Happy Holidays!

It has been a busy season. My soap shop is doing very well and it keeps me busy in the evening packing up orders.

I love wrapping my soaps in their special onion paper onto which I've printed a lovely design from one of several digital artists I've purchased from. And selecting the special "extra" sample soap for each purchase to complement what they've already purchased.

And my yarn shop has been holding its own. Not completely neglected because tis the season to root down and do earthy things, like spinning. I've got some new fibers and have been spinning some art yarns ... it seems I'm leaning toward the bling yarns and art yarns. They are so enjoyable to spin, and much more challenging than a straight roving.

Some new knitted projects have emerged as well. Every now and then I go through my old inventory and pick out a skein that has been around too long, deactivate my Etsy listing, and start knitting.

My newest project, just finished tonight ... photos coming soon, are some adorable sparkly leg warmers. They are a little on the snug side, which I think is the style now, with a very simple lace pattern up the sides.

Still some of that yarn left; a gold, rust, purple sparkle sport weight. May or may not be enough for some fingerless mitts, probably too fine anyway, so maybe a scarf or cowl. Either way I am going to let that set for a bit and finish up a pair of fingerless mitts I'm making for myself.

Tonight I also finally listed a beautiful corespun that has been done for a week. Literally no time to get photos and list it.

Nick helped decorate the tree today (well, ok, he did the whole thing practically but I put lights and garland up around the doorway) so I had time for photo shoot and upload. 

And finally hunting season is over, sort of, and we took the dogs for a nice long walk on the trail in the woods today. Saw one deer, a fox squirrel, and some other critters. It was a lovely day. 

Tomorrow I am planning on making some unscented body butter, as well as a scented one. Not sure which scent to pick though. I sold out of my 8 oz lemon chamomile and was thinking of making another one or two of those. I've been using a mix of extras and have become quite fond of the peppermint, which is also a top seller. I didn't think I would like it but it's divine. 

Off to bed soon ... merry christmas to all and to all a good night!

(in case I don't get back here until next year!)

Blush

Beautiful crochet artist!

Antoaneta from The Crochet Zone makes the most beautiful crochet items. Check out her shop!

Steampunk rocks!

Check out FruttiTuttiBeadCandy on Etsy

Strategic Promotion for Success Weekend Game!

A Lovely Etsy Treasury!

A Fellow Etsian Seller has some super cute bows and festive Halloween accessories.

A fellow Etsian and a terrific person, Brandi Brown, owner of Katiebug Blossoms on Etsy, makes these super cute bows.

I love the color of this one.

And I love Halloween too ....

New stuff

I had this old skein of homespun Merino in my shop that wasn't selling. So I took it out and looked at it, and I didn't really actually like it myself (no love, no sales; it's important to love the yarn you spin).

It's red and lavender. I really like the lavender part, but I don't like red much at all. But it had been languishing in my shop almost since I opened and I decided it was time for a change.

So I made these!!!

They are really cozy and squishy and will be so warm for winter.

And then I felted some lovely little flowers and leaves on them to make them unique and cute.




And I even like the color now!




After that, I still had some of that yarn leftover. And I have this really cute puppy now who has super short hair who is a complete sissy when it comes to less than 70 degrees outside, so I made his adorableness a snood!

New things, all the time

So, it's been over a month since I've posted. Been very busy with trying to keep up with three Etsy shops so I consolidated my jewelry shop into my yarn shop. Since my jewelry is made using thread and a needle, I figured "The Savvy Stitch" still applied.

I moved twelve items over - some of my nicest bead embroidered work.

This is a lovely Druzy Agate surrounded by fringes made of goldstone and Swarovski crystals.

And here are some beautiful Jade chandelier earrings.














We've also been busy making more soap. Starting to get ready for the holiday season, which seems kind of far away, but not so much. Building up inventory. Found some nice gift-like shipping boxes and some confetti and have drafted up five gift box ideas to cover the range of customers - men and women, in a little bit of a range in prices. I don't know if I'm going to offer gift wrapping or not because I'm not a very good wrapper. :(

 I found some amazing artists in Korea and Taiwan that make these amazing molds for soap and candles. I bought a few and  here are just a couple. It's tricky to get the shapes to come out without bubbles and we aren't always successful.

