Still alive!

Although I’m still going through a lot of internal changes, I don’t stop creating. I have to create just as I have to breathe. I just forget to share the results.

First of all, I discovered a new brand of sock yarn, which fascinated me with quality and beautiful patterns. In combination with a single color yarn I improve the original patterns even more (hopefully). I have no evidence, as I hurried to give the finished socks to the right friends.

However, I keep knitting. Currently, I have a brutal color combination on the needles, but it will fit to my new shoes perfectly.

At the same time, I went through another wave of soap mania. Since September, I have been creating one soap after another. Tiny batches, different recipes. I discovered a passion for soaps with deep earthy energy. My top three include walnut soap, rosehip with cloves and cinnamon, and rosemary with cocoa. No essential oils, just careful work with basic herbs and plants.

For the first time, I also experimented with adding dairy products into soap. I was excited by the silky consistency when I used whey. Goat or cow, both are fine, but I prefer liquid not dried whey.

In my last recipe I used goat kefir, which fit perfectly with the chamomile inside. I can’t wait for the soap to ripen and I’ll wrap myself in the soft foam of it.

Last, but not least obsession is painting on t-shirts. I caught the second breath. Perhaps I will please some good souls with a nice gift.

By the way, taking picture of a white t-shirt is a worse nightmare than the whole painting!

Hoping you have beautiful autumn. Stay strong, creative and healthy!

With love, Ivana

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Socks knitting addiction

As many of you have predicted, I am starting to suffer from a slight addiction of knitting socks. I watch myself robbing time from other activities (including writing and reading here) just to save it for knitting. Please tell me that the craziness will end as suddenly as it started!

The problem is that I am still discovering what to improve, so I have to knit more and more socks to apply it. And I like my knitting developments.

At the moment I am working on the first pair of socks for somebody else, so I put extra attention on it. Naturally, I wish to succeed but on the other hand I do not wish to create a geometric range of new socks requirements and support my knitting addiction.

I hope to keep my balance and cool head!
Ivana

Big challenge

When I was a small girl, I enjoyed watching fairy tales in black and white, the tales from Grandmother Sheep. She was sitting in an old chair, knitting an extremely long sock, and telling stories about brave lambs and evil wolves. Knitting and talking gave me the right soothing atmosphere at bedtime.

I learned how to knit early, but I did not have enough patience to finish something. In fact, I knit a few sweaters in my teenage and during university studies, but later I preferred dynamics of real life. A week ago, something changed. I decided to knit my own socks!

After about 30 years I decided to go back to knitting and make something what I never even tried before! Thanks to internet, I quickly found the right offer of yarns and tutorials how to knit socks. But it was no longer the soothing atmosphere of Grandmother Sheep. It seemed more like scientific work.

Suddenly I wasn’t sure. Maybe I had waited too long. So I started slowly, on two needles only. Better to make more loops than less, so the socks wouldn’t be small. I used all possible precautions and patiently knit both socks while I kept in mind Grandmother Sheep again. And maybe because of that, my socks became giant in size, just like in the fairy tale.

Next time, I will have more courage and my socks will fit also into other place than only to bed. I hope it will be next time, because I am very disappointed right now.