First mentioned here. I have to say, I’d read in a few places that this soaker was really boring to knit, and I didn’t really think it would be that bad. No, it is. It’s soooo boring. I got about 3/4 finished and wanted to quit.

I used one of the nice merinos from my vacation to make these up, despite the fact that the pattern specifically says not to use merino (because it’s stretchy). I just loved this yarn. It’s sooo soft, and the color is really superb. It’s not just brown, it’s got all sorts of very soft variations and gradations throughout, making it very richly-colored.

So, making soap has been another item on my list of crafty things I’d like to try someday. I had decided to give it a try and if it worked well, to make soap for folks for Christmas this year.

I used melt-and-pour base. This is the base melting.

After adding colorant, essential oils, and some other stuff to my first batch, this is the soaps cooling in the soap mold.

I had a hard time getting the soap out of the mold, and you can see from the squished floral design here that pushing really hard is NOT the solution.

Freezing the bars in the mold does the trick, though - the soap shrinks away from the sides just enough.

I considered this enough of a success that I will go ahead and make several other varieties of soaps for Christmas presents for the gals in the family.

These are another project from the patterns at Wool Soaker Group. They’re knit flat in garter stitch, then seamed up. The pattern contained the direction to cast on both legs at the same time if you want, and that advice was sooo obvious, but sooo not something I would have thought of on my own.

Casting on both legs at the same time (from two different balls of yarn) provided me with the perfect solution to my nagging gauge difficulties with flat-knit pants. I knit differently by the time I start on the second leg, and the two legs end up different sizes from one another! But, working on both legs at the same time, I didn’t have this problem. Yay!

So I’ve been knitting baby hats like crazy. They’re so fast!! I mean, I don’t go for long projects anyway. Pants for babies are the largest project I generally take on. I just need faster turnaround with my knitting. But hats. I knit one of these puppies while waiting in traffic into and out of the state fair!! Love it!

This adorable pumpkin hat, ably modeled by Wally, but intended for Wally’s baby brother or sister, will hopefully be perfect for our Halloween baby. (Meaning, hopefully we have a Halloween baby…) It’s wool, but I’m not sure what kind - they were skeins my mom had taken the labels off of. It is made from this pattern.

These hats are made from SoySilk. Wow, I love that stuff. Silk. But soy. The first one turned out a bit larger than I anticipated, but used much less yarn than I anticipated. So I made another one. The one on the left (the larger one) is mine. The one on the right (the better one!) is for the shop.

Added: Another hat, finished over the weekend. I cast on late Saturday and weaved in the last end Sunday afternoon.

Made from this pattern using some old variegated pastel wool I found in my mom’s stash.

This one, I started and finished on our way to and from Decorah a few weekends ago. Again, used some yarn (unlabeled) from my mom’s stash, and this fun pattern.

Inspired by Amy at Angry Chicken, I made my own deodorant last week. So far, I have to say that I love it. I have struggled to find a deodorant that worked very well for me and that wasn’t full of crap that I don’t want on my body. THIS stuff is exactly what I’ve been looking for. Or, at least, it would appear that it is, after less than a week of use.

I used the recipe Amy wrote out on the post linked above.

I’ve been interested in this pattern since first seeing it. First, the 1932 part (I love vintage clothing, particularly from this era). But, also, they just looked interesting.

I’ll say, knitting in 2×2 ribbing for 16-18 inches is really really boring. Seriously boring. Good news: I can do it in the dark. This came in handy during our recent 8-hour road trip for pizza.

I’m about 2/3 done with the knitting of the main body. I plan to also add the cuffs.

While on vacation in Wisconsin, we drove through Mineral Point, largely to stop at a local yarn shop there called la bella vita fibre gallery. The whole day was somewhat of a fiasco, as we had trouble getting started, then when we located the shop, we found it had moved. After walking to the new location with a sleepy, grumpy 4-year-old in extreme heat, we discovered a sign saying “closed for a meeting, be back at 2.” It was around 1, so we wasted time at a local bar/pastry shop and went back at 2. Still closed. Eventually, they did re-open and we spent a fun hour or so browsing, feeling the different fibers, and petting the resident dog.

