fredag 11. november 2011
fredag 22. juli 2011
Tunisian Scrap Blankie
Made from scraps with a double-ended Tunisian hook ... the hook I used here was a crochenit hook.
Laget av restegarn med tokrokshakkenål - den jeg brukte her, er en crochenitkrok - et ukeblad lanserte teknikken som "strikkehekling" for lenge siden.
torsdag 21. juli 2011
chevron jacket // vinkeljakke
To make this shape, I start doing a raglan increase from the top, but I just skew it a bit so the seams come in front, in back and on top of the shoulders.
The arms are partly done in tubular tunisian ... if you want to make a sweater, you can make most of it tubular.
(The pictures are of the unblocked jacket on the friend I had made it for)
Jeg begynner med en vanlig raglanøkning i halsen, men snur den så jeg får en søm midt foran og en midt bak. Ermene er rundhakket; du kan rundhakke bolen også hvis du lager en genser.
(Venninnen som fikk jakka står modell før den er helt ferdig)
A MILLION SHADES OF GREEN
DAY I: March 09, 2008
I’ve joined a knitalong/knitting contest for the first time in my life.
I had decided not to, but the idea of knitting a place kept niggling at the back of my mind, and grew into plan for a wrap to be called ”A Million Shades of Green”, after a short story by J. O. Jeppson (link to book) which starts with a patient in a mental hospital who paints the walls with faeces … an evocative reminder of our need to express ourselves, and of the endless ways people find to do so.
I’m not quite up to a million shades yet, but when last I counted, I had 273 different yarns, but not only in green. To be decorated with brass rings, brass bells and tassels, and, (if I can find them), frogs, spiders and a lizard. If anyone has a giant millipede, it would fit right in!
I want to … not re-create … I want to travel back to a magic bit of my childhood, a place called Fern Hill.
It’s a boys’ dorm of Mount Hermon school in Darjeeling, and I lived there for a year 51 years ago, when I was 7 … I grew up as Third Culture Kid (3CK), moving all the time, and this is one of the places I miss the most.
And for me, looking at this picture does not bring to mind the Kanchenjanga range or the wide blue sky, but a steep and deeply wooded hillside behind the house.
Like this one:
It was always dark and damp and secretive, with a very special smell, the sun never came to the forest floor, there were enormous black millipedes that curled up when you touched them, which you could carry around in your pocket as a shiny round ball, and once I saw a huge moon moth on a tree trunk.
And the shape of the wrap reminds me of moon moths.
I’m doing double-ended Tunisian instead of knitting, because that goes best with my yarns – I had lots of wool stashed away in perfect colours, but mostly thinner stuff. With a 12mm Tunisian hook I can get a fabric that is soft and lacy, yet firm at the same time. And I find that Tunisian crochet blends colours better than knitting.
That might only be a minor deviation from the pattern, and ”Minor deviations from the pattern are acceptable..."
"...but it must definitely be recognizable as the Culture Fusion pattern” ... and as I am working from the neck outwards, I guess I’ve disqualified myself already …
No matter. This is my wrap and my journey, and I definitely did not want to follow the pattern and start from the bottom of the wrap and work my way up – the short, ”chopped up” rows made me feel intensely uncomfortable.
I * DID * NOT * WANT * CHOPPED * UP, I wanted looooooong liiiiiiiines, long flowing lines of continuity.
WARNING - Now it’s going to get personal:
Continuity … a beautiful but strange concept for one who, before starting fifth grade, had gone to 7 schools in 2 continents and 3 countries and 3 languages and 3 religions. Culture shock and confusion are not the issue here, nor things like being rapped over the knuckles with a ruler for not knowing long division, when you had barely gotten past 2+2 in your previous school. The issue right now is
SPACE
AND
TIME
TO
GRIEVE
I came to Norway from India for the first time at 6, and people I hadn't seen since I was 2 were saying ”Isn't it nice to be home?”
Home? What home? I honestly think it did not occur to anyone, not even our parents, that my sister and I had been ripped away from our home. And, regrettably, blindness like this in adults seems to have been perfectly normal for the time.
I spent that summer making what I called ”secrets” in secluded places: I would dig a hole, inter a flower or a dead insect or something, build up a mound of earth and decorate it with stones and flowers. Like the patient in ”A Million Shades of Green” I had found a means of expressing myself, without ever consciously knowing that I was burying the past, without ever telling anyone, without ever feeling the grief of having lost so many people and places that I loved.
But the price for this kind of unfeeling is high – when grief gets frozen, memory and emotions also freeze, and the past becomes a two-dimensional permafrost. But it came back in dreams – dreams of Darjeeling, where we used to stay during the rainy season, and never of Cooch Bihar, where my first love had been invested.
And my dreams came true, we actually moved back to Darjeeling, where the woods were a part of my life for less than a year – it was such a short interlude, and so many other parts of the permafrost of grief have had to be thawed, and re–experienced and remembered and cherished, that it took me more than 50 years to find my way back to Darjeeling woods.
