craftworld plus

i'm making soap again--and taking orders! ahem ahem--it's been fun and exciting making the soaps and printing up the labels and fishing for orders. i love the chance to do anything creative and am especially fond of the soaps, people seem to enjoy them so very much and they are easy and satisfying to make.

i've had very little opportunity to sew, though i did make some curtains for the front windows using one of the sheets-turned-tablecloths for our wedding. it was fun, took two hours (rodney took jubal for a bike ride), and i only made a couple of mistakes. and now every time we look at the window, we get a subtle reminder of our wedding day and the love and commitment towards each other and our whole family, which makes for random and nice squidgery gut feelings. in the meantime i plot bags and baby clothes and pants and other sewn items in my head while i do other things.

i have almost completed my tomato blockprint notecard prototype and will hopefully be gocco-ing them in the next week or two, just ironing out some photocopy-induced flaws. i'm so excited i'm practically having a milk let-down in anticipation as i type this. yay!

on an unrelated note, i have recently discovered a new (to me) author: neil gaiman. i read his american gods a few months ago, and then stardust , and then anansi boys, and i'm ready to find some more and just keep on going. neil did coralina--the creepiest kids' book vesta and i have ever read, and the sandman comics, and mirrormask, and a whole lot of other stuff i cannot wait to get my hands on--children's and adult books alike. i just want to give a shout out to him, as he is totally amazing and wonderful and is the current target of my alottment of famous-people-i-don't-know lust. i want to make a t-shirt in honor of him and originally wished for "neil gaiman is an american god" wink wink, but he's actually an englishman living in america and all that doesn't carry the same ring, so....i haven't thought of one yet. but he's definately on the deserving-of-a-t-shirt list with colin meloy (of the decemberists--"everybody shrieks, everybody moans at the sight of colin meloy"), tom robbins, stephen king, gus van sant, etc etc. so if anybody needs a good read, find some neil gaiman and prepare to be enraptured.

gratitude to:
1) having a pleasant time while rodney is off work due to injury (yes, again! they should pay more for all the danger his job poses to a healthy body)
2) neil gaiman keeps a blog! yay!
3) my newest creation in the kitchen--chicken breasts smothered in red sauce on a bed of spinach and covered with mozzarella, served with a big pile of pasta and salad. so good.
4) having happy, healthy kids
5) washing machines. we really take these for granted and they are definitely one of THE top ten inventions, ever, hands down.

so, thanks!