Soapy results

The lavender soap that I added the blue dye to is in the back. It was peachy when we poured it into the molds, but has become a lovely purple color. I think it's close to the perfect color for lavender soap.

In the front is the Crisco soap. It didn't harden as much as the others, in fact it's still roughly the consistency of fudge. My online resources say that Crisco soap is a hard soap, so I may have screwed this one up somehow. My alternate plan for this soap is to redissolve it in hot water and make it into a liquid soap (like for soap dispensers and dish soap). I'm sure it'll be good for either that or as laundry detergent.

Here's a closeup of the weirdly fudgelike Crisco soap. It might dry out still.. maybe..

This is the Tahitian Vanilla scented soap that's supposed to turn dark brown as it cures.

The shea butter soap looks lovely. It's a nice golden brown color with little flecks in it. I'm not sure about the pink spots, but they sort of generally blend in. This mold was somewhat poorly shaped for a soap mold, so we have blocks of soap that sort of look like brownies.

The white soap in the back is the peppermint castille soap. It looks pretty much like generic soap. TD cut these two soaps (and the lavender one). He did a much better job than I did - these actually look like bars of soap.

The bright pink one is the jasmine soap. I'm concerned that the color may transfer to skin when the soap is used. We'll find out in another couple weeks when the soap can be used. It has to cure for several weeks to complete the saponification process. If you use it too early, there's still lye left in it and it's really harsh (to the point of burning you if it's way too early).

I spent the morning designing a label to put on the bars so that they look a little more like gifts. If anyone has any idea on how to package soap so it looks nice as Christmas presents, let me know.

Crisco soap

So I'd bought a 6 pound can of Crisco to make soap with. I'm not sure what I was thinking - I only had one soap recipe that called for Crisco and we never eat the stuff. This morning, I decided to make up one last batch of soap using Crisco.

Turns out that you can make soap using only Crisco and lye. Turns out that multiplying the recipe by 1.67 exactly used up my remaining Crisco and lye.

The Crisco soap is destined to become laundry detergent. Since I put 5 pounds of Crisco into the recipe, I should get out roughly enough laundry soap to last me until I die.

Soap Making

TD and I decided to make soap to give as Christmas gifts this year. I didn't can enough this past summer to go around.

I took a soap making class through PCC a few months ago. Then, one day a few weeks ago, I abruptly decided that we should try it. I bought the supplies and today we're off and running.

The one problem with the calculations below is that some of the measurements are in fl oz, while all of the ingredients are added by weight. Total cost of all ingredients purchased: $141.33

From Costco:

$8.99 for 160 fl oz Canola oil = $0.056 / fl oz

$17.89 for 170 oz olive oil = $0.105 / fl oz

$6.99 for 96 oz Crisco = $0.073 / oz

From Mountainrose Herbs:

$11.00 for 16 oz Shea Butter = $0.687 / oz

$21.00 for 128 fl oz Coconut oil = $0.164 / fl oz

$23 for 128 fl oz Palm kernel oil = $0.179 / fl oz

From the True Value Hardware across the street:

$3.99 for 16 oz 100% lye drain cleaner = $0.25 / oz

From Sweetcakes soapmaking supplies:

$7.99 for 2 oz peppermint = $4.00 / oz

$12.50 for 2 oz lavender = $6.25 / oz

$6.00 for 2 oz jasmine fragrance = $3.00 / oz

$7.00 for 2 oz Tahitian vanilla = $3.50 / oz

$7.00 for 2 oz Vanilla lace = $3.50 / oz

The basic idea of soap is pretty simple. You mix melted fats and/or oils with a strong base (lye) and it chemically modifies the triglycerides into soap molecules. As the chemical reaction proceeds and the mixture cools down, it gets opaque and thick like pudding. This condition is called "trace" (you can see traces of your stir marks).

Roughly 95-100 degree F lye being poured into warm oil of same temp.

Using a stick blender to mix the lye into the fats.

After some mixing, but before trace.

I don't have a trace picture, but if you look on the surface of this poured soap, you'll see bumps because it was solid enough to partially hold its shape.

We have a 1/4 batch of Rachel's "tried and true" soap from the Miller Soap website. We scented it with 1 oz of Tahitian Vanilla fragrance oil, which smells very floral. The Sweetcakes website that I ordered the fragrance oil from says that this particular one turns dark brown, so we didn't try to color it. It's been poured into a black plastic Thai restaurant take-out box. This batch cost $6.41 to make.

The second batch we made up was a full batch of Sudsy All-Vegetable soap. I tried mixing it with a hand blender and it gets to trace lots faster than stirring by hand (which we did with the first batch. This batch is colored a horrible pink (we were trying for purple, but the dye we have doesn't seem to work well) and is scented with 1 oz Jasmine Fragrance. Overall, it kind of reminds me of hotels. Total cost: $16.44.

Third, we have a recipe that I got in a handout from the class I took. I tried to color it blue and ended up with a weird gray right after I added the dye, which slowly changed to a peach color as the mixture cooled. I give up on these dyes. It's originally from Rainbow Meadow, but I can't find the exact recipe on their website. Total cost: $21.65. I'm reproducing the recipe below for my own reference:

28 oz coconut oil

18 oz palm oil

42 oz olive oil

12.7 oz lye dissolved in 33 oz water

1 oz lavender fragrance

Let fat and lye cool to 92 deg F, then mix until at trace.