Molly Walz, the store owner, was very patient with Wally, even letting him play with some roving and then helping ensure he was gentle with the dog while I shopped. The shop was very attractive (though, really, how can you go wrong with walls of yarn, right?).

I ended up buying only four skeins of yarn.

Front, a worsted weight wool/mohair blend from Sandy’s Palette, a local yarn producer. Back, a merino from malabrigo, made in Uruguay

A super soft baby alpaca from Misti Alpaca. And this fun yarn that dearest husband picked out. Lumpy Bumpy Yarn by Charlene from Farmhouse Yarns.

The owners of la bella vita have also recently opened up a small hotel in the upper floors of their shop called the Mineral Point Hotel (actually, I believe the building was originally a hotel called the Mineral Point Hotel). The hotel is quite nice, with very nice rooms (we toured one). Do consider a visit if you find yourself in the area.

This knit wrap is using a pattern from the Wool Soaker Group at Yahoo Groups. I didn’t like several things about it, so I started changing it as I knitted.

I eventually wound up with a pattern that’s more me than the pattern I started with. I have no idea if my new pattern works on real babies…we’ll find out soon enough.

And these are the four wraps I made. The orange one is completely the pattern. The multi-colored one is completely not the printed pattern, but is my own pattern (based on the one at Wool Soaker Group).

This was an interesting process. The wraps knit up quickly, so it was easy enough to take a look at the first one after I made it, and make a few changes, knit up another one, make a few more changes, etc.

I was working on a local customer’s order for All in One diapers at Wallypop, and somehow cut and assembled two extra AIO insides. I decided to just make two extra AIOs and list them at Etsy. They’re completely awesome diapers - touchtape closure, bound with foldover elastic. They are quick-dry with an edge-sewn soaker. Built-in cover. One is black corduroy, the other is red taffeta. Sweet!

These can be found in my shop right now. Thanks.

Tie Dye’s been something I’ve wanted to try for years, but never have. I usually hesitate to start new hobbies, you know? Not only do I not need more things to occupy my time, but I also hardly need more supplies to store, right? But I’ve wanted to get a screenprint kit for a while, and I always browse at Dharma Trading Company and dream of the possibilities. And then many friends and fellow bloggers have written or spoken about tie dye lately, and Dharma sells a tie dye kit, and one thing led to another and before I knew it, um, I had a bunch of clothing blanks and dyes and goodies in my cart.

My first attempt was NOT bad, and it was definitely a learning experience.

This one on the left turned out quite nicely, though I anticipated the middle being a lighter green. Too much Dark Blue, overwhelmed the yellow, to make a dark green rather than the grassy green I envisioned.  The one on the right, I like. Your typical bulls-eye tie dye pattern. The colors didn’t mix together as much as I thought they would. (like, I thought it would be orange there in the second ring, not yellow and red.)

This swirl turned out way better than I anticipated. The hankie was hardly bulky and I had a hard time getting the rubber bands tight enough, so the whole thing was kind of floppy while I was dying it. Turned out nice, though. The one on the right is supposed to be Shibori, but it’s, uh, not very good. I like how it turned out, but it’s completely not what it should look like…

I love this one.

This is a little outfit. I like how it looks, but this was a good lesson for me. The green totally overwhelmed the yellow. I really wanted these to be mostly yellow, but put on too much green and blue, which, being darker, completely overwhelmed it.

So I want to combine batik and tie dye. I was having trouble getting the wax hot enough and I was doing this at home alone with Wally, so was reluctant to get out the hot plate to keep it warm at my table like I should probably do. I gave up on the wax and used Elmer’s gel glue, which I’d read about online. My mistake was, I’m pretty sure, I put the glue on the piece AFTER I soaked it in the soda ash solution. It kind of spread/ran more than I really thought it would. The octopus image is totally muddy. But the idea, in general, is not a bad one. If the lines could have been crisper, I would be happier, but it was a good first try with this. I’m not unhappy with it.

So these are all for me. Next time, I hope to be making stuff for the shop. I don’t plan to offer just tie-dyed items, I’ll be doing various things with the items to make them a bit more interesting.