And I am weeping as I work on the wrap, hooking in the rich shades of green, enjoying all the different textures of the yarn, allowing myself the luxury of time and space to grieve, allowing myself the anguish of melting grief, knowing that this anguish is the only path that leads back to what was lost.
Day X, April 26, 2008
STILL PERSONAL, but more upbeat this time.
When I started working on my wrap, a tiny inner voice emerged, I’ll call her Littlest, and as she gained confidence, she kept looking on as I hooked, enjoying the process, leaning heavily into me and purring contentedly: ”This one is for meee” …
The contentment lasted until I started planning how to convert the square shape (see day II) into a long and narrow CF shape. When Littlest realized what I was doing, she began asking if this wouldn’t make a nice jacket … quietly and hesitantly, but repeatedly, with the unignorable persistence of a 3-year-old. So I finally replied firmly that no, this had to be a wrap, as there saw no time to start over again and finish by the deadline.
”OK”, she said, ”it doesn’t matter”. And went back towards the permafrost. (See day I)
That hurt … that heartbreaking acceptance that her feelings, needs, wishes did not matter; that whatever was important to her … DID. NOT. MATTER.
So I asked her what she wanted. It took time and patience to get answers from her, as she had no concept of compromise – in her world, ”want” was a war that she never even tried to join; survival was giving way to the needs and wishes of others, always; and even thinking about what she wanted was overwhelmingly, paralyzingly scary. But I did get a clear answer after a while: Littlest wanted a jacket, not a wrap, because ”a jacket is more huggy”. And a bit later: ”It would be nice with some pink in it”. And later still: ”lots of bells and whistles?”
I had some wants too: I wanted to start another wrap first, in case I managed to finish by the deadline. I still wanted to keep to the ”long lines”, but construction would be so much easier if I had a core triangle of short, chopped up rows to shape around. ”And we’ll have some bells and frogs on the wrap, but we’ll leave the pink for the jacket, with more bells, OK?”
Littlest had no problem with that, and has stayed with me, out of the freezer, ever since, giving me the continuity I was longing for on day I.
E.E. Cummings has said it better than I ever could:
love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places
yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skilfully curled)
all worlds
Bits of permafrost are still left; I’ve been dealing with that all my adult life, and I expect to have to deal with things as they arise as long as I live, but it has been getting easier for a long time, and I know it will keep getting easier - even more so now that Littlest is lying skilfully curled around my heart. I hope I can take care of her so that she stays there.
I’ve joined a knitalong/knitting contest for the first time in my life.
I had decided not to, but the idea of knitting a place kept niggling at the back of my mind, and grew into plan for a wrap to be called ”A Million Shades of Green”, after a short story by J. O. Jeppson (link to book) which starts with a patient in a mental hospital who paints the walls with faeces … an evocative reminder of our need to express ourselves, and of the endless ways people find to do so.
I’m not quite up to a million shades yet, but when last I counted, I had 273 different yarns, but not only in green. To be decorated with brass rings, brass bells and tassels, and, (if I can find them), frogs, spiders and a lizard. If anyone has a giant millipede, it would fit right in!
I want to … not re-create … I want to travel back to a magic bit of my childhood, a place called Fern Hill.
It’s a boys’ dorm of Mount Hermon school in Darjeeling, and I lived there for a year 51 years ago, when I was 7 … I grew up as Third Culture Kid (3CK), moving all the time, and this is one of the places I miss the most.
And for me, looking at this picture does not bring to mind the Kanchenjanga range or the wide blue sky, but a steep and deeply wooded hillside behind the house.
Like this one:
It was always dark and damp and secretive, with a very special smell, the sun never came to the forest floor, there were enormous black millipedes that curled up when you touched them, which you could carry around in your pocket as a shiny round ball, and once I saw a huge moon moth on a tree trunk.
And the shape of the wrap reminds me of moon moths.
I’m doing double-ended Tunisian instead of knitting, because that goes best with my yarns – I had lots of wool stashed away in perfect colours, but mostly thinner stuff. With a 12mm Tunisian hook I can get a fabric that is soft and lacy, yet firm at the same time. And I find that Tunisian crochet blends colours better than knitting.
That might only be a minor deviation from the pattern, and ”Minor deviations from the pattern are acceptable..."
"...but it must definitely be recognizable as the Culture Fusion pattern” ... and as I am working from the neck outwards, I guess I’ve disqualified myself already …
No matter. This is my wrap and my journey, and I definitely did not want to follow the pattern and start from the bottom of the wrap and work my way up – the short, ”chopped up” rows made me feel intensely uncomfortable.
I * DID * NOT * WANT * CHOPPED * UP, I wanted looooooong liiiiiiiines, long flowing lines of continuity.
WARNING - Now it’s going to get personal:
Continuity … a beautiful but strange concept for one who, before starting fifth grade, had gone to 7 schools in 2 continents and 3 countries and 3 languages and 3 religions. Culture shock and confusion are not the issue here, nor things like being rapped over the knuckles with a ruler for not knowing long division, when you had barely gotten past 2+2 in your previous school. The issue right now is
SPACE
AND
TIME
TO
GRIEVE
I came to Norway from India for the first time at 6, and people I hadn't seen since I was 2 were saying ”Isn't it nice to be home?”