This woodland Goddess turned out nice though.

 Coco Chanel cream and brown swirled soap with flowers all over it. Very pretty and a large-ish bar.

I made this amazing soap with Rosewood essential oil, strawberry seads, lemon essential oil, and some colloidal oatmeal for good measure. It's smells wonderful! A little patchouli -ish but with that deep rosewood aroma it takes it far beyond what any patchouli can do (I'm not a patchouli fan)








Amidst all this my yarn shop was neglected. BUT, it is now being revived. I placed two orders for a bunch of materials last week and the spinning wheel is out again! I feel that I've got enough soap inventory built up to take a break from that and work on making some new skeins.

This is new, an apricot colored textured yarn made of Leicester Longwool, a very long, slick, strong fleece. I purchased these loose locks from a terrific supplier who prepares her fiber so nicely.

A story for this shawl. I love working with bling fiber art batts. I love the surprise as it comes off the batt and onto the spool on my wheel. I just never know what's next! Well I really enjoyed this one and when I was done and it was yarn, I kind of wanted to keep it. But I've got so much yarn, really Heidi?

So I knit it up into this simple triangle scarf and THEN added some cream fringes to match the white in the shawl, and every here and there I added some Amethyst beads to the fringe. It's hard to see in the photo how awesome this is but I'm really happy with it.

I went ahead and listed it in my shop but if it doesn't go anywhere and winter arrives I might just keep it for myself!

50/50 Merino Silk blend in vibrant colors. Very soft. 

Also going to give a go at making a snood for Applejack, our puppy. I figure I could make him a sweater too but Jim says he'll eat it, so I may have to go commercial for that. If the snood turns out I may offer some of those in my yarn shop.

Cell Phone Cozie and Other Fun Stuff!

My newest creative endeavor has been to make cell phone cozies! I don't know how it all came about, possibly as a branch off of my soap cozies. The first one I made I kept and I LOVE It. It keeps my salt soap and I use it to wash my feet every night; it's like a nightly ritual for me and I so look forward to it.

One of the first soap cozies - 100% cotton yarn - really simple.

Then I thought, geez, I have all these small quantities of handspun bling art yarn that I just love but is too small an amount to make anything out of, other than a skinny scarf with a bunch of them, which I've already made a bunch of, so I made these phone cozies with drawstrings.      



First cell phone cozy =>

Then, I bought some needles and a book and started needle felting flowers and other simple images on them. I really like the dimensionality the felting brings, and I have all the materials already - loose locks, roving, etc. I don't think I'm very good at it yet but I ended up keeping one of these too and the more I take it in and out of my purse the better and better it looks - the motion kind of helps felt everything down :) 

Also just listed two new bars of soap and they are so awesome! This black pepper basil with poppy seeds smells utterly wonderful, if you like spicy. It's a nice white bar and the poppy seeds offer the perfect contrast. 

Then, the uber successful experimental bar - lemon cocoa. We made some lemon mint lip balm and I really like the flavor so I decided to use some lemon essential oil and and cocoa powder in a soap and it turned out amazing! We sprinkled some cocoa powder along the tops of the bars and it looks really pretty, smells really yummy, and it's a great bar of sudsy creamy soap!

Lemon Cocoa Soap!

<= Lemon Mint Lip Balm

Coming up later this month are a washcloth set, a vanilla cocoa soap (another fun experiment with cocoa powder), and a dead sea clay soap for The Savvy Soap. And I think I'm going to spin up some bling fiber into a single ply art yarn. Those always turn out so unique and fun and then I can offer a full skein of all this fun yarn that I make all these little projects with!

Helpful Relevancy Team

I just joined a new team to help with my Search Engine Optimization called The Helpful Relevancy Team. Check them out!

http://helpfulrelevancyteam01.webs.com/ 

New Puppy!

Meet Applejack, the newest member of the family!

