i do say i am a blog neglecter + soap mold troubles + heather and nettle, or, the long post title

Why, hello, stranger. I have now, three months (give or take) later come around to write that post about soapmaking goodliness I promised about. *blushes*

Last weekend I made some soap: Heather & Nettle, apart of a specially special-like thing that might so happen to be a new line at Malkata. I can't tell you very much because it's a surpise, but I'll say that the soaps are unscented and and herbal and quite sexy, I must admit. I haven't really got a release, er, more like list-in-Etsy-shop-yay-it's-available-for-sale date in mind for it but I figure by mid-Sept. I may have gotten mineself infusing each herb into olive oil goodness and making nice pretty soap loaves and letting them cure and all of that grand fun, so perhaps expect by early October they'll be in my shop, along with some other goodies I can't tell you about. I'm a party pooper, yes, I know.

So, without further ado, I'll show you how it went in lots of pictures. How hunky dory it is, yes?

Lots of fresh pumpkin seed soap grated up in mine devoted and beat-up crockpot.

So as remilling goes, you have to wait a incredibly long time for the soap to melt into an even reasonable consistency to pour into the mold, even when it's grated. That isn't something about remilling I'm particularly fond of, but I love how long the soap lasts and how rustic it is so to me, it's a pretty good trade-off.

Alas! It has melted!

After 1-2 hours it's pretty completely melted. See how mushy and totally unappealing it looks? Fortunately, by the time it's hardened it's quite pretty (in my opinion, anyway).

 While it was melting, I decided to line the mold. My dad so generously built a nice little wooden mold for me in the beginning of July for my soapmaking endeavors with wingnut-type things on the sides, but oh my goodness it is SO hard to line that thing! See, the wingnut-type things on the sides actually get in the way instead of being useful. Therefore, I have half a mind to buy a mold from Bramble Berry so my mold won't look like this when I line it...

A (sort of) lined mold

Once it was thoroughly melted, I added the infused oils (first picture). Whilst I mixed it all together it smelled quite good, like hay or fresh cut grass. Then I clumped into the mold like so and it looked like this...

Soap in the mold

I sprinkled it with heather flowers and covered it and let it cure for about 24 hours. Next morning it was all hardened and lovely!

Soap loaf in the mitre box to be cut

Voila, finished bars

These bars, for some odd reason, remind me of some sort of French countryhouse or an old white armoire with the paint chipping off (but in a nostalgic, charming sort of way).

 These babies have to cure for three weeks and then they'll be ready and raring to go :) I'm so excited to share them!

(P.S. - For kicks, here's another hint: there's cocoa and shea butters inside each one – a.k.a., a super moisturizing bar of soap)

In other news, I'm in the final steps of finishing a website for Malkata Soap Works, and within a few months it shall be open to the world. Wooo! There'll be lots of neat stuff, some background info on the soap shop and on my invisible self, links, and perhaps some specials and and my recent soap endeavors, what's curing, and some of my ideas.

Goodnight ;)

knitting *ahem*

I don't know about you, but knitting is something that has recently taken my fancy and I'm really rather interested in learning how to do it. Something about creating your own wintery apparel gives me this warm and cozy feeling. And oh, the glory of the materials you can use! Soft (yet astronomical) mohair and cashmere and merino, the ever lovely wool, bamboos, silk, linen, cotton... and of course the needles as well, and all of those much lusted after needle point tips and other paraphernalia you may perhaps see in Walmart sometimes in the fabric department (but not usually, since those are being thrown out altogether of most Walmarts nowadays).

But oh my goodness, I either don't have the proper patience to knit or I'm using all the wrong methods and materials. I began last weekend out of having nothing to do, the boredom setting in as the school year has been finished out already and I had nearly no tech-type projects to take on. So alas, using some spiffy 10.5 bamboo needles I bought online from Jo-Ann's and some Red Heart yarn, I decided to learn to knit with the help of tutorial videos.

I learned to tie the split knot, and the casting on part was easy compared what was coming. Then rows had to be done... oh my. For a good hour, I sat there with myself velcro'ed to the computer (figuratively), shoving the pointy little needle row by row through acrylic yarn that kept on splitting. At this point, my patience had altogether diminished and I was getting so frustrated with that stupid thing. (Note to self: never buy Red Heart yarn ever, ever again. It's scratchy and it's hell for the knitter)

So much for a first try at knitting. So thus I spent the rest of my day making a little swatch of heather gray knitting in the most basic stitch: the knit stitch. The product of all this was a holey, unequally proportioned, mangled piece of knitting. My sister told me it looked like a piece of a sweater chewed up by the cat. (I honestly don't even know how many times I've typed the word "knitting" in this paragraph, let alone this post)

Yes, I realize it's Thursday and that means I should have made soap today, but I was out and that's obviously not exactly ideal for making soap. I shall be posting my soapmaking adventures of last Sunday tomorrow, though, to make up for it!

tapping into my nonexistent blogging skills

Well hello, I'm glad you've dropped by. I'm honestly a complete newbie to blogging. I don't have much of an appreciation of templates, either. They're so very cumbersome and clumsy. I've finally gotten to work on a proper blog for Malkata Soap Works, so that, if you're interested, you can see some of what goes on behind the scenes in my kitchen, with plenty of photos, of course!

If you don't know who I am or my soap company, I'm a homeschooling student from Georgia who has an slightly unhealthy love of soapmaking. What more can I say? Those who don't make soap won't understand, but the precious few that do will totally understand what I'm talking about! It's one of the most fun crafts around, keeps you busy, and it allows you to play around with your creative side.

I'm a self-taught graphic and web designer. I learned HTML a few years ago and I took a course in Java this year, which I've been trying to apply to any and every web page that I code, which isn't exactly working, you see. Java is really hard for me to remember, unlike HTML, which has become second-hand for me. I also really, really enjoy photography and I'll be snapping photos with my little Canon point and shoot whenever I get the chance.

I'm getting a little on the life-story side here, I know, so I'll try to wrap it up so you don't fall asleep on your keyboard.

I'm thinking, to start, I'll make up a little rundown list of my weekly blogging plan (I'm making this up as I go along, though). Thursday and Sunday are technically my "soapmaking" days because they're when I make soap the most, so I'll post photos of my experiences every week on those days. Since summer's just around the corner, I'll have more time to soap and that means more blogging! Yay! On other days of non-soaping, I'll post things unrelated to soapmaking, like gardening and my failure attempts at sewing with my sister, and cooking and the occasional knitting project... (continues rambling)

Thank you for taking some time out of your day to drop by my blog! Come and say "hello" in the comments, if you'd like!