Home? What home? I honestly think it did not occur to anyone, not even our parents, that my sister and I had been ripped away from our home. And, regrettably, blindness like this in adults seems to have been perfectly normal for the time.
I spent that summer making what I called ”secrets” in secluded places: I would dig a hole, inter a flower or a dead insect or something, build up a mound of earth and decorate it with stones and flowers. Like the patient in ”A Million Shades of Green” I had found a means of expressing myself, without ever consciously knowing that I was burying the past, without ever telling anyone, without ever feeling the grief of having lost so many people and places that I loved.
But the price for this kind of unfeeling is high – when grief gets frozen, memory and emotions also freeze, and the past becomes a two-dimensional permafrost. But it came back in dreams – dreams of Darjeeling, where we used to stay during the rainy season, and never of Cooch Bihar, where my first love had been invested.
And my dreams came true, we actually moved back to Darjeeling, where the woods were a part of my life for less than a year – it was such a short interlude, and so many other parts of the permafrost of grief have had to be thawed, and re–experienced and remembered and cherished, that it took me more than 50 years to find my way back to Darjeeling woods.
And I am weeping as I work on the wrap, hooking in the rich shades of green, enjoying all the different textures of the yarn, allowing myself the luxury of time and space to grieve, allowing myself the anguish of melting grief, knowing that this anguish is the only path that leads back to what was lost.
Day X, April 26, 2008
STILL PERSONAL, but more upbeat this time.
When I started working on my wrap, a tiny inner voice emerged, I’ll call her Littlest, and as she gained confidence, she kept looking on as I hooked, enjoying the process, leaning heavily into me and purring contentedly: ”This one is for meee” …
The contentment lasted until I started planning how to convert the square shape (see day II) into a long and narrow CF shape. When Littlest realized what I was doing, she began asking if this wouldn’t make a nice jacket … quietly and hesitantly, but repeatedly, with the unignorable persistence of a 3-year-old. So I finally replied firmly that no, this had to be a wrap, as there saw no time to start over again and finish by the deadline.
”OK”, she said, ”it doesn’t matter”. And went back towards the permafrost. (See day I)
That hurt … that heartbreaking acceptance that her feelings, needs, wishes did not matter; that whatever was important to her … DID. NOT. MATTER.
So I asked her what she wanted. It took time and patience to get answers from her, as she had no concept of compromise – in her world, ”want” was a war that she never even tried to join; survival was giving way to the needs and wishes of others, always; and even thinking about what she wanted was overwhelmingly, paralyzingly scary. But I did get a clear answer after a while: Littlest wanted a jacket, not a wrap, because ”a jacket is more huggy”. And a bit later: ”It would be nice with some pink in it”. And later still: ”lots of bells and whistles?”
I had some wants too: I wanted to start another wrap first, in case I managed to finish by the deadline. I still wanted to keep to the ”long lines”, but construction would be so much easier if I had a core triangle of short, chopped up rows to shape around. ”And we’ll have some bells and frogs on the wrap, but we’ll leave the pink for the jacket, with more bells, OK?”
Littlest had no problem with that, and has stayed with me, out of the freezer, ever since, giving me the continuity I was longing for on day I.
E.E. Cummings has said it better than I ever could:
love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places
yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skilfully curled)
all worlds
Bits of permafrost are still left; I’ve been dealing with that all my adult life, and I expect to have to deal with things as they arise as long as I live, but it has been getting easier for a long time, and I know it will keep getting easier - even more so now that Littlest is lying skilfully curled around my heart. I hope I can take care of her so that she stays there.
Noro Kureyon BSJ
This is how the stripes turn out with self-striping yarn: solid stripes on one side, and mixed on the other side:
GOMO'S BAD-ASS BOOTIES
Sorry, I don't have time for a long explanation, just wanted to post the pictures for someone: You start with a rectangle:
Set a marker where the heel is going to be and knit around.
then knit the top of the bootie by picking up stitches at the sides:
And end up by doing the cuff in tight ribbing:
I've used snippets of yarn that I knotted together, and some threads are coming loose ...
Ingrid
KATMANDHU
I'll try to find a real, live baby to model it soon - the one I made looks very big to me!
It was fun to make, and easy with a judicious placement of stitch markers; but like many other EZ patterns I couldn't visualize it by just reading the pattern.
Very quick and unfussy to make, so it should be perfect for charity knitting.
The yarn is alpaca - soft and warm.
Colinette BSJ
Made from the preemie variation of Elizabeth Zimmermann's Baby Surprise Jacket, on 5.5 mm needles with recycled Colinette (a friend gave me a bit of an unfinished sweater that I unraveled and repainted).
The border is made with some Italian yarn called "ggh Colorado" (colour 11, batch 919) that makes a really light yet dense fabric in garter stitch.
Instead of the usual buttonholes, I've crocheted loops on one side.
There was just enough yarn of both types ... I have less than a yard left of each!