Next, I found a recipe containing Shea Butter, which costs $15.03. This one's scented with Vanilla Lace.

Last is a batch of Favorite Castille II (which it turns out is soap made from mostly olive oil; who knew?) scented with 0.75 oz peppermint essential oil. It costs $18.26.

I've been gone so long, blogger forgot who I am...

I had to sign back into blogger today when I tried to get to this blog to post it. My web browser also didn't remember the website and autofill it for me. This obviously means that I've been away too long. I'd blame the school year starting back up, but really I think it was my newfound motivation and level of accomplishment. When I accomplish more, I spend less time on my computer. When I spend less time on my computer, it doesn't occur to me to blog about things.

In other exciting news, I'm an aunt! My brother and his wife had a little girl. I've been crafting things for her for months now. Here's a few of my recent finishes.

Set of Dr Seuss burp cloths - they're not into pink for a girl, so I went with unisex, but fun.

Matching Dr Seuss bib that needs a velcro dot for the closure.

Set of wipies that are made with bamboo / hemp fleece on one side and hemp / organic cotton fleece on the other side. One of them is softer than the other (I think it's the hemp / cotton), but both are really nice. They're serged around the edges because I got a serger! It's this one. I picked it based on the amazon.com reviews. So far, I love it.

Another set of owl burp cloths that I made for my childhood best friend who just had her second child, a girl. They were expecting a boy so I thought I'd make some cheerful slightly-pink owl accessories for her.

A knitted baby sweater based on the Helena pattern by Alison Green Will on Ravelry. It's made with this hand painted sock yarn from knitpicks.com.

Here it is from the back.

I decided to make the smallest size, which seemed like a good idea at the time. It's smaller, so I'll finish it faster, right? Well, it turned out so small that the baby will only be able to wear it for about 2 weeks, and who puts a tie-on sweater on a newborn? Oh well. It'll look cute on a teddy bear for years to come.

After I finished that sweater project, I needed a new knitting project. I decided to make hats with really bulky yarn. Here's what I ended up with.

It's probably sturdy enough to be a flower pot.

Rags was unimpressed.

I didn't take pictures of the stuff I tie-dyed recently. For some reason, I always forget to photograph that particular craft. I did a bunch of bamboo socks for baby, a few other random baby things I had lying around, and then swiped a few of TD's white cotton undershirts (I'm not sure if he likes them better or worse now that they're blue and purple).

I also forgot to take pictures of the two wetbags I made (also for baby). They're based mostly on this tutorial. My brother and his wife had registered for this on amazon.com, but I decided that I could make the same thing for way cheaper. I ended up making two: a roughly 8"x11" one and a larger one with an outer non-waterproof pocket. They're lined with PUL fabric, which is a waterproof (but apparently breathable) fabric that people use for making cloth diapers. It was a little irritating to sew because it sticks to the sewing machine, but it wasn't too bad. The worst part was putting in the zippers. Zippers are my nemesis.

I mailed all the baby stuff off to my brother and baby on Friday. Hopefully they will actually use some of it. I forgot to mail out this hat that I'd made for her quite a while back. I'll have to send another package... but that's ok - I got a onesie that says "My Aunt Rocks" that I have to send her, too.

I went to the October Portland Modern Quilt Guild meeting. Twice, actually. The first time was two weeks ago, which didn't really work out well since the meeting was this past week. There was a pretty cool art show on the street next to PCNA, though. I bought a headband that I'm fairly happy with and I enjoyed looking at the art.

I'd hurried and stressed about having my pincushion ready for the swap at the meeting. I got it done the night before I went to the meeting (for the first time), then brought it home and it sat inside its paper bag for another two weeks. Sadly, I didn't take a picture of it at any point.. The one that I got in the swap is pictured on the PMQG website. It's the colorful round one that's the third one down. I'm insanely pleased with it.

I'm sure there have been other crafts that I've finished. I just have to think about it and search around the house for unphotographed crafts to snap pictures of and post about.

Sharon;s baby beanie

Sharon's baby beanie, originally uploaded by A Scattered Squee.

I made a second tiny hat from the same pattern as this other tiny hat that I made for my upcoming niece. They're both from the Bananahead Baby Beanie pattern from ravelry.com

My friend Sharon (who I know from grad school) is having a baby and I saw her and her husband this past weekend. I whipped up a quick baby hat last week before I saw them.

Chinese waves dishcloth

chinese waves dishcloth, originally uploaded by A Scattered Squee.

I decided that we should transition from using sponges to using washable dishcloths. I feel like the sponges harbor icky things because they don't get run through the dishwasher often enough. I can just throw dishcloths in the laundry when I wash the dishtowels and I think it'll keep them cleaner. It hopefully will be a more ecologically sustainable way to keep my counters clean.

Also, I get to try different knitting patterns out on a relatively small scale.

Moo's fingerless mitts

Moo's fingerless mitts, originally uploaded by A Scattered Squee. They're Sashka Macievich's Twin Leaf Fingerless Gloves from Ravelry.com

I'm really into knitting right now. This is the first fingerless mitt that I finished (I've finished both of them at this point). It's for my mother. She likes red.

However, I just saw her this past weekend and I'm worried that her hands are way too small for these. I may have to make a smaller pair for her.

The mitts match this Strangling Vine Lace Scarf: