Full Moon – Melt-Water Moon Crests

Technically the full moon isn’t until tomorrow, but this is running through my head so I’m posting it now. Who knew? A Lunar Cycles post that’s come up early! O.O

Further Adventures in Felting Soap! This Time In Pictures! :-D

Okay. So I’ve been spending a LOT of time at the fibre store of late.
I know.
Basically, I’ve come to the conclusion that I Make Crafts because it’s a creative addiction and I don’t think I could actually stop Making Stuff[1] even if I wanted to, and boy-howdy do I ever not want to.
So that’s where I’m at.
And the latest thing I’ve been making – or making stuff with – is felt. I made myself a felted bracelet for the first time yesterday (and am part-way through a second one, though I may have to start that one over again… we shall see…), am trying my hand at another pair of felted earrings, and have been doing more work on felted soaps.
 
See, I’ve talked before about how I can use felting to (a) hold scent, and (b) make my soaps more beautiful and eye-catching and, er, easier to tell apart on sight (I don’t add dyes to my soaps, so they tent to be a uniform shade of butter-cream, no matter what they smell like).
 
I’ve felted a batch of Squeaky Clean (unscented) soap using – what else – undyed merino roving (a mix of natural off-white, dun, and charcoal… more or less), and a bunch of Pomander (sweet orange, vanilla, clove) wrapped in two shades of orange corriedale, plus a couple of bars of Winter Solstice (peppermint juniper cinnamon) in mostly turquoise and white corriedale plus some whisps of spruce and cranberry thrown in as well.
 
So here’s My Process (so far) in pictures:
 

Pomander soap wrapped in corriedale roving, and ready to go into its boiling water bath.

 

Squeaky Clean soap felted with natural-coloured (undyed, unbleached) merino. I wrapped six bars in a washing-machine “delicates bag” rather than cooking another stocking. We’ll see how it goes.

 

Squeaky Clean soap felted with natural-coloured (undyed, unbleached) merino, and sitting on the draining rack for Stage One of drying. Sometimes I think I should be sitting these in an oven on low heat or something to make sure everything dries evenly.

 

Winter Solstice soap felted in a combination of ice blue and ( snow) white corriedale with added whisps of cranberry and spruce corriedale for accent colours. These two have been drying since yesterday.
(I may need to go back to the Use A Stocking method, since it seems to get the felt to, well, felt a little bit better. It’s a learning process).

 
So there you have it.
What I’ve been up to today. (Stay tuned – once I’ve got it beaded, I’ll post pictures of my felted bracelet — it’s a rather pretty asymetrical piece that – possibly because of the abalone-shell flowers I’ve already sewn to it, or possibly because of its slightly ruffled upper/outer edge – makes me think of Russian Kokoshniki. My next one – maybe – is going to be a cuff. Or it’s going to be a similar ruffly thing, but done more like one of these.
 
Wish me luck! 😀
 
TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.
 
 
[1] Whether “stuff” is poetry or soap, fiction or candles, handspun yarn or fancy dinners, felted bracelets or fruit butter, knitted shawls or yoghurt, beeswax candles or beaded jewelry, home-grown squash or improvized harmonies or even colaborative art through my work as a model… I feel most happy, and most myself, when I’m Making Stuff. 😉

Crafty Crafty – Soap, Candles, Earrings, and Etsy

So I’m trying my hand at felted soap again.
I’m using a very well-cured bar of lemongrass-ginger soap (tallow-based, as it happens. I’ll use tallow, lard, and similar for home-use soaps, but not typically for soaps that I sell at craft shows. I find that it squicks people out a little bit) and have wrapped it in some of my roving – here I’m using silk-merino (the lighter peach/amber) and coridale (the darker orange/rust).
 

Lemongrass and ginger soap, wrapped in silk-merino and coridale roving.

Time for a Crafty Post! (Leather, Felt, Sewing, Beading, and Preserves)

Hey!
So it’s time to write about canning, cooking, and creativity again!
 
A friend of mine has a couple of apple trees, so she’s been sending me apples (like: 10-15 kilograms of apples) which, over the course of (mostly) this weekend, I’ve turned into 16 one-cup jars of apple butter.
I’m rather pleased with this, particularly since it’s actually a little bit more than that (I could probably fill another half-cup jar, but I’m not sure. I may just use what’s left to top up the already-open jar in the fridge).
 
Guess what the relatives are getting in their Xmas Goodie Baskets this year? 😉
 

Friday Crafting

I like Fridays.
In my work-from-home routine, they are they day where – provided I’ve got everything else done, and sometimes not even then – I get to blog as much as I like, the day I’m most likely to throw together the kind of dinner that requires a bit of forethought[1], and the day when I do most of my devotional stuff (officially – unofficially, things can wander a bit).
It also means that I’m slightly more likely to actually get to see, and hang out with, my lovely wife – who works multiple jobs, herself, but all outside of the house – for the next couple of days. Which, seriously, I fucking miss my wife. And miss fucking my wife. All of the above.
 

Talking About Crafts

Hey.
 
Okay.
 
I’m listening to this New World Witchery podcast about blending secular holidays with religious Pagan (Wiccan) ones, and it’s really kinda neat.
 

The Curious Crafts Show – It’s Tomorrow! :-D

So.
I’ve spent the day prepping for the craft show I’m in tomorrow.
 

 
 
I’m inching ever-closer to petrolium-free packaging. This makes me happy.

I’ve got 100% beeswax votive candles in 4-pack gift boxes – four candles nestled in black tissue paper, packed into a white 100%-recycled cardboard gift box and tied with (acrylic, sadly) multi-hued yarn.

I’ve got fizzing bath treats in “Pumpkin Spice”, “Chocolate Mousse”, and “Elizabeth’s Cookies[1]” full of coconut oil and cocoa butter, packaged in pretty, reuseable mesh (but, alas, polyester) bags[2].

I’ve got three kinds of soap – unscented castille soap, “Winter Solstice” (peppermint, cinnamon, and juniper), and “Pomander” (sweet orange and clove – a perpetual favourite, I find), all of which are wrapped in waxed paper[3] and tucked into small, draw-string burlap bags.

No lip-balm this time around (it’s coming, don’t worry), but I do have a heap of new jewelry. My Honey Month collection is finished at last (YAY!) and will be proudly on display… with any luck, said display will be my new, deconstructable jewelry stand featuring a gorgeous peice of live-edged oak and made by my young lady. 😀

So. Long story short: If you’re in Ottawa, do drop by the show tomorrow. 😀

See you at Jack Purcell!

TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.

[1] Which, yes, are named after the lemon-rosemary shortbread cookies made by musician Elizabeth Bruce.

[2] I’m thinking that, if I can get ahold of some reuseable tea-bags (kind of like these?), that would probably work. I just want something that has a finer weave than the little burlap bags I use for my soaps.

[3] Probably waxed with parafin wax. Maybe I can use butcher’s paper in future?

Further Adventures in Soap Research

So. A while back, I posted some questions about soap-making because I was having a wretch of a time getting my soap to trace properly.

At first, I wondered if it was due to using oils that had gotten too old (it’s not – making soap is a useful way of getting rid of rancid cooking oil, as it turns out), but it looks like I’ve been using too much water in my lye solution or (and this is also possible) I haven’t been stirring the stuff enough. Alternatively, I’ve got the temperatures wrong… but I doubt that’s the problem…

I found this very helpful Trouble-Sooting Chart that gave me The Clue right off the bat. I also found a handy process for fixing soap that isn’t willing to trace (that would be the Crock Pot Method, fyi) over at Gracefruit. I’m not sure I’m up for using my food-prep crock pot for fixing soap, but it’s a good thing to be aware of, none the less.

So, having found some suggestions for how to fix my soap (as well as a site that tells you how to re-batch soap that wound up too hard by incorporating into new soap, and a reminder that coconut oil and canola oil, while dandy, need to be used in smaller amounts or the soap will wind up very, very soft and goopy), I think I’m willing to try soap-making again.

The Plan:
Use 3 parts olive oil and 1 part coconut oil for my base
Use 3/4 of the usual amount of water, but the usual amount of lye crystals for the lye solution
Stir thoroughly
Keep the soap WARM during its first 24 hours

This should result in Actual Useable (unscented) Soap. Thank all the gods.

From there, I can go back to making batches that include essential oils (like “Elizabeth’s Cookies[1]”, “Pomander[2]”, “Squeaky Clean[3]”, “Love Potion Number Nine[4]”, and “Gingerbread[5]”) and then maybe branch out and experiment with doing a lye solution using herbal tea (like chamomile, yarrow, raspberry leaf, or blueberry), coffee, or maybe even coconut milk (which is a wee tad trickier, and so will probably wait for a little bit) instead of plain water.

But, for the moment, just getting the plain, old vegan-unscented stuff under control and reliable would be a Really Good Thing. 😀

TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.

[1] Vanilla-Lemon with a hint of Rosemary.

[2] Sweet Orange and Clove.

[3] Tea Tree.

[4] Ylang Ylang, Cinnamon, Vanilla, and a few other secret ingredients. This might be a good one to make with coconut milk as part/all of the liquid.

[5] Vanilla, Ginger, and Clove.

Making Soap – Some Questions

Hey again, folks.
(Lots of posting today).

I’ve been trying to re-stock my soap supply of late, and I’m having trouble getting the stuff to trace. I’ve spent part of the morning looking up the effects of using rancid oil when making soap (none, apparently – see here for details), in case that was the problem.

Now that I’ve ruled that out, I’m wondering if I’m using too much water in my lye solution. (Or, alternatively, if lye loses it’s potency over time…?)

I’m wondering this because, when I try to make soap, the lye solution sinks and doesn’t mix well with the heated oil (which, I’m assuming, is because oil floats on top of water) – so I’m wondering… if I made a lye solution that was more concentrated (same amount of lye crystals, but, say, half the suggested amount of water[1]), would that solve my problem?

Right now, I have something like ten bars of soap that Didn’t Quite Work. The kind of stuff I’ll happily use around the house, but which probably aren’t an option for setting out at my craft sales. I’d prefer to actually get some successful, fully saponified soap out of this deal, and sooner rather than later, as May is coming up quickly and I’d like to have some summer-scented soaps available for any shows I do over the summer months.
As such: If you have any ideas, please let me know! 😀

Thanks a heap,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.

[1] I always super-fat, so I don’t think this would cause problems — if you know it would, though, please let me know what to expect and how to avoid it.