Eden's Secret soaps

The other day I received an unexpected package in the mail. I was delighted when I saw the pink box and Eden logo. But I was also a little perplexed at how Karen might have gotten my address. Turns out there was a bugaboo in her website last month. I was window shopping on the site a few weeks back and apparently the order went through inadvertently. I notified Karen immediately hoping that she had already realized the issue and had corrected it. She sent me back the sweetest email saying I could keep the soaps with her blessing. All she asked was that I talk about her soaps. Well, I can sure do that! First the eye candy...

Look how gorgeously the soaps are packaged. You've got to check out her You Tube channel to see how she hand cuts and wraps every single piece of soap she sells. The attention to detail is amazing. Those labels are hand cut around all that fancy scallop work. The soap names are hand written on the back of the labels and all tied up with curly ribbon bows.

I received 4 soaps in all. The first is Cashmere Creme soap.

I cut off a piece from the end and have been using it as my kitchen sink soap. The soap has poppy seeds in it which provide a nice gentle scrub. The lather is lush and creamy and the scent is light and does not linger on my skin. My skin is left soft even after multiple washings when cooking. I'm very impressed with this soap.

Next is Kismet Karma. This pale orange soap is reminiscent of Lush's Karma, one of my favorite Lush scents.

 Orange and patchouli. She decorated the soap with a dried orange slice and a touch of glitter.

For me the highlight of the package was the cupcake soap. I've been obsessing over the current trend in cake and cupcake shaped soaps. Especially with being on the diet, it's appealing to have my cake and NOT eat it! 

Although it looks like a cupcake, it is indeed soap. Top to bottom. Having made soap, I am in awe of the artistry involved. I'm sure it boils down to the right recipe to get the soap batter to a consistency that can be piped to look like frosting. Karen nails it. She decorated the top with some tiny soap slices and a real miniature rose bud.

The freebie soap she says is a glycerin soap which I'm guessing is what I would call melt & pour. But it's not like any melt & pour I've done. It reminds me a bit of one of my favorite commercial soaps, Primal Elements. It has a creamy rose pink base with translucent swirls throughout.

All in all I am truly impressed with Karen's work. Her soaps are not only beautiful, but luxurious to use as well. She also produces other bath & body products which she sells on her site, Eden's Secret. Do check out her store and You Tube videos. And Karen, if you read this, thanks again!

The mug to end all mugs

I made it through a very large portion of my life before developing a love for coffee. I'd always been a tea girl. But over the last year or two, I've fallen for the elixir that is coffee. Mostly flavored coffee and then still mostly chocolate flavors. Sweet with cream, please. I received a cute little 4 cup coffee maker as a gift and it's just perfect since the hubby doesn't drink coffee. Although it does irritate me that a "cup" of coffee is only like 6 oz. What's up with that? 

So I've been searching for a sheep mug to hold my morning brew. For the longest time I wanted one of Jennie the Potter's mugs, but they tend to sell out as soon as she lists them. Then recently I discovered Peg's Table Top and was smitten. Peg makes mugs, trivets, yarn bowls and platters. Here themes are mostly knitting or vegetable related. Her designs are whimsical and colorful. I convoed her and asked if she'd be willing to make a mug to my request and she happily agreed. It only took a few weeks to get my order since I happened to catch her right before a firing. Here is the piece of art I received...

I absolutely adore this mug. It is huge. Huge I tell you. She states they are 16oz mugs but mine holds that entire 4 "cup" pot of coffee. It is a literal coffee bucket. I could not be more thrilled with it. I highly recommend her shop if you are looking for a nice big mug.

....and now it's March

2011 is flying by. Work is keeping me hopping and my bandwidth has been low. There's been some knitting and some reading and tons of time spent watching indy soapers on You Tube.

Knitting...

The Tardis socks have been frogged yet again. I appear to be incapable of getting the floats and/or gauge loose enough to fit over a human heel. R suggested I might convert the pattern to mittens. While it burns me to admit defeat on the socks, I am considering the option. For now (and until work calms down and I can loosen up) the whole project is in time-out.

I finished the first Everlasting Monkey sock and am motoring up the 2nd. Again, love the pattern, love the yarn. 

The Shipwreck shawl has maybe another row or two finished. I put the kibosh to the idea of changing beads. The cost is just way more than I'm willing to pay when I've already spent this much on beads. I'm coming to terms with spending time moving beads and making sure I move them a good long way each time so I can enjoy more knitting time in between.

