Merry Christmas

I got to give my Christmas presents today. It was so much fun... I think everyone liked their gifts. Here is what I made:1 and 2: Irish Hiking Scarf for my future SIL Katie
3, 4, and 5 Turn a Square Hat for Uncle Harry, Grandpa, and Grandma Sturt
6 River Rapids Socks for my Sister Sarah
7 and 8 Plain Vanilla Socks hand dyed by me for Aunt Debra and Grandma Cuso
9 Bristol Neck Warmer Cowel hand-spun and dyed by me for Mom
10 and 11 sweaters made by Aunt Lisa and Aunt Debra for Mom and Aunt Susan (matching!)
12 Special Bonus of Murph on Christmas morning... he was enjoying the unwrapping

I will post my loot (I got a lot of good stuff) after we move on Monday. I sent it all home with Sarah. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

Happy Kittah

Roxanne, my year old ragdoll kitten is SO happy with the moving process so far. She cannot believe that there are boxes laying all over our house and the cabinets are getting cleaned out, which just means that there is room for her to lay in them. She spends her days sleeping and jumping from box to box at the moment. She is a spoiled brat, which I know is just my own fault, but I do feel a little bad. See right now she basically does whatever she wants. We are moving in with my sister, Sarah, who has two cats and a dog. Despite all our hard work she does not like her cousins and spends the whole time under our bed when we visit.... poor kitty has no idea whats coming!

I have finished my Christmas knitting. The scarf did not come out how I wanted it to. So, we dyed over it! Pictures later (I left it at my parents' house drying). Hopefully it dries better I think it will. We dyed it with black and vermilion and I think it will be very pretty.

School's Almost Out

It has been a VERY long semester and I am very happy to anounce that I only have one test and a final left and then I will be a graduate of Quinsigamond Community College! This is not my ultimate goal. I would like to go back and get a BA, but I am still very proud of myself as I have been working on my associates for several years while working full time. It keeps me busy.

On a knitting note I have been working on my last Christmas project. It is an Irish Hiking Scarf for my future sister-in-law, Katie. I am in love with it and I think I will be making another for me after Christmas!

Another Square Hat

I have been so busy with school lately that I have not done too much knitting. Here is a little peek at something I did have time to whip up.
This is the Turn A Square Hat pattern and is very quick and easy. I love the green with the gray striping. The yarn was leftovers that I stole from my sister Sarah's stash. (it is where I usually shop as you will soon find out if you have not already!) The hat is for my grandmother for Christmas. I only have one more Christmas knitting gift left to finish! More on that later, back to writing papers :(

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a great day with friends and family! Enjoy your turkey.

Sock Machine

As the holidays are fast approaching I am a knitting machine. Recently I ordered 2 bracelets from my friend Erin for gifts. She is so nice and gave me a deal on them, so I wanted to do something special for her. I made her these fall socks that I thought were fitting for this time of the year. She loved them, and I can't believe that I got them finished in time. It was a new pattern for me and I really enjoyed knitting it.

Success!

Last night Melissa and I took the soap out of the molds and it was a success... we weren't sure there for a little bit about one batch. We ended up making another batch, but did not have a place to mold it in since the first batch was not done yet. So, we did what we do best and improvised! I dumped all the yarn out of a plastic bin and molded the soap in there. Here are the successful pics of us taking the soap out of the molds, and in the case of the bin cutting it up into bars.
Since I live in a one bedroom apartment, and have a kitten that likes to get into everything storing the soap was a small problem. The soap has to stay out in the air for about 6 weeks before it will actually be ready to use (yes I am well aware that I am cutting it VERY close for Christmas!). So since space and not having the cat eat the soap was a major concern we decided to store it on cardboard on top of the kitchen cabinets! At least the house smells very yummy.

We ended up making one batch of oatmeal, honey, and milk, and one batch of citrus. It was a great experience and I had a lot of fun learning a new craft. There will DEFINITELY be more soap making in the future!

Soap

A few months ago a friend of mine said oh no I don't think your yarn/stash thing is weird. My weird craft is making soap. So of course that got my wheels turning and I immediately wanted to make soap too! So, tonight she came over and taught me to make soap. It was so much fun and I totally think I might be addicted to it. We used the cold method to make our soap.



1. The first thing we did was was measure out the oil into a pot and put it on the stove on low to melt

2. While that is melting we measured out the water and lye. As this is very toxic we mixed it outside and left it there to cool.

3. The lye and oil mixture have to be the same temperature, so after the oil was melted we put it in a cold water bath to cool.

4. Next we mixed the oil and lye mixtures together in a large bucket. At this point the mixture has to be well... mixed. There is a couple different ways to approach this. You can mix by hand. This takes about 45 minutes or you can use an electric mixer. Can you guess which one we picked?

5. Yup... you guessed it! We chose the mixer. This takes about 5 minutes total. When the soap is almost ready we added the scent. We chose oatmeal, milk, and honey scent (8tsp). We also chose to put abut 1/3 cup of ground oatmeal in the soap. This will act as a gentle exfoliating agent. Then, we mixed the soap until it started tracing. At this point we needed to prepare the box.

6. The box gets lined with a plastic garbage bag. The bag is cut open so that it can be on the bottom and on the top.

7. The soap mixture is poured into the box

8. The divider is set in and the box gets covered for the night to keep it warm. The soap cannot come out for 24 hours.

Socks, Socks, Socks, and More Socks

Hello Everyone! As I am getting ready to finish school the desire to resurrect the blog and scream LOOK AT THIS! LOOK AT WHAT I MADE! is becoming increasingly strong. I'm pretty sure my fiance is sick of socks. If he never sees another hand-knit sock in his life he will probably be a very happy guy.

As you all could have guessed I have been very busy knitting socks for Christmas. I knit everywhere,the car (while riding not driving), the Dr.'s office, work, the movies (only plain socks cause it's dark),and even during class. It was interesting because everyone thought I was completely crazy at first and now that we are towards the end of the semester they all want hand-knit socks too!

So, here is a preview of what is to come for Christmas... I will continue to knit and hopefully finish the rest of the list before Christmas (YEA RIGHT! who really ever finishes their X-Mas knitting)