Kim's Scarf

Christmas 2009 present for my sister. Pendleton wool scraps from the outlet shop in Portland with simple blanket stitching in cotton along the edges and a fringe on each end. Quick, easy, warm, and homemade. This year: aveda products from the shop next to the office for the mom of a ten month old little girl I can't wait to meet!

Playing with Lye

Now that presents have most likely safely arrived at their destinations I can begin to tell you about this year's offerings. The most unusual one for me was an experiment with soap making. I was invited to a soap making party back around Halloween as it takes about 60 days for curing and it was fast approaching that time frame. Which means that by the time Christmas rolled around I had totally forgotten about the soap and only found it again by chance!

This was a milk based soap and despite having read a few books in the past on the subject and deciding never to try this particular craft, I found it wasn't that bad. In no way does that mean I am going to start up a factory in the kitchen! Though I did get a soap mold for Christmas and am excited to try it out, I think I should be supervised for the next round or two.

I can attest to the fact that Tatonka thought it smelled good enough to eat, but I didn't try it out myself. So, if you got soap from me for Christmas, let me know, how was it? Did you eat it or wash with it?

Orange Socks for Toni

This is the time of year I love. Lots of elfing to be done and the excitement of hearing how much your elfing is appreciated. Except that I'm all done and stuff is sent off and I can't blog about it yet. So instead, let me show you other things I have somehow managed to finally finish during the semester, like these fun socks I made for my girl, Tonette.

I started this project an embarassing number of years ago and finally finished them in September for Toni's birthday. I mailed them last week. She loves them. Even though one is a pattern repeat longer than the other. No, I didn't get tired or run out of yarn, the longer one was made second....while I was tired and watching tv and didn't notice I was one repeat overdue.... Luckily Toni loves funky and reports repeated wearings already. That's the kind of reaction that keeps the homemade gifts coming!