Fylingdales even saw some daylight this week. Oh how I love cabling. I really need to get this sweater done so I can wear it.

Books...

I read Death on Demand, the first of that series from Carolyn Hart. Since I had read a later book in the series already, I could rule out at least two of the suspects right off the bat. And it wasn't terribly hard to figure out who the killer was. But it was an easy and enjoyable read.

I'm still reading Essence and Alchemy which is quite enjoyable. I'll never be a master perfumer, but it is wonderful to peek inside Aftel's mind.  Her passion for scent is obvious and infectious.

I did not enjoy The Soap Maker's Workshop. The book can't seem to decide if it's geared towards home or industrial soap making. It was written by a husband and wife team which may account for the two perspectives. I didn't feel I gained much from reading it and wouldn't recommend it if you are looking for a good soaping book. Pick up Everything Soapmaking if you want a good soap book.

And speaking of soap, I'd like to recommend some excellent You Tube channels by home soapmakers. I've purchased from some of these folks, others I've just ogled at. It is fascinating to see different methods of soaping and hear the soapers describe their soaps. These are some of my favorites in no particular order...
The Future Primitive (Tiggy)
Sugarbubbles Soap (Candy)
Beacon Creations
Wicked Scentuals
Snowblum (not a soaper but a reviewer)
Edens Secret

Can you believe it's February already?!

Woosh...that's the last two months gone by. Things have been busy busy busy and I've not felt much like getting on the computer and putting down thoughts. I do have much to talk about, though, so here's a bit of what I've been up to.

 

The holidays were lovely, as always. Having both Christmas and New Years over weekends made for leisurely relaxing holidays.

I treated myself to the iPod I've been craving. I saved for a year and was able to get the 32 GB iPod Touch generation 4. I debated for the longest time if I wanted to spend the extra scratch for the 32 gb over the 8 and I am so glad I did. Not that I've come anywhere close to filling it...yet. But I am able to load up every single podcast I want to and the inevitable backlog of unlistened to episodes all fit nicely. I'm able to watch video podcasts on it so I'm able to stay more caught up with Round the Twist and the Knit Girllls.

I mainly wanted it for apps and I've not been disappointed. My favorite knitting app is Knit Counter. I use it for every knitting project that requires counting. I love that you can link counters. It makes it super easy to track pattern rows, increases/decrease, cable turns, etc.

Games are quite fun as well with my favorites being Zombie Farm and Angry Birds. I also adore being able to watch You Tube videos and surf the net. Not to forget the Kindle app. It is fantastic. I didn't think I'd like reading on the small screen, but the text is clear and very easy to read. Plus it syncs with my Kindle so I if I find I'm away from home and have a few minutes to read when I get back to my Kindle it will advance to the furthest page read. Pretty cool.

I can't remember where I was at with knitting the last time I posted. I recently finished the Bitterroot Shawl and it is gorgeous.

I need to get a better picture but I think you can see it pretty well here when it was blocking. I had a lot of beads left over. I don't think I missed any so maybe the packs of beads had more than I thought. The shawl was knit from Knit Picks Shadow in Cattail Heather with 6/0 Toho seed beads in Olivine.

I'm working on a pair of Monkey socks in Dream in Color Everlasting.

The color is a dark foresty green which I can't seem to capture. Everlasting is similar to Wollmeise's base. Not quite as cotton like. Extremely nice to work with. I highly recommend it if you can't get a hold or Wollmeise.

The Tardis socks are finally starting to resemble the Tardis.

These socks have been a bit of a challenge for me. Stranded colorwork is probably at the bottom of my list for knitting I enjoy. In socks its especially problematic because it has very little stretch. My first attempt at the sock wouldn't go over my heel. The socks are destined for someone with smaller feet than mine, but I didn't think it was worth the risk of them not fitting. So I ripped them out and started over with a larger needle and a concerted effort to keep the floats looser. The results are much better this time. I'm down to the solid portion of the sock which should fly by.

I'm still slogging along on the Shipwreck shawl. The beads are absolutely horrible. The 8/0 beads called for are far too small for the finger weight yarn. They are so difficult to move, my fingers ache every time I have to move beads, which is pretty much every time sit down to knit. So I'm lucky if I get a row done a week. I'm seriously contemplating ordering larger beads in the same colors. I've only done a few rows with the 6s and don't think the different size beads would be too noticeable when it's all said and done. I could save the 6s for a laceweight project.