THE BSJ STARTS OUT LIKE THIS:
AND YOU FOLD IT TO MAKE THE SLEEVES:
FINISHED VERSION:
EXPRESS NORO SHAWL
Three strips of machine knitting in Noro with a hand-knitted border in Gjesdal Mohair ... Noro Kureyon is PERFECT for the Addi Express! The main problem was to find a colour for the border that would go with the Noro.
The idea is garnered from a German Addi Express pattern book - I'll add the title when I find the book.
See the orange bulge on the wall in the background? A rug I knotted when I was pregnant.
onsdag 20. juli 2011
Möbius Moebius
http://www.catbordhi.com/site_index.html
Norsk forhandler av bøkene:
http://garn.poppyfield.net/catalog/index.php?manufacturers_id=28&osCsid=264400f7cda293bbb3bd7361d4e305b4
ELECTRIC OVEN HOT PROCESS
I work at home, and my office is next door to the kitchen, so using the oven for slow cooking comes naturally - that way I can keep an eye (or rather a nose) on what's going on while sitting at the computer.
So when I read about a crockpot experiment on the HotSoap list in the previous century, just as I was studying all I could find on HP and working up to taking the final plunge, I made a batch immediately and stuck it in the oven. HSD! No-hassle HP!
That's a lot of HP batches ago, and it has mostly gone well. But unexpected things do happen. I've had:
* 1 Vesuvius: (That's when you get to clean soap off the roof of your oven) The soap started to crawl out of the pot while I was cleaning the stick blender. I stirred it down and stuck it in the oven, but a few minutes later the pot was an island in a sea of soap, thankfully contained in the oven. If you want to re-create the effect, you can mix your lye and oils at temps of 86 ºC, then get so fascinated by the patterns your stick blender are making that you blend to a VERY heavy trace. Nature does the rest; it's called an exothermal reaction, just in case you wanted to know.
* 5 Mauna Loas: a much more peaceful kind of volcano, when the soap stuff just crawls, almost apologetically, past the lid and snuggles down on the baking tray.
* 1 geysir: I'd taken the pot out to stir, and when I stuck the spoon in, my goggles and the wall were splattered with flying soap. The lid hadn't been on properly, I guess, and a thick skin had formed on the surface of the soap. I've never had a repeat of the geysir effect, but now I stick my spoon in very carefully, and ask any spectators to step well back while I'm doing so.
I wondered at first if the Mauna Loas were caused by the oils I used for those two batches, but after deciphering my notes, I think the problem was caused by too high oven temperatures (95 ºC ), combined with too little soap in the pot (2 kg in a 9,5 -litre pot), so it got much too hot.
I'm not sure if these things are the worst that can happen with oven slow cooking, but this is the worst that has happened to me, and it only entails some extra cleaning.
And the volcanoes aren't really that dramatic: I just opened the oven door, let them settle down a bit before I took out the pot, placed it on a newspaper, scraped the mess out of the oven with a spatula and put the pot back in and finished the cook, scrubbing out the oven later ... I even made a pizza in an unscrubbed oven once, in an emergency, and did not get "pizza á la sapone" ... but the fire alarm went off when I was pre-heating the oven.
The scrapings have since become liquid soap - I let them cure for a while, boiled them for a couple of hours on a slow heat with quite a lot of water, add orange essential oil and use it for washing floors.
There may be even more ways of cooking soap than there are of cooking rice, and I certainly don't think that my way of doing it is the final, definitive, one-and-only, perfect, never-to-be-deviated-from method ... I guess many of us get addicted to soaping partly because we love to experiment.
So instead of writing how-to instructions, I'm going to tell you what I do, and you can take it from there. With three exceptions:
* HEED ALL THE WARNINGS! Before you start doing anything, read the safety guidelines on soapmaking very carefully. There's no need to be hysterical about working with lye and boiling hot soap and so on, but it's important to respect the materials and chemical processes involved.
* KNOW YOUR OVEN: Can you set your thermostat at the temperatures recommended in cake recipes, or does your oven usually need lower or higher settings? Is it easy to clean? Are the oven trays lye-resistant? (Aluminum is not the thing here, even if you're not planning to make volcanoes). Does your oven have some sort of self-cleaning coating that might not appreciate lye?
* MAKE DETAILED NOTES ON EVERY BATCH. This is a case of "do as I say, not as I do". Or didn't. I really miss being able to look back and see exactly what temperatures I used, what amounts, which pot, what happened.
EQUIPMENT:
I have three stainless steel pots that fit in the oven - 9.5 litres, 6.5 litres and 15 litres.
I use very large and thick oven pads when I lift out the pot to stir it - it makes me feel more secure.
And I seem to use a lot of newspaper and kitchen tissue.
I'm allergic to rubber, so I can't use gloves, but if I do get lye on my hands, I just rinse well under cold running water.
METHODOLOGY:
Any kind of recipe can be used in OHP, but if you want to make soap with 100 % canola oil, don't put in in downspouts when it's done ... believe me on this; I really know what I'm talking about.
I always run my recipes through the MMS lye calculator, and use a bit more water than the recommended amount, just to make sure that the saponification is finished before the soap is cooked. I get some shrinkage when it's drying, but not much.
