I've been bending wire!  And it's all our Opal's fault…she's a very ebil enabler . 

Happy Eye Candy Friday!

I apologize for blog slacking..but packing is taking up lots of time!  Photos of moving will probably be coming soon (how droll…er um..I mean…how exciting).

In shop news…the shop will be going into vacation mode on April 14th so I can pack everything up.  I will be reopening in mid May.

Flowers are blooming (forgive all the photos of the same flowers..I was drawn in by them):

I made some more soap today (it's an Oatmeal, Goat's Milk and  Honey):

And it's gorgeous enough to do some outside knitting..(log cabin blanket I started for my mom awhile ago..and some iced tea):

Happy Friday!

The Batts:

The Stitch Markers:

I also have five pairs of wrist/arm warmers that I've knit the past few months…but I haven't taken their photos yet..I'll be getting to that after dinner this evening.

I hope you enjoyed the peek!  I will be updating the shop tomorrow (Thursday the 18th) at around Noon Pacific time (or a little earlier).  This will be my last shop update before we move!  I will be putting the shop in "vacation" mode towards the end of April and plan on re-opening in mid-May…but I'll have more details on all that another time

Thank you for looking! 

Oh, and it's Eye Candy Friday!  Enjoy:

The only perk to oral surgery:

(Ice cream for lunch)

My flock of soap sheep grows every week (this photo isn't the best…it's dark and rainy here and the sheep were feeling restless):

(these are an unscented castile breed of sheep soap)

And Tim has discovered that his wild life of sleeping and eating and doing catnip is finally catching up to him:

Poor exhausted Tim…

In other news…Moving is creeping up on us.  We're starting to pack a little here and there…I won't be dyeing any more wool until after the move…so sometime Mid May.  The shop will be closing mid April so intensive packing can take place and I'll be reopening as soon as we are settled!  I will have more soap photos as the next few weeks pass as I've not quite used up the lye yet.

Hope this post finds everyone well!

Mmmm, glowing red heat (please ignore how icky the oven looks)!

Mmmmmmm…Unscented Goat's Milk and Oatmeal Soap (I might add a touch of honey next time I make this…)

Mmmm, WIP….  This is the project I'm going to try to finish during the Olympics for the Ravelympics.  It's another Girasole that I started in December and then pretty much set aside for the past month and a half or two months.  I think I should be able to finish it..and if I finish it early I can start something else!

The oven being fixed means I'll be back to dyeing on Monday!  I'll have a small shop update next week Friday.

That's my Eye Candy Friday!

Hope everyone has a great weekend

Last time I posted, I had said our oven was about to be fixed.  Well, um..it's still broken.  It's now been 3 weeks and it was supposed to be fixed today. One of the minions was just here with a new element in hand!  I turned off the power to the oven!  He unscrewed the old mangled sad element!  He got ready to put in the new happy pretty element!  Um…wrong part.  So the wait for nice baked goodies continues.  I don't know if he'll be back today with a new part or if it's going to take another week. Once I know how long it will take, I will know when I can dye again.  It's not that I use the oven when I dye..it's that I don't want to have to bring out all my dyes and get my wool soaking in the tiny little kitchen only to have to put it all away at a moment's notice so the oven can be fixed…so sadly and annoyingly my dyeing is on hold yet again…and I had just set a date for an update in the shop, but I may have to change that….

Otherwise I've kept busy making more soap:

Here's one I experimented with just after I made that nice Castile soap.  This one is made with Calendula tea, Calendula petals and orange essential oil as the fragrance.  I love how the color turned out..and I'll know how well it bubbles and such once it's cured in a few weeks time.  It's got a nice light orange scent to it as well.  Here it is just after I poured it into the mold (next time I make it I'm probably not going to put the petals on top…I like how it looks, but I think they will just wash off after the first soap use and they seem a bit silly now that I look at it):

And here it is out of the mold and sliced:

Yesterday I made some "Lavender Swirl" soap (I'll think of a better name, really I will).  Which has quite a few nice oils in it and some lavender essential oil for the scent.  I just cut it, so here are the photos….just poured in the mold:

Out of the mold:

Sliced and ready to cure:

I thought this slice would make a great  Rorschach test:

What do you see in it?*

I love the smell of lavender, so this one is a favorite already.

As for my knitting..there has been a problem with the Wing o' the Moth Shawl…It seems I can't count, or I can count and I like to add mysterious extra stitches.  When I finished the first chart (with carefully marking each row and repeat after I had finished it) I had 35 extra stitches.  I have no idea where they came from, I don't know who invited them to hang out on my shawl.  I looked it over and over and over and checked and doubled checked everything…and then I frogged it.  sigh.  I am to sad to photo the frogged pile o' yarn.  I'll start over once I am feeling the love for it again. 

I have made progress on my Woodland Shawl :

It's nice easy knitting and I'm loving the color!

Well, till next time..May all your ovens work!

