Yesterday was another snow day! Woo! I love snow days.
Hot chocolate and knitting that's what snow days are good for.
I didn't end up having any hot chocolate... but I did get a lot of stuff done. And, because I was home all day I took lots of pictures.
In the morning I made a batch of lotion bars. This batch came out much better than my first batch in my opinion. This time around I replaced the avacado oil with coconut oil, which made the bars just a little bit softer and easier to rub in.
The recipe for this batch was:
2 oz. Beeswax
1 oz. Cocoa Butter
1 oz. Shea Butter
1 oz. Almond Oil
1 oz. coconut oil
I wish that making lotion bars was a quicker process, because I'd do it more often. But it's mostly just waiting for everything to melt.
And like last time I made these the same smell, since I only have one fragrance oil...
But at least oatmeal milk and honey is a great scent! And fragrance oils are actually pretty expensive.
Even though I was a bit messy filling the mold, I did get 5.5 bars out of this batch.
And this time around I made a special bar just for my dad with no fragrance in it. I made him a special tin to send back with my sister when she visits.
Once all the lotion was made I did some more work (in case you are worried I did actually get work done on my laptop while I was waiting for all the parts to melt). Then I decided to get in some knitting, because you know what? Nobody else was working, they were all shoveling snow. I'm pleased to say I made some great progress! On Tuesday I started a Meeting Point top (from Holla Knits) for my sister, and I'm already almost at the center of the sweater where the points meet, hence the name.
Here's where I started in the morning:
And this is what I had by the end of the day!
The scale of the pictures is a little funky but let me assure you, there's much more sweater there in the second picture. The reason I'm trying to finish so quickly is that if we can get a project done between the 7th and the 26th of Feb for the HP knitting cup we get a bunch of extra points. So! Yet again being part of Ravelry is spurring my knitting efforts.
And now for the update on my other projects since my last post.
I took an updated picture of my cedar leaf shawlette
I'm almost finished with the regular knitting part. Just 6 more rows and then I can start the leaves! (though others who made this said that that leaves were a test of patience...so we'll see how those go).
I also made it to the halfway point on my color affection! So I'm on pace to finish it halfway through next month!
Hopefully I can keep up the motivation as the rows get longer and longer...
Anyway, quite a lengthy update, but hey! Gotta do something with those snow days! and the lunch the day after a snow day when it's still snowy out and almost nobody shows up to work.
Well yesterday (Wed, Feb 5th) was a snow day! Which, sadly, when one is an adult snow days aren't necessarily as fun as when you are a kid... since I basically just worked from home. But, lucky for me it was a really quiet day work-wise since everyone else stayed home as well, and a lot of people had to spend most of the day shoveling 9" of snow.
So, since I was required to be near my laptop to check emails and see if anything needed updating I figured I might as well keep my hands busy and cast on a small knitting project that was easy enough that I wouldn't have to focus on it too much. So, I whipped up this little bear sweater! This bear will get donated through my knitting guild to the local emergency responders to hand out to kids when they respond to calls. (our guild gets the bears donated to us and then we knit them sweaters to make them extra special)
I went with Green for this bear's sweater since I thought it would go well with this bear's plaid bow tie, which has a bit of green in it. Have I mentioned I love super quick projects? I always feel a sense of victory when I can finish something in one day.
Once I finished the little sweater, I went back to working on my Peeta socks. I'm not going to lie I have a case of second sock syndrome coming on and I'm having trouble working on this second sock... But I did make some progress yesterday, finishing the first set of wheat tops on the leg.
And then, since I made what I felt was pretty good progress on my socks, I rewarded myself by casting on something new, because I just couldn't help it.
This is the cast on and first row for a Ceadar leaf Shawlette. The pattern and yarn I've had almost as long as I had the yarn for the Peeta socks... this one was added to my queue back in 2012 (thanks ravelry of keeping track of that for me).
So I'm now going to bribe myself into making progress on my socks so that I can work on this shawl (which will end up being more of a scarf I think once it's done). This is another new to me yarn, so I'm excited to work with it and it's super soft! Ball and Skein "Sofia" and the 10% Cashmere is lovely! To think yet another yarn I could have bought more of if I'd just used it sooner...sigh it's a hard life I lead having so much yarn in my stash ;)
Well, I'm not going to lie, I was hoping to have more progress to show before posting again, but heck if I always waited then I wouldn't keep up with the posting... AKA what usually happens. So here goes.
I finished the first Peeta (from Hunger Games) sock! It's a bit loose, so I probably could have gotten away with making the size small rather than the size medium, but I think they'll be just fine for wearing. I went with the simple striped toe option so I could use more green yarn and also I feel Peeta is a character her appreciates the simple things. (The pattern had an option for a fancy toe where the wheat stems create a point at the end)
I don't know why I didn't start these socks sooner. The pattern looks cool, is fun to knit and the yarn is super soft! I'll likely be checking out Wandering Wool again sometime in the near future now that I've finally used my skein (and love it! so soft and the color is great!).
As for my color affection, I've stayed on track! Having weekly goals is still working really well for me, and I think I'll try and make a breakdown of all future big projects to try and keep myself from getting stuck in huge hibernation ruts.
And I even have a semi exciting update pic! Since I've just added in the lime green (the lighting isn't great, but hey, you get what you get):
Hopefully I'll have a post with a finished pair of socks within the next few days!