When I'm experimenting with a new recipe, I split a batch, take some out to cure, and leave the rest in the pot to cook ... taking care that it is a bit less than half full, but not very much less, to put it scientifically.
Temperatures: I've tried to set the thermostat at different temps, from 70 ºC to (almost) 100 ºC, but have ended up with around 80 ºC (176 ºF) on my oven.
If I remember to, I turn on the oven when I've mixed the lye solution, that gives it time to heat up (this is a really old, slow oven). But the soap gets cooked even if the oven is turned on when I put in the pot - it just takes a bit longer.
The different stages of OHP are so similar to crockpot HP that I won't take up space describing them here - you can easily find info and pictures on the Web.
But it's important to keep in mind that the weirdest things can happen, but few are critical, and one usually ends up with some sort of soap: Once an OHP batch (coconut and soy shortening) decided to get stiff and unmanageable after 45 minutes, so I did something stupid - added a lot of water. And ended up with a thick and rubbery mess instead. In retrospect I think it would have been better to just continue cooking - or shove it into a mold (it was way beyond glopping), let it cure and rebatch it.
To stir or not to stir?
You don't have to, but then again, you don't not have to either. I'm always curious, so I usually take out the pot every 20 or 30 minutes and look and stir a bit ... and nothing awful has happened. And when I don't stir, nothing awful happens. But I always check once in a while to see if the soap is doing the volcano thing.
How long does it take?
That depends ... so I check every 20-30 minutes after the first hour, even if I'm not in a stirring mood. You can also turn off the heat and leave the soap in the oven overnight to continue saponifying, and then heat it up the next day until it is soft and pliable.
When is it done?
With some experience, you can smell when a soap is done cooking. You can also check by taking a small bit on a fork and placing it in a glass of hot water, stirring energetically. If it dissolves easily and foams easily, it's done. If it leaves a greasy slick on the surface, it needs some more cooking time. If it looks ok, take a bit more on your fork, let it cool and touch it with the tip of your tongue. If it doesn't sting, the pH is OK.
When you decide it's completely finished, it might be a good idea to leave it to rest for 30 minutes at around 40-50 degrees C before continuing - this seems to make it easier to handle when you're unmolding, and any essential or fragrance oils you'll be adding won't disappear in a cloud of steam.
SIMPLIFIED TRANSPARENT OHP:
To do this, you need Catherine Failor's book "Transparent Soapmaking". I use her recipes and follow her instructions. The only thing I do differently is to cook the soap in the electric oven (80C - 176F), and use a stick blender instead of a plastic tent.
Well - maybe I should explain the differences a bit more:
* Because the soap is cooked, it's not necessary to do the manual scraping thing that she recommends when the alcohol is added - I just scrape the sides and bottom with a rubber spatula. (In my oven, at this low temperature, the cooking time is more than three hours, but the soap turns out soft and very well-behaved)
* Failor's method calls for covering your pot with a "tent" of plastic sheeting to keep the alcohol from evaporating while it's being mixed into the soap, but I discovered that when I used the stick blender, that was not necessary - everything dissolved in a couple of minutes, long before any significant amount of alcohol could evaporate.
* Because everything happens so quickly, it's a good idea to make the sugar solution BEFORE adding the glycerin/alcohol.
* The batch is pretty big, but it can be remelted the next day. But pour it into large moulds instead of leaving it in the pot overnight - easier to cut up into smaller portions for remelting.
Happy soaping!
So when I read about a crockpot experiment on the HotSoap list in the previous century, just as I was studying all I could find on HP and working up to taking the final plunge, I made a batch immediately and stuck it in the oven. HSD! No-hassle HP!
That's a lot of HP batches ago, and it has mostly gone well. But unexpected things do happen. I've had:
* 1 Vesuvius: (That's when you get to clean soap off the roof of your oven) The soap started to crawl out of the pot while I was cleaning the stick blender. I stirred it down and stuck it in the oven, but a few minutes later the pot was an island in a sea of soap, thankfully contained in the oven. If you want to re-create the effect, you can mix your lye and oils at temps of 86 ºC, then get so fascinated by the patterns your stick blender are making that you blend to a VERY heavy trace. Nature does the rest; it's called an exothermal reaction, just in case you wanted to know.
* 5 Mauna Loas: a much more peaceful kind of volcano, when the soap stuff just crawls, almost apologetically, past the lid and snuggles down on the baking tray.
* 1 geysir: I'd taken the pot out to stir, and when I stuck the spoon in, my goggles and the wall were splattered with flying soap. The lid hadn't been on properly, I guess, and a thick skin had formed on the surface of the soap. I've never had a repeat of the geysir effect, but now I stick my spoon in very carefully, and ask any spectators to step well back while I'm doing so.
I wondered at first if the Mauna Loas were caused by the oils I used for those two batches, but after deciphering my notes, I think the problem was caused by too high oven temperatures (95 ºC ), combined with too little soap in the pot (2 kg in a 9,5 -litre pot), so it got much too hot.
I'm not sure if these things are the worst that can happen with oven slow cooking, but this is the worst that has happened to me, and it only entails some extra cleaning.
