Attempt the First

It’s Wednesday.  I figured I’d share what I’ve been crafting around with.

My first item to share is the Emerald Keep Scarf, which will be a giveaway in the forthcoming Keepsake Tour starting March 8th, to celebrate the release of Book 2 in the Persis Chronicles, Emerald Keep.

It didn’t work.

I mean, yeah, it’s fabric, and it’s knitted.  But that’s about it. For one thing, the stitch said WS (wrong side) for both pieces, but either I misread it or it’s a typo because clearly, it’s incorrect – the edge stitches clearly are backward from the main lace stitches.

Attempt the First, Backside

This is a view where you can see the edge stitches are right-side up, while the lace is wrong side.

Grr.

Attempt the Second, Front and Frustration Both Start with F. So does my favorite swear word. Jus’ sayin’.

Started over.

And… I don’t like my idea of the border.  You can’t really see it well in this shot, but the edges pull in too much and make it look sloppy.  The reason I wanted a border to begin with is that this stitch has quite a bit of bias curl; however, the edging I picked (mistake-stitch rib) isn’t working.

I think either I’ll throw an extra yarn over in to create a sort of gutter, or eliminate the edges entirely.

Mancooking. Why move stuff outta the way when you can stand over it?

I mentioned to a friend that we made candles last weekend and realized I neglected to take photos.  I planned to take pics of the cold pots, but we have to cook in our kitchen so they had to come off the stove.

And, apparently, my kid thinks it’s no big deal to stand over them rather than move them out of the way.  He’s cooking a very lovely taco salad at the moment, (well, cooking the sausage that will go in the taco salad).  Yum.

Soap! Curing!

Our batch of soap that we made a couple weeks ago is curing very well.  It’s a lovely creamy ivory color now.  We cut it this weekend to allow each of the bars exposure to air, so they can continue the curing process.

In case you’re wondering, curing is letting the chemical reaction between the fat and lye to finish.

This is raw soap and not milled soap, so it’s not made in a mold.  You can use it as is, once it’s cured, or mill it again and then pour it into pretty molds for a nice appearance.

Candles, Dipped 2015

I only made a half-dozen this year so far; I may fire up the pots once more before I put everything away.  I like the way these came out; they are nice and uniform.  They’re also really long, which is my favorite (I have four different heights I can make).

Basket-o-Candles, Bad Lighting.

This isn’t a very good shot, but it’s of my candle stock.  I’ll see if I can get a better one for you one of these days – but for now, it’s off to eat dinnah.

Yum.

What are you making?