Hooray for warm socks

Our neck of the woods is frigid cold this December. It's weather like this makes makes me love my handknit socks all the more. And just in time for this cold snap, I've just finished two new pairs.

First up are a pair of plain vanilla socks in Knitter's Brewing Company's Cabernet Harvest Sock-a-holic yarn.

These were my conversation socks for the nights C and I sat out by the firepot this late summer and fall. I think the colors are gorgeous and the hand is sturdy yet soft (not scratchy).

The second pair are my very first Wollmeise socks in My Old Blue Jeans Twin. The pattern is Hermione's Everyday socks.

I loved knitting these socks and I adore this yarn base. It has an almost cotton like feel to it but with the give of wool. The yarn is on the heavier side of fingering weight. I used a US 1.5 (2.5mm) needle for a dense yet not at all stiff fabric. I can not wait to see how these wear.

Of course I've cast on a new pair of socks, another pair of plain vanilla socks this time with some of my own hand dyed yarn. 

More mitts

As a follow up to the mitts I knit for my sister, I indulged in a pair of mitts for me. These cute little mitts were on display at Yarn Love when we visited there a few weeks back and I couldn't resist the them.

The pattern is the Welted Fingerless Gloves from Churchmouse Yarns. The yarn is Silk Blend by Manos del Uruguay. These are an extremely simple and fast knit. The pattern uses a one row buttonhole for the thumb opening, the first time I've seen a thumb done this way. 

The yarn is incredibly soft and warm. In the past I've not been happy with this type of softly spun singles yarn because they tend to pill. I'm interested to see if the silk content helps to reduce this tendency. I've worn them many times these last few weeks and so far they look as good as new.

Another finished object, but this time from the sewing front. A recent Knit Picks catalog featured a cross over product from their sister-site, the quilting store Connecting Threads. KP is offering a sewing kit that includes material and patterns to make a needle case, backpack and drawstring project bags. I chose the winter variety of fabrics and made the needle case.

I would rate the pattern as intermediate, not for a beginning sewer. Were I to sew another one (and it's likely I will since I'm so happy with the case) I would change up the pockets a bit. All the edges are finished with a turned under edge, but I think a doubled over pocket would be sturdier and also look more finished. Of course, that uses more fabric so I understand their decision to finish the pockets as they did.

There are PLENTY of pockets in this case. There are enough pockets to accommodate an entire set of interchangeable tips as well as pockets for the various cables. The pockets on the right are designed for circular needles. I have far too many circs to move them into this case, but might put a few of my most frequently used needles in there. There are pockets for dpns as well, although those too are empty in my case since I rarely use them. I love this case. The only drawback is that the pockets aren't labeled with the needle sizes and KP doesn't mark the size on their needles. I think I'm going to order their needle id tags and sew them to the pockets like buttons for easier identification.

October Leaves

Although this could be a post about the glorious fall foliage display C and I observed this week in our travels, I am instead talking of the October Leaves fingerless mitts I just finished. My sister requested a pair of fingerless mitts for work. Since knitting requests from family are like kryptonite to me, I eagerly set out to find the perfect pattern. I've made several different mitts over the years and find my favorites are the ones knit with fingering weight yarn (sock yarn). They fit close to the hand so they are unobtrusive when you are trying to type or use your hands for any reason, yet they still provide plenty of warmth. I also wanted a pattern with a bit of interest. The October Leaves pattern by Abbie Tilden looked to be the perfect choice.

The color requested was grey or black and a quick search of my stash produced a gorgeous grey superwash sock yarn. I was off and running. The mitts only took 11 days to complete. The pattern calls for cables up both sides of the hand. But after a few rows in this fashion, I decided the outside cable was too much. I much preferred the single cable running up the thumb side and blooming into the leaves that frame the thumb.This pattern is super easy. I manged most of the 4 stitch cables without a cable needle. When I did need a cable needle I used a lightly sanded round toothpick since none of the cable needles I own were small enough for such fine yarn. This worked wonderfully. The only other modification I made was to knit the top (hand) ribbing on smaller needles to keep the fit snug around the knuckles. There's nothing worse on mitts than the top edge being loose and bunching up.