And the volcanoes aren't really that dramatic: I just opened the oven door, let them settle down a bit before I took out the pot, placed it on a newspaper, scraped the mess out of the oven with a spatula and put the pot back in and finished the cook, scrubbing out the oven later ... I even made a pizza in an unscrubbed oven once, in an emergency, and did not get "pizza á la sapone" ... but the fire alarm went off when I was pre-heating the oven.
The scrapings have since become liquid soap - I let them cure for a while, boiled them for a couple of hours on a slow heat with quite a lot of water, add orange essential oil and use it for washing floors.
There may be even more ways of cooking soap than there are of cooking rice, and I certainly don't think that my way of doing it is the final, definitive, one-and-only, perfect, never-to-be-deviated-from method ... I guess many of us get addicted to soaping partly because we love to experiment.
So instead of writing how-to instructions, I'm going to tell you what I do, and you can take it from there. With three exceptions:
* HEED ALL THE WARNINGS! Before you start doing anything, read the safety guidelines on soapmaking very carefully. There's no need to be hysterical about working with lye and boiling hot soap and so on, but it's important to respect the materials and chemical processes involved.
* KNOW YOUR OVEN: Can you set your thermostat at the temperatures recommended in cake recipes, or does your oven usually need lower or higher settings? Is it easy to clean? Are the oven trays lye-resistant? (Aluminum is not the thing here, even if you're not planning to make volcanoes). Does your oven have some sort of self-cleaning coating that might not appreciate lye?
* MAKE DETAILED NOTES ON EVERY BATCH. This is a case of "do as I say, not as I do". Or didn't. I really miss being able to look back and see exactly what temperatures I used, what amounts, which pot, what happened.
EQUIPMENT:
I have three stainless steel pots that fit in the oven - 9.5 litres, 6.5 litres and 15 litres.
I use very large and thick oven pads when I lift out the pot to stir it - it makes me feel more secure.
And I seem to use a lot of newspaper and kitchen tissue.
I'm allergic to rubber, so I can't use gloves, but if I do get lye on my hands, I just rinse well under cold running water.
METHODOLOGY:
Any kind of recipe can be used in OHP, but if you want to make soap with 100 % canola oil, don't put in in downspouts when it's done ... believe me on this; I really know what I'm talking about.
I always run my recipes through the MMS lye calculator, and use a bit more water than the recommended amount, just to make sure that the saponification is finished before the soap is cooked. I get some shrinkage when it's drying, but not much.
When I'm experimenting with a new recipe, I split a batch, take some out to cure, and leave the rest in the pot to cook ... taking care that it is a bit less than half full, but not very much less, to put it scientifically.
Temperatures: I've tried to set the thermostat at different temps, from 70 ºC to (almost) 100 ºC, but have ended up with around 80 ºC (176 ºF) on my oven.
If I remember to, I turn on the oven when I've mixed the lye solution, that gives it time to heat up (this is a really old, slow oven). But the soap gets cooked even if the oven is turned on when I put in the pot - it just takes a bit longer.
The different stages of OHP are so similar to crockpot HP that I won't take up space describing them here - you can easily find info and pictures on the Web.
But it's important to keep in mind that the weirdest things can happen, but few are critical, and one usually ends up with some sort of soap: Once an OHP batch (coconut and soy shortening) decided to get stiff and unmanageable after 45 minutes, so I did something stupid - added a lot of water. And ended up with a thick and rubbery mess instead. In retrospect I think it would have been better to just continue cooking - or shove it into a mold (it was way beyond glopping), let it cure and rebatch it.
To stir or not to stir?
You don't have to, but then again, you don't not have to either. I'm always curious, so I usually take out the pot every 20 or 30 minutes and look and stir a bit ... and nothing awful has happened. And when I don't stir, nothing awful happens. But I always check once in a while to see if the soap is doing the volcano thing.
How long does it take?
That depends ... so I check every 20-30 minutes after the first hour, even if I'm not in a stirring mood. You can also turn off the heat and leave the soap in the oven overnight to continue saponifying, and then heat it up the next day until it is soft and pliable.
When is it done?
With some experience, you can smell when a soap is done cooking. You can also check by taking a small bit on a fork and placing it in a glass of hot water, stirring energetically. If it dissolves easily and foams easily, it's done. If it leaves a greasy slick on the surface, it needs some more cooking time. If it looks ok, take a bit more on your fork, let it cool and touch it with the tip of your tongue. If it doesn't sting, the pH is OK.
When you decide it's completely finished, it might be a good idea to leave it to rest for 30 minutes at around 40-50 degrees C before continuing - this seems to make it easier to handle when you're unmolding, and any essential or fragrance oils you'll be adding won't disappear in a cloud of steam.
SIMPLIFIED TRANSPARENT OHP:
To do this, you need Catherine Failor's book "Transparent Soapmaking". I use her recipes and follow her instructions. The only thing I do differently is to cook the soap in the electric oven (80C - 176F), and use a stick blender instead of a plastic tent.