Finally some time to chat

Amidst our adventures in making handmade natural soaps, we have managed to enjoy some outdoor time, watching the grass slowly grow and the leaves in the wood behind the house ever so slowly turn, well, not yet green, but thinking about turning green. 

I've managed to eek out some new yarn .... 

This is a lovely 50/50 Merino silk from a roving I purchased from a fiber artist in New Zealand. Beautiful colors, deep purples and super soft. 

I also managed this boldly colored skein in 100% Merino. Usually I turn 100% Merino into a thick and thin because often in the past I have found it difficult to spin, but my skills and knowledge have improved with time and I am able to now spin a nice, consistent strand of single ply Merino.









In between skeins Jim and I have been mad chemists in the kitchen making a new batch of soap about one every other day. I opened my new Etsy shop, The Savvy Soap (how original, I know) and although the shop is not fully stocked, there are racks of soap waiting to complete their curing process so that I can put them up on the site. 

Many favorites ... smells, aromas .... and some that just don't turn out. And then there are some that are really horrible until they finish curing and they are wonderful, like the coffee vanilla Neroli batch that will be finished curing in a couple weeks. Lovely brown color with spots smelled horrid for the first two weeks (and while we were making it). The horrid smell has finally left it and it smells great!

The batch here to the right is made of Moroccan clay and other amazing ingredients formulated for oily skin. I think this would make a fantastic facial bar. Swirled with a natural brown pigment for a lovely effect. 

And then, we discovered BATH BOMBS!!!

Now I want to take a bath every night. They are so amazing! Drop one into the water and it fizzes for a few minutes and then the water is super soft and smells utterly wonderful. Since we tend to goof up about half of each batch - the mixture is resistant to sticking together and tends to therefore get stuck in the mold when I remove it - I have been able to indulge myself. And so has my family. We've all had a bath bomb bath in the last week!

Our bath bombs include Dead Sea Salt, which makes the water feel light and leaves your skin feeling soft, and usually some oils such as olive oil, grapeseed oil, or sweet almond oil, which leaves just a slight silkiness to the skin. So instead of the bath drying out your skin, it moistens it and feels wonderful! 

My yarn shop thus feeling neglected, I spun up some destash bling batts and loose fiber and along with some sari silk crocheted a beautiful fuchsia infinity scarf. 

Please do visit our new shop. And I promise to keep spinning. I still have a pile of roving, including some bling batts and some 15 micron Merino that I will spin into thick and thin (because it's so lovely that way). 

Next in the soap making business is lip balms! Placed an order yesterday and should receive the ingredients mid-week and maybe our first batch will turn out?? 

New Yarn!

Organic Polwarth and Mulberry silk single ply handspun in lovely dusky hues. Sport weight with 402 yards!

I blended blue and pink Cotswold locks with some green Wensleydale for a single ply arty yarn in spring colors. 105 yards of fun curliness!

THE SAVVY SOAP!

The Savvy Stitch will be branching out May 1st, opening a sister store - The Savvy Soap!

Initially we will be offering handmade, natural vegan soaps ....

with tentative plans to branch out into lip balms and lotions later in the year.

Here are our first batches. 

This is a Rose petal infusion with Rose colored clay added along with some old English Rose scent. 

One of our very favorites. The color is a nice, matte rose.

Rose clay is good for a soft detoxification of the skin. 

Himalayan sea salt citrus blend. Heavy spicy citrusy scent. 

Somewhat exfoliating. 

This soap was a bit of a challenge to make. You add the same amount by weight of salt as you do the oils and when the salt is added the mixture turns into a solid in about two seconds, during which time you have to mix it all up and pour into the mold, or else, your finished. 

There are a few chunks of unsalted soap in our salt soap, but overall it really turned out ok. Scent is a little strong but at least it's so lovely. 

 Handmade soaps take 4-6 weeks to cure after the initial preparation, which takes about one hour from start to finish including set up for a small, 8-9 bar batch. Our first two batches are now ready and we have distributed them to all the bathrooms in our home and everyone is raving about them. They can even be used as shampoo (!).

