Spring Soap

Here's half of a batch of lemongrass soap. The other half is in various places in and near Washington DC, given with the washcloths as hostess gifts. I found this as a kit at SCRAP, believe it or not. Though I also make soap from my own recipes and ingredients, the kit from SCRAP was a real deal and very easy! Everything was premeasured. (SCRAP stands for Scroungers Center for Reusable Art Parts--it is like an art/craft thrift store and a very dangerous place to enter : ). I think the rest of this batch will be used by my family. I often make soap near the holidays--easy to make lots and a simple, consumable gift. We usually end up with just a bar or two left so it sill be nice to have a bit of a soap stash now. This soap lasts a bit longer than most commercial soap and is fairly mild to the skin.

Sock Yarn!

Here's my birthday yarn, purchased at Stitches DC. It is Art Yarns Ultra Merino, color 105. I think it will fit this segment of Project Spectrum quite well as April and May focus on green, pink and yellow. Now, I have only to choose the appropriate pattern to make the hand painted yarn sing!

vacation washcloths

Here are the vacation washcloths. The pattern is the ball band washcloth from Mason-Dixon Knitting. I used lion brand cotton for the yarn and played around with the color so that I could use up scraps of cotton I had not only in my stash, but in a ziploc bag I keep of small bits of yarn that you couldn't exactly call a ball, but that I can't throw away. I'm not sure how some of the color experiments worked, but they are pretty low risk experiments. Any comments on color? I am trying to figure out color theory a bit more.

The pictures....

So, here's proof that we are actually here. We've taken very few pictures, as many of the museums are hard to take photos in, or photos are not allowed. Mostly, we're just trying to soak things up as we see them.

Vacation knitting

So, no pictures yet, but vacation knitting is breezing along! So far, I have knit another Panta identical to the one below and 4 ball band washcloths. I also visited Stitch DC for my birthday and bought sock yarn with birthday money from my mom. (Thanks, Mom!) I'll have pictures to post in the next couple of days, perhaps of us in DC, as well.