Well - maybe I should explain the differences a bit more:
* Because the soap is cooked, it's not necessary to do the manual scraping thing that she recommends when the alcohol is added - I just scrape the sides and bottom with a rubber spatula. (In my oven, at this low temperature, the cooking time is more than three hours, but the soap turns out soft and very well-behaved)
* Failor's method calls for covering your pot with a "tent" of plastic sheeting to keep the alcohol from evaporating while it's being mixed into the soap, but I discovered that when I used the stick blender, that was not necessary - everything dissolved in a couple of minutes, long before any significant amount of alcohol could evaporate.
* Because everything happens so quickly, it's a good idea to make the sugar solution BEFORE adding the glycerin/alcohol.
* The batch is pretty big, but it can be remelted the next day. But pour it into large moulds instead of leaving it in the pot overnight - easier to cut up into smaller portions for remelting.
Happy soaping!
HJEMMELAGET SÅPE FØR OG NÅ
SÅPE FØR OG NÅ
Hva er såpe? Et fast eller flytende, vannløselig rengjøringsmiddel laget av fettstoffer og lut (kalium- og natriumhydroksid), ifølge Store Norske Leksikon.
Fett, vann og lut gir såpe, vann og glyserol, for å si det svært enkelt. Hvis du vil vite mer, finner du en grundig beskrivelse av de kjemiske prosessene i Store Norske Leksikon.
Begynnelsen: Et gammelt romersk sagn forteller at kvinnene som vasket klær i Tiberen ved Sapo-haugen, der dyr ble brent som offer til gudene, oppdaget at det var lettere å få tøyet rent når regnvannet førte aske og fett ned fra altrene. Slik ble såpe oppfunnet.
Dette kan være noe romerne fant på i et forsøk på å vise at de egentlig var de første såpekokerne, for ifølge Plinius den eldre laget fønikerne såpe av sauefett og treaske allerede 600 år f. Kr, og det var en populær vare i handelen med gallerne. Kelterne var også tidlig ute, og ordet “såpe” stammer kanskje fra deres “saipo”.
Omkring år 200 e. Kr. ivret Galenos for bruk av såpe til personlig hygiene. Tidligere ble det brukt som legemiddel, og til å fjerne lanolin fra ull slik at den skulle ta farge, i en tid da kulørte tøyer var verdifulle statussymboler. Når folk ville bli rene, smurte de seg inn med olje som de så skrapte vekk.
“Encyclopædia Britannica” har mange flere interessante historiske opplysninger ... som at såpeskatten i England etter Napoleonskrigene var så høy at kemneren låste såpekokerkjelene hver kveld for å forhindre nattlig smugproduksjon.
Nær fortid: På 1700-tallet ble det oppfunnet en metode for framstilling av syntetisk soda, og for 76 år siden, da Esther Mejdells “Kokebok for norske hjem” utkom, brukte hun soda i den såpeoppskriften hun tok med der. Det ser ikke helt lettvint ut, men var nok enklere enn å bruke treaske.
Hun anbefalte leserne å samle på alt avfallsfettet - “lysestumper, fleskesvor, tarmfett, fettrester paa tallerkener osv”.
Man trengte “5 kg. avfaldsfett, 3 kg. soda, 1 kg. læsket kalk, 1 ½ kg. salt”. Så var det å lage lut: “Soda og kalk lægges i en avskjæring. 15 liter kokende vand slaaes over, litt ad gangen, under stadig omrøring, hvorefter det faar staa at synke. Den klare lut øses av og nye 15 liter kokende vand slaaes over. Den første lut slaaes nu i gryten med fettet og koker i 4 timer, hvorunder halvparten av den anden lut spædes i. Siden lægges saltet i, koker saa 1 time. Står til næste dag. Sæpen ligger da ovenpaa. Den tages op. Alt det tynde slaaes av, sæpen lægges i med resten av luten, koker 1 time. Staar til næste dag. Skjæres i stænger, som tørres i kjølig værelse.”
Mange husker med gru mors eller bestemors hjemmelagde såpe. Det var ikke lett å beregne lutmengden riktig når det skulle gjøres på denne måten, og enda vanskeligere var det hvis luten ble utvunnet av aske. Det kunne være lutoverskudd i såpen slik at den ble svært hard mot huden. Dessuten ble glyserolet slått ut med “alt det tynde”, så man fikk ikke nyte godt av de hudpleiende egenskapene til dette verdifulle biproduktet.
Det var kanskje ikke så rart at pålitelige milde industrisåper som “Sunlight” ble populære da de først kom på markedet i slutten av 1800-tallet.
Da krystallisert kaustisk soda kom på markedet, ble såpekokingen enklere. Fettstoffer har forskjellige forsåpingsverdier, noen krever mye lut for å bli til såpe, andre trenger mindre, og det ble mulig å beregne nøyaktig hvor mye lut som måtte til for å ende uten et lutoverskudd i såpen.
Internett har ført til en ny revolusjon i hobby-såpekokingen. Det begynte i USA for omkring 15 år siden, og nå er nettet et forum der ivrige såpeentusiaster over hele verden henter informasjon og utveksler erfaringer, oppskrifter og metoder for å lage milde toalettsåper.