My husband had these scaly patches of dry skin on his tummy and after two days of using the handmade soap the scaly dry patches are gone!

This batch was attempt to make a unisex scent using Vetyver as a sensual base note and a fragrance called Amazon Lilly Rain as a top note. Evidently I overdid something and the bars REEK (IMHO). 

I was telling my 25 year old son about it and he said, "oh, teenage boys love stinky stuff like that, you can market it to teenage boys" so I asked him for a good name for the soap and thus, "Extreme Herbal Musk" was born. My goal is to let parents of teenage boys know about this soap. :)

Other than the smell, it's very pretty. Green tea was used as part of the liquids, giving it a nice, tan color. 

 Just Soap.

This is our first batch. A mixture of Olive Oil, Coconut Oil, sustainable Palm Oil, and Shea Butter. No scent. They turned out beautifully.

Amidst all our happiness and success we did have a fail batch 

that was totally and completely my fault. I don't even know how I

 made such a ridiculous mistake; I calculated the water and 

sodium hydroxide incorrectly and the soap never solidified. 

We went back and added the correct amount of oils, 

but the water was still way off (too too much) and it still didn't solidify. 

So my husband, who evidently struggles with failure in the lab, 

is trying to boil the water out of it today. I think he's finally ready to 

admit defeat and toss our first "fail soap".  

Another favorite - we call this one "Manly ish". 

The company we purchased the raw ingredients from sent a free sample of a fragrance called "Tobacco and Bay". Not being a smoker or a fan of tobacco in any way, I was skeptical to say the least. It's amazing! The scent is absolutely wonderful. I therefore went and did some research on tobacco scent and evidently it is a complex fragrance including citrus and a myriad of other deep notes. 

We used black tea as some of the liquids and then added two tea bag's worth of loose tea to the mix, making the soap turn out spotted. It kind of looks like leopard spots.

This soap also includes Bergamot essential oil (citrus) and a fragrance called "Sea Moss". I like the smell, not as strong as the Extreme Herbal Musk, but still probably in the deodorant-ish soap category.

This is a wonderful Pink Clay bar with a citrus fragrance called "Energy" which is supposed to be uplifting and light. I know I love the smell of it and often find myself picking up a bar and putting it to my nose for a sniff. 

Batches not yet pictured include a Lavender Rosemary conditioning bar - we just cut those bars last night and they are sitting out to complete the curing process. We used essential oils and some ground Rosemary for a creamy, somewhat lightly spotted bar. 

And another unisex maybe men's bar with a Karma blend which is supposed to be very popular. We tossed in a bag of loose Earl Grey tea into that bar so it too is creamy and spotted. 

Tonight we are making a Hawaiian black sea salt bar with Lavender, Ylang Ylang, and Plumeria. Wish us luck, the salt bars are tricky!

New Curly Scarf

I completely fell in love with this scarf. It started with the yarn. I had 2 oz of this beautiful lavender Wensleydale locks. First I made the yarn and decided that I wanted to take it a step further and actually make something with the yarn - something that I like. I have a blue one that is very similar and I wear it with my blue jeans and it looks really hip and whimsical. 

I have a little bit of the yarn left over .... probably not enough for another scarf, but I'll figure something out. I just sit there and fondle it until something occurs to me :)

New Yarn - Thick and Thin

100% Merino Thick and thin

Winter Wonderland!

So you can see a little about me, my life, my pets. This has been a good old fashion Michigan winter with tons of snow and really cold temps. I went out this morning and took some photos of the dogs, and then at sunset again and captured some shadows and trees. 

This morning

My Border Collie, Chloe. She likes to play fetch and loves the snow

Weeds standing in the snow

Brave little weed

Haleakala. She loves the snow too, but she just likes to dig for mice in the undergrowth (which is under three feet of snow right now). Sometimes she steals the stick and plays keep away too. 

 Tonight's Sunset

Waves in the snow ... shadows from the setting sun

Black Walnut tree at sunset ... this tree has been hit by lightening a few times. 

Backyard Hickory tree ... and the moon

Sam and Jet snuggling

Jet with sun setting behind