* I see a butterfly

I'm trying to be a better blogger..and I figure that photo posts count, right?  Good!  I made some soap today:

It's just a nice simple Castile style soap.  No scents, no color, just olive oil, a bit of castor oil and the usual water and lye.  I'll be making quite a few more loaves of soap before we move…I don't really want to drive over 2000 some miles with lye in our vehicle.  And one can never have enough soap!

I ate some oranges..because they seemed sunny:

And I took a few photos of a Calla Leaf with rain drops on it:

I also knit a bit more on the Wing o' the Moth Shawl (very nice and sunshine-y):

I'm through the first skein of the Malabrigo lace and one repeat away from finishing the first chart.  Hopefully I can make some more progress on it this weekend..while it rains.

Annnnd…..Our oven, which has been broken for the past two weeks will finally be fixed tomorrow..or maybe Saturday…whenever they get around to it.  Thank the gods!  I want some comfort food hot from the oven (and I want to bake quite a few goodies as well).

In other boring mundane news…My ribs are feeling much healed and I plan to start dyeing this weekend or Monday.  Woot!  So hopefully there will be a shop update in a week or so (I'll announce it in my shop and my Ravelry group).

Hope everyone is having a happy Thursday!

So, what's up here?  Not much.  I haven't been dyeing much because I seem to have some inflamed rib cage cartilage which has kind of slowed me down.  It's starting to feel much better and I hope to get back to dyeing in the next week. I'm itching to dye up some more fiber for the shop.

In other news…I'll be moving this year!  My husband's job will allow him to work from  home and I've been wanting to move closer to my family.  So we're going to be packing everything up here and driving about 2100 miles back to where we came from (well, back to where I came from…G came from a much greater distance).  I'm so very excited to be moving home!  This shouldn't really affect the shop except that it will be in vacation mode for a few weeks while we make the move and settle in (and your packages will be coming from Wisconsin instead of California).

And finally…I've been knitting.  I'm trying very hard to finish items that I've started before casting on new ones.  So far I'm doing sort of ok with that….I finished these two items:

Hemlock Ring Blanket (pattern by Jared Flood) (Ravelry link)

Which is currently heading to it's new home.  I used Cascade Eco + in the "Lichen" colorway for this.  Used just shy of 2 skeins.  I love it, the pattern is well written and with no purling required, it just flew off my needles!  Woooo!

And the Reversible Cabled-Rib Shawl (pattern by Lily Chin) (Ravelry Link, yet again)

The above photo is of the shawl blocked, the photo below is of the shawl before blocking:

I wasn't sure at first if I wanted to block it.  I love the texture of the cables..but I think I love it even more blocked…so good decision…right?  I used 4 skeins Malabrigo Lace for this in the "Butter" colorway.

So, once I finished those two, I decided I could cast on another project….

That's the Wing o' the Moth Shawl (pattern by Anne Hanson) started in Malabrigo Lace in the "Sauterne" colorway.  I love the color…it reminds me of lemon curd.  Yum!

I couldn't be stopped there though… my need to cast-on new things took over and I also started the Woodland Shawl:

This is using Dream in Color Baby yarn in the "Chinatown Apple" colorway.

Two new projects really isn't that horrible, right?  Or is it?  I also have another Girasole on my needles and a new Log Cabin Blanket in progress (there may also be a few unfinished socks and um…well, other things…but I just won't get into that now).  Oh the shame. 

Anyway..I babble!  Lots!  To sum things up:

Ribs a hurtin' = no dyeing for another week

Two finished projects = a whole new slew of projects cast-on = I have no restraint

Maybe I for my next blog post, I should just sum things up right away and save you all the babble .

I'll try to blog every other week from now on with progress and shop news and moving news (no promises..but i will try!).

Happy Fiber Play!

The day the wooden soap mold arrived, I made soap.  I was probably rather annoying to some while waiting for the mold to get here….I was antsy, I was excited, I was anticipating what I could do with oil and lye. 

My anticipation was well rewarded with my first batch.  I fell in love with the process..I fell in love with the possibilities.  I made a second and a third batch…I am still in love, I am fascinated.  I am babbling….

Anyway…I've had a few requests to blog my recipes and method, so I'm going to do that..but first, I need a disclaimer (yeah yeah, I know….how boooring, how droll, but really, lye burns are serious business…)…So here it is: 

*I am not responsible for any injury of any sort that might come about from anyone trying to make soap after reading this little blog post.  I suggest if you are interested in soap  making, that you do what I did and read read read whatever you can on the subject before you attempt to make some soap.  It's really not that dangerous when one uses precautions and proper safety equipment (safety goggles, mask, marigolds, clothes that fully cover you…etc…etc..) and knows the methods.* 

/disclaimer off

Oh, and as I do plan on possibly selling my soaps in the future, I will not be posting the exact recipes that I have been developing and using.  I'll be posting one from one of the books I have….It's pretty easy to tweak recipes as you like using soapcalc, so if you want to try out different things and have other ingredients and such, that is a good place to start.