Her i Tinn Austbygd samles såpemakere fra hele Norden i en uke hver sommer for å utveksle erfaringer og treffe likesinnede; vi ble kjent med hverandre gjennom den nordiske såpe-e-postgruppen ”Savonalist” på Yahoo … der det alltid er plass til flere, og der du finner bokomtaler og annen nyttig informasjon og lenker til interessante såpesider over hele verden.
Man trenger ikke Internett-tilknytning for å lage såpe hjemme, for det fins en del gode såpebøker på engelsk, men det skjer så mye nytt at det er en stor fordel.
Hvis man bare skal kjøpe en bok, vil jeg anbefale “Essentially Soap” av Dr. Robert McDaniel. “Transparent Soapmaking” av Catherine Failor er også svært interessant. Begge kan bestilles på Amazon.uk.co.
Dessverre kan jeg ikke helhjertet anbefale noen av såpebøkene som er utkommet på norsk. Et unntak er “Kreativ med såpe” av Marit Linnebo Olderheim. Riktignok tar den utelukkende for seg bearbeiding av ”rett-i-koppen-såpe” - ferdigkjøpt såpebase som man smelter og støper – men den er vakker og full av gode ideer om tilsetning av farge og duft.
Hva er såpe? Et fast eller flytende, vannløselig rengjøringsmiddel laget av fettstoffer og lut (kalium- og natriumhydroksid), ifølge Store Norske Leksikon.
Fett, vann og lut gir såpe, vann og glyserol, for å si det svært enkelt. Hvis du vil vite mer, finner du en grundig beskrivelse av de kjemiske prosessene i Store Norske Leksikon.
Begynnelsen: Et gammelt romersk sagn forteller at kvinnene som vasket klær i Tiberen ved Sapo-haugen, der dyr ble brent som offer til gudene, oppdaget at det var lettere å få tøyet rent når regnvannet førte aske og fett ned fra altrene. Slik ble såpe oppfunnet.
Dette kan være noe romerne fant på i et forsøk på å vise at de egentlig var de første såpekokerne, for ifølge Plinius den eldre laget fønikerne såpe av sauefett og treaske allerede 600 år f. Kr, og det var en populær vare i handelen med gallerne. Kelterne var også tidlig ute, og ordet “såpe” stammer kanskje fra deres “saipo”.
Omkring år 200 e. Kr. ivret Galenos for bruk av såpe til personlig hygiene. Tidligere ble det brukt som legemiddel, og til å fjerne lanolin fra ull slik at den skulle ta farge, i en tid da kulørte tøyer var verdifulle statussymboler. Når folk ville bli rene, smurte de seg inn med olje som de så skrapte vekk.
“Encyclopædia Britannica” har mange flere interessante historiske opplysninger ... som at såpeskatten i England etter Napoleonskrigene var så høy at kemneren låste såpekokerkjelene hver kveld for å forhindre nattlig smugproduksjon.
Nær fortid: På 1700-tallet ble det oppfunnet en metode for framstilling av syntetisk soda, og for 76 år siden, da Esther Mejdells “Kokebok for norske hjem” utkom, brukte hun soda i den såpeoppskriften hun tok med der. Det ser ikke helt lettvint ut, men var nok enklere enn å bruke treaske.
Hun anbefalte leserne å samle på alt avfallsfettet - “lysestumper, fleskesvor, tarmfett, fettrester paa tallerkener osv”.
Man trengte “5 kg. avfaldsfett, 3 kg. soda, 1 kg. læsket kalk, 1 ½ kg. salt”. Så var det å lage lut: “Soda og kalk lægges i en avskjæring. 15 liter kokende vand slaaes over, litt ad gangen, under stadig omrøring, hvorefter det faar staa at synke. Den klare lut øses av og nye 15 liter kokende vand slaaes over. Den første lut slaaes nu i gryten med fettet og koker i 4 timer, hvorunder halvparten av den anden lut spædes i. Siden lægges saltet i, koker saa 1 time. Står til næste dag. Sæpen ligger da ovenpaa. Den tages op. Alt det tynde slaaes av, sæpen lægges i med resten av luten, koker 1 time. Staar til næste dag. Skjæres i stænger, som tørres i kjølig værelse.”
Mange husker med gru mors eller bestemors hjemmelagde såpe. Det var ikke lett å beregne lutmengden riktig når det skulle gjøres på denne måten, og enda vanskeligere var det hvis luten ble utvunnet av aske. Det kunne være lutoverskudd i såpen slik at den ble svært hard mot huden. Dessuten ble glyserolet slått ut med “alt det tynde”, så man fikk ikke nyte godt av de hudpleiende egenskapene til dette verdifulle biproduktet.
Det var kanskje ikke så rart at pålitelige milde industrisåper som “Sunlight” ble populære da de først kom på markedet i slutten av 1800-tallet.
Da krystallisert kaustisk soda kom på markedet, ble såpekokingen enklere. Fettstoffer har forskjellige forsåpingsverdier, noen krever mye lut for å bli til såpe, andre trenger mindre, og det ble mulig å beregne nøyaktig hvor mye lