A blog of indiscriminate crafting and random thoughts on life.
Dear Shmoocon Staff Members,
I hope you like the soap and it helps you fend off becoming one of the smelly masses!
Thanks for helping to make Shmoocon great!
~Laura
Ingredients: Coffee & coffee grounds, Coconut Oil, Canola Oil, Shea Butter, ground Oatmeal, Salt, Sodium Hydroxide, Fragrance*
Credit to @hackerhuntress for “please sanitize your inputs”
* -Scented with Sandalwood and Leather Frangrance Oils for a neutral, clean scent.
Wow, is it Thursday already? I totally meant to post this on Monday or Tuesday, but it would seem I suck and lack time management skills.
I haven’t been very productive knit-wise lately and it’s bothering me, but with my arthritis flaring up, it’s not like I am going to get a much done, so in the interests of instant gratification I whipped out a Reverse Bloom Washcloth.
This pattern was the reason I learned how to knit. I had already been making soap for a while and the pairing of a handmade soap with one of these luxury cloths was just too much. I WANTED one. I didn’t actually learn to knit and knit one up for the first time until a year later, but this pattern will always hold a place in my heart. Also, they are pretty damned nice to use.
Speaking of soap….last Friday night, after getting pissed off in WoW, I decided to take the night off from gaming and make soap. I wanted to try swirling 4 colors. Unfortunately, the entire pot basically instantly set up as I was adding in the colors to the pot for the swirls. Which meant I just had to make the best of it and mix it all up for as uniform a color as I could get, and it turned out a deep dark blue. So while the smell is nice, and the oils used in it are nice, it’s not the prettiest stuff by any means. It’s also a bit soft. And the lather is blue. And it turns the water you are washing in blue. And I have 3 pounds of the mess. The blue doesn’t stain anything (it’s just a powdered oxide) and it all rinses off, but I hate soft soaps, so I am not pleased. Kids should like it however, as they can mush it up in their little foamy blue hands when they use it. Now I just need to find some kids to shove it off on. BUT! I’ll try again when my new fancy silicon lined soap mold gets here, and it’s due to be in tomorrow, so woot!
I meant to post about this 3 days ago, but I didn’t get around to snapping some pics until this morning.
Shedir is complete. And I am in love. The pattern is just so well written and clever and not near as hard as I thought it would be. I marveled at Jenna Wilson’s cleverness as I was knitting it, and again when I was done. I admit there were some slow going rows, but once I got the hang of it, things moved along nicely. In fact, I have already cast on for a second Shedir and will be sending this one to my brother since he likes shorter tighter hats and I shortened this one up a bit with him in mind.
As for the yarn, it’s Jaeger Roma, in color 006 (Fern). It’s soft and stretchy and and nice to work with, if a little splitty at times. If I were doing these hats as actual Chemo caps, I would certainly use it again in the future.
I also completed the Pinwheel Baby Blanket, except now it’s a Pinwheel Doggie Blanket. I got tired of doing it and Daisy kept trying to steal it every time I went to knit on it, so I finally gave up and let her have it. She was very pitiful and non-photogenic this morning, but you know how tetchy models can be.
And last week on the non-fibery front, I made a batch of soap. It was a spa bar type, (this means I added a lot of salt it, and it used to be sea salt that I added, but I have found that kosher does better, so it’s just a “spa” type bar now) with Coconut, Babassu, Macadamia Nut, and Castor Oils, and Mango Butter. I scented it with Black Pepper FO, Sweet Orange EO, and then I added Oak Moss as a botanical and ground Luffa for a little scrubbiness. It turned out lovely and smells divine.
And that is about it. As I’ve said, I already have another Shedir on the needles, and I’ve started a doggie sweater for Daisy in the leftover blankie yarn, and am basing it on a dog jacket thing she already has, which really means I am winging it as I go along, so it’s entirely possible it won’t turn out. But hopefully it will.