Spring Prep

Spring seems to be starting to show itself around here.  This of course means that the Seed Hoard I've been steadily adding to over the last six months or so has been brought out for perusal.

Mostly salad greens and flowers of various types.  Peas and beans as well.  A couple of short season melon varieties to try out as our growing season isn't overly long.

I threw together some melt and pour soap, nothing fancy, though the mixes are minus the ingredients I have found make me itch, so worth the minor effort.

Of course I used Halloween themed molds.  What else would I use?

My votive candle molds are awaiting use:

The wicks I need show up next week.

While out wandering locally, I came upon some distinctive cookie cutters that I felt needed to be added to my collection:

Llama, octopus, clover, moose, sloth and a wine glass. 

Some yarn did come in for a few summer tank tops I plan on making, in between the other three dozen projects on my "to make" list.  I haven't taken photos of the yarn yet.

Lately, it's been about cleaning house and re-stocking the pantry for Spring, accumulating gear to put in the camping gear box, and trying to decide on a rational number of plants/seeds to get started.  That last one being the most difficult, as well as oddly time consuming, of the lot.

Now for a bit of Cassandra's Soapbox.  Current events are....Not. Good.  This is the consensus of our household with our unique background in the Not Nice Stuff.  Please listen to the nice doctors and scientists and clever people who actually know what they are talking about. Be sensible about things.  Take what precautions you can.  Expect that you will likely have to help others at some point.  Don't Panic.  It won't hurt to have a plan, you have them for natural disasters and things right?  Take care of yourselves, darlings...I worry!

I told myself I had enough yarn....

And technically, I did...until Husband saw that the Geek Along Blanket theme this year was D&D.  I did not have yarn for that, though now I've made a start.

In my digital yarn wanderings I may have also found out that Blue Moon Fiber Arts has an Esme Weatherwax colorway

The other big skein is Clothos, from the same collection as Esme.  The small green and yellow one is called Tree Toots (how could I not get that?!?!)   The other two skeins are Oola Pikka for an Elfmail sweater.
Yarn for the Kawakawa Shawl was found in the yarn hoard,(I am afraid it is no longer just stash), in the Toad colorway.
Two patterns that came out really recently, the Indira Cowl and Buffalo Check Please? Throw were purchased immediately.  Yarn for the throw may have already been purchased.
Another two patterns, both from the same designer, are patterns I have swooned over for ages and finally decided that if I had the patterns, I could at least contemplate what yarn to use.  Adventurous and All the Lights are my favorite kind of cardigan style covered in glorious cables.

In the swirl of yarn fumes, I realized that I also wanted to start making beeswax wraps.  So I bought some dedicated fabric. Not overly exciting right?  Then I put the fabric with the yarn I bought to make a few kitchen towels. Only to discover I was accidentally color coordinated.

I already had easily thirty (which I really need to take proper photos of), probably more like forty, items of various craft types I wanted to make this year, and have quite recklessly added at least another dozen.  ( I may have heard a family member was extolling their love of cashmere recently.  Plans are being made.)  Which is why I went into the room that houses my hoard, grabbed the multiple skeins of bulky weight Bernat Blanket in the Gathering Moss colorway (it's a rather ishy color, but super soft yarn) and cast on one of the half dozen blankets I apparently think I am going to finish this year.

If I manage to clear all my works in progress off my needles and out from around my sewing machine, I feel like I will still be behind, albeit surrounded by handmade everything.

None of this includes any of my gardening plans.  So. Many. Seeds.

Happily, I can knit and read at the same time so at least I can get through my stack of unread books!