The only problem I had with this project was the yarn. The yarn was a gorgeous mottled grey handdyed sock yarn. It is delightfully soft and a pleasure to knit with. However, I washed the mitts and then laid them outside to dry. When I went back to check on them a few hours later, I discovered the side facing up had turned green!I've never had a yarn change color on me. It was so weird. After checking the yarn label, I found the dyer DID say to dry them out of direct sunlight, so it is entirely my fault. The green was an interesting color and had I been able to get the second side to fade the same way they might have been usable. However, the request was not for green mitts so I took to my dye pot and overdyed them. Two dyebaths later, the mitts emerged a fabulous charcoal grey.

They are on my hands now as I type and I adore them. Sis, I do hope you love them too. It's a wrench parting with them but it makes me feel good knowing you'll have warm (and I must say, smartly dressed) hands thanks to me.

Sherlock

A few months ago when R first told me about the new Sherlock coming to PBS's Masterpiece Mystery,  I was dubious. The preview looked flashy and I just couldn't imagine Sherlock Holmes set in current day London. Few can match Jeremy Brett's portrayal of the sleuth in my book. Thus I tucked it away in the back of my mind and more or less forgot about it. While browsing the channel guide last night I discovered the show had started so I decided to give it a watch. Wow. I mean, WOW. Benedict Cumberbatch is amazing as Holmes. He plays the fast talking detective to a T. The character observes everything and processes his observations lightening fast. Martin Freeman's Watson is an excellent foil to the genius. I love the way the show uses text cues to help the viewer get the clues. My one and only disappointment was the scene where they tracked the GPS location of the victim's cell phone and were stymied by it's apparent location. Given other clues in the scene, specifically Mrs. Hudson's announcement, it was pretty obvious where the phone was and who the killer was. But everyone was standing around scratching their heads. Sherlock does, of course, figure it out, and maybe it was just a dramatic pause to show his thought process. Other than that one minor complaint, I give the show highest marks.

Favorite line "Dear god, what is it like in your funny little brains? It must be so boring."

Sherlock is available on DVD as well as on demand at PBS.org (I assume this will only be for a while though).

Good stuff

My Future Primitive order arrived this week and as expected, this soap rocks.The soaps are all wrapped in pretty glassine paper with cigar band labels. They smell phenomenal (although you can not smell them through the wrapper, I opened up the ends to smell them.) In addition to the 3 soaps I ordered, Tiggy sent a sample of her White Witch soap which immediately found a home by the bathroom sink. I've been using it all week and it is simply divine. I know, I'm gushing, but really, this soap is quite possibly the best I've ever tried. Not only does it look glorious, but it is also darn good soap. The bars are nice and hard and work into a creamy highly scented lather. The scent is long lasting on my skin. The ultimate test is face washing. I can use this on my face with out even a hint dryness. I will definitely be buying more soaps from her.

Next good thing this week is applesauce. With local apples being dirt cheap and my co-worker extolling the virtues of homemade applesauce, I decided to give it a try. I washed and cut up enough apples to fill my 6 quart dutch oven (peels, cores and all go in the pot). I used a variety of apples...Rome, Macintosh, Stayman, and Yellow Delicious and just about an inch of water. Cover and cook on high until the water boils. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the apples are super soft. I let it cool slightly then ran the cooked apples through my food mill. From about 5 quarts of apples, I ended up with 3 pints of applesauce.
So so yummy and incredibly easy. 2 pints went into the freezer and the other jar will disappear in no time, I'm sure. I will definitely be buying more apples this week to make a big batch for the freezer.

I finished reading Knit One, Kill Two by Maggie Sefton this week. It is the first in a knitting themed cozy mystery series. This was an enjoyable, light read. It is obvious it is meant to be a series as there were tons of characters introduced and a lot of story lines that didn't seem to have resolutions. The characters were all very likable and the setting a dream come true for a knitter (the knit shop is set side by side with a coffee shop/cafe in an old farmhouse, sigh). It was refreshing to read a cozy where the main character didn't end up at death's doorstep through their stupid heroics. I'm sure I'll be reading more from this series.

Now I'm trying to settle on my next book and having difficulty finding something to fit my mood. I've started several books this week and nothing seems the right fit. Instead, I'm watching season 4 of Corner Gas. Hilarious!

Scary Gary

I've been meaning to post about this comic for ages.

 Scary Gary follows the "life" of vampire Gary. Gary is reformed and doesn't hunt people. He lives with his henchman, Leopold, a goblin-type creature who is most definitely NOT reformed. The strip is hilarious and smart. Do check it out if you want a good laugh.