So, without further ado!

What you will need: (or what I used):

marigolds (gloves), safety goggles, protective clothing (long sleeves, long pants, socks and shoes) a dust mask, a place with good ventilation to mix up  your lye/water/whatever liquid you choose solution (I mix mine up under the hood fan above my stove), stainless steel spoons for stirring lye solution, stainless steel pans, stainless for any utensils you might use.  A heat proof silicone spatula is very nice to have on hand.  An immersion blender (stick blender) – although you can mix by hand, an immersion blender will speed up the process for you nicely-, thermometer for checking lye and oil temps before mixing, um…I'm sure I'm missing a few things here…A soap mold or molds that are large enough to hold the amount of soap batter you plan on making.  Again, there are probably a few things I'm missing, but there are quite a few tutorials online that get into all this as well.

My first soap I wanted to be pretty simple, so I decided I would do one with some lavender essential oil for fragrance and some old fashioned oats that I had ground up a bit finer in my food processor.  Soap calc will give you approximate amounts of fragrance to use…rule of thumb seems to be .5 to 1 ounce per pound of Oils used, but that does vary depending on what you are using.  The ground oat amount really depends on how much you might want in your soap.

For a 1 pound batch (the pound means how much oil is being used) of Basic Soap, you will need: (Recipe is from the book:  "The Everything Soapmaking Book" by Alicia Grosso)

6 ounces of distilled water

2.25 ounces of lye

10 ounces of olive oil (in the case of soap making, regular olive oil or light olive oils are better than extra virgin)

6 ounces coconut oil

1 Tbsp castor oil

(for my recipe I used a few more oils and upped the amounts to fit in my 3 pound mold)

If you are going to use fragrance oil:

0.5 to 1 ounce lavender essential oil

1 to 2 Tbsp fine ground oats

___________

What I do:

Line my soap mold with parchment paper (or freezer paper) there are tutorials on how to do this here

Measure out everything ahead of time (except the lye, I measure the lye once I have everything else in place).

Prepare the lye solution:  Slowly add your lye to your water stirring as you go **NEVER EVER EVER EVER ADD THE WATER TO THE LYE..THIS COULD RESULT IN A VOLCANIC TYPE OF ERUPTION AND YOU COULD END UP WITH LYE ALL OVER YOU..NOT GOOD…ALWAYS ADD THE LYE TO THE WATER**.  Stir the solution until the lye is dissolved thoroughly (I stir for at least 5 minutes just to be sure).  The mixture will heat up right away anywhere from 160 to 200 some degrees.  Set the mixture aside to cool, you want it around 100 degrees.

Prepare the Oils:  Melt the solid oils (coconut, in this case) in a stainless steel pan over low heat, it will melt pretty quickly.  Add the olive oil and castor to the coconut oil.  Let this mixture cool to 100 degrees as well (you want the lye and the oils around the same temp when you combine them). 

Once both mixtures are at 100 degrees F (give or take 5 degrees), add the lye solution to the oils and stir for a bit.  You will notice the mixture start to change and get a bit cloudy looking..this is what you want.  This is Saponification starting.  Yay!  At this point, you can get out your stick blender and carefully start to blend on low speed (do your best not to incorporate any air bubbles into the mix). 

You want to blend until you reach light trace…which is when you lift your stirring stick out of the mixture and dribble a bit of the mix off the stick, you will still see little trails of the mixture before it sinks back into the batch (much like ribbon stage in baking, but not as thick).  Once you reach light trace, you can add your essential oil and your oats. 

After adding the essential oil and the oats, blend the soap batter a little longer  until you reach trace..which is a bit thicker than light trace. 

I also sprinkled some lavender flowers over the top:

 Once you  have poured the soap into the mold, you want to cover the mold with some plastic wrap and wrap it in a towel to insulate it and leave it alone for 12 to 24 hours (I peek…I admit it..I can't help myself, I need to see what's going on in there).

The next day you can unmold your soap (unless something has gone wrong…) and cut your soap.  I keep ph strips on hand to test the soaps ph before I unmold, and if it's in range, I test the center of one of my slices to see how the inside is. 

Your soap now needs to cure for 4 to 6 weeks before it can be used (this is to allow the soap time to harden so it will last longer and it will continue to saponify and become a bit more mellow with time).

Again, there are a lot of great tutorials on how to make cold process soap online…google searches are great!  You tube also has quite a few videos on the subject.  This is just my experience with it so far!

I've also made some soap with Goat's milk (which is an entirely different method of cold method) and Buttermilk…Photos of those soaps:

Chocolate Goat's Milk Soap:

Annnnd Poppyseed Buttermilk soap with Lemongrass Essential Oil:

If you do decide to make soap, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Happy Soaping!

That's about it for this evening!  I will be blogging about my newest adventures next!  Stay tuned!  And check the shop Thursday evening for some more fresh batts