only got to finish TWO sleeves to be done. Two little sleeves. Narrow things without many stitches, what was I waiting for. Let me tell you something, those sleeves are little devils. All lace, no ribbing, it's taking me forever! I thought that I might be able to breeze through the sleeves before resting again on this project. But nope. I think, after I finish sleeve one it will be time for a little break again. At this rate this sweater will be done in time for wrap sweaters to come back around in style - in 20 years.

and there's still the matter of the trim and the blocking and the seaming. sigh.

you may have noticed a little more posting from me. I took the past two months off from the soap company. Having trouble finding time to do it all. In fact, the soap business is officially for sale. But I keep getting emails from customers who NEED to have salve or lotion or something, so I had to open my doors again. And of course, talking to potential buyers has made me more excited about the business.

So, until I have someone who wants to love it as much as I do we're back in business. I think i'm going to work on refining it a bit more and concentrating on the products that I do best. But it is nice to feel wanted by customers out there.

temptations

it's so rare that I get to meander into a yarn shop and just poke around. but yesterday I found myself in the 'city' with some time on my hands. I stopped into Northeast Fiber Arts Center and poked around -- there's nothing i really need right now. I had no projects planned. I thought maybe i'd pick up some trim yarn for a collaborative project.

but this was calling my name. isn't the color divine?

Sock patterns that I'm thinking of, at this moment include:

Earl Grey by the Yarn Harlot
BFF Socks
Perambulate
Vinnland
Estonian Button Stitch Socks

knitting footwear

At Christmas I participated in a yarn swap over on Ravelry. My partner sent me two skeins of alpaca/silk sock weight yarn in very yummy colors. A trip to the library resulted in scoring a copy of Charmed Knits (projects for fans of Harry Potter) which just so happened to have a pattern for jolly striped socks.

I cast on during a plane trip to TX, and the flight attendant was most impressed. If you're out here Wonderful Jet Blue Flight Attendant, I hope you were brave enough to cast on those circular projects and knit those hats! Anyway, one sock flew off my needles the second quickly following suit - but OH NO! I ran out of green yarn 25% of the way through sock #2. Nearly out of pink yarn as well I hit the internet looking to pick up a couple of other skeins and nothing. I cannot find this yarn! Here's hoping my swap partner is able to score a couple of extra skeins for me.
Project #2 are these footies that were a request from a friend. Over the years she had been the recipient of heaps of these style slippers from the grandmother of a roomate, she requested a pair in black so that she could wear them on the plane during her frequent travels. Done in Wool Ease, she can throw them in the washer without care.

A pretty quick knit, however the pattern she supplied was not without it's challenges. There was a long stretch of alternating rows of K9 P11 K9 and K10 P9 K10 -- and I could not keep it straight. Each footies had to be ripped back 10+ rows because I messed up. Each row I found myself counting bumps from the row before to figure out how much I had to knit for that row.