School's Out

I've been spending my Saturday's dressed like winter but it's all over now.

 Six weeks ago I went back to skating school after a six year break.

There are a lot of happy memories in this building.

Here's my lady friends getting a group skating lesson yesterday. Being a holiday weekend most of us were MIA.

They've been together for a long time. Here we are nine years ago in a holiday show.

 It's not just the friends and the ice that I missed. This rink has lots of warm comfy seating for knitting while you wait. Even after all this time the place feels like home to me. I'm so happy to be back.

Most of the seating has a bird's eye view of the action below on the two main rinks. There's even a couple more rinks out in the back.

Although skating school is over for the summer, I intend to keep breaking these new skates in. There are plenty of of other opportunities out there and I'm hoping to take advantage of them to practice all the new things I've learned in the past few weeks. I want to be ready when school starts back in the fall.

A Bit of a Hold Up

 I made three Jacob batts during my staycation from The Mister last week.

I have one bobbin already spun from three previous Jacob batts and now I need to spin the new batts onto another bobbin so I can do some plying.

 I am almost out of yarn for my crazy Crepidula vest so all this needs to be done asap.

I am on my last color section and then I get to take off for the arms and continue down the body to the hem. This is a big section of stockinette and I'm going to need a lot of yarn so until I get it spun this project is going to have to be put in time out for the duration. All of sudden it seems I have more projects in time out than I have WIPS. I must be doing something wrong. I was more productive when I had my thumb in a splint.

The First of Many

My 2016 MDSW shawl looks like this. That's the first spindle full being wound off onto a paper you-know-what-tube. I'll be filling it up all summer and then starting a new one in the fall for plying.

It's going to be so pretty. Nothing measures out the years of my life like my Sheep and Wool shawls. I'm either spinning one, knitting one or for one glorious day, wearing one. The circle of life.....

The Family That Soaps Together

 I talked The Mister into playing with soap with me. First we took a trip to the grocery store for some cheapo ingredients.

 I let him pick out the colors and smells from my ever growing soap stash. He picked orange-color and fragrance. He liked weighing out the oils. He wasn't even afraid of the lye.

 He handled the stick blender like a pro.

 He wanted lots of orange and that's what he got using some Annatto Seed powder. I'm still trying to get it off of stuff. It's pretty powerful. A little goes a long way. This may be self tanning soap.

 I showed him how to do some fancy mica swirls on the top with some squirt bottles of color and a bamboo skewer.

Look at that mess. I'm happy we did this outside. Now we have to wait a few days to see what he made.

Some Socks

 Soap, soap, soap....it's seems like it's all I post about but there is knitting going on. I've got socks at the toe decreases....

...and socks at the heel turn. Life is good.

Tea Time

 It's finally time to cut the terrible tea soap.

 Gloves are still a must. The lye is still active for several weeks. I need to get some test strips to check the safety of it. Thank you Valerie for reminding me of that. I don't want to burn the skin off my bones.

 It popped out of the mold pretty easily but I can see that the ground tea I added to the soap batter has bled all over the place. I used way too much and I forgot that the hot lye would continue to cook the leaves as it sat in the mold heating up for several hours. Ugh. At first I thought it was something called Dreaded Orange Spot but it's not, thank goodness. That's a whole other issue. The real problem here is me not doing my homework before getting too creative. I should have steeped it first and then added it in. Instead I cooked my tea leaves in the hot lye while it sat and processed. You live and learn.

At least I remembered to put it in the soap cutter upside down so the whole tea leaves on top wouldn't leave drag marks.

It's not too soft or too hard and it didn't crumble. I think I made soap. Ugly soap but soap.

 I also don't see any evidence that I swirled the colors. I poured green on one side and white on the other then had at them with the knitting needle but you can't see any evidence of that except for the dragging of the burnt tea leaves. At least it smells good.

Now it has to sit on my new drying rack and cure for 4-6 weeks while that lye works its way out and it hardens. It didn't turn out as I had hoped but it wasn't a complete fail if I take into consideration how much I learned about what NOT to do. Thank goodness I played it safe with my last two batches. I can't wait to cut them.

Three Days

 Friday, Saturday and Sunday were all mine. The Mister was at his mother's doing some 24/7 care and I was alone. All alone. I am never alone.  It was supposed to be nine whole days in a row but it got pared down to only three at a time when other family members stepped in to help.

There was lots of late night soap making. I could make as much of a mess as I wanted whenever I wanted. It was heaven. This one is sea clay and mint.

 This was baby buttermilk with carrot puree. Using frozen buttermilk with the lye was quite an adventure but I think I nailed it. I have to wait a week to cut this one as it's almost an all olive oil soap and will take a long while to harden.

I lived on salad and cherries. The Mister is a bad influence on my eating habits. He wasn't back here an hour before I was eating the potato chips, Chinese food and cake he brought home.

Having said that,  in his absence I did manage to finish off most of my Mother's Day chocolate.

I did some carding out on the deck in the early morning hours. That's the way to start the day.

 The warp got finished in the quiet of the evening. It's tied on now and ready for weaving.

 Paloma and I got reacquainted. I love this old guitar.

 In anticipation of my little staycation I had bought three books by my favorite author but never got around to reading them.

 I saw the newest edition of one of my favorite series at the library and read it instead.

There was also some afternoon stitching while I finished up my latest audiobook. The Mister wasn't back in the house ten minutes on Sunday when the whole dynamic of the place shifted back from blissful calm to chaos. Sigh... The good news is that he's going back Wednesday and staying until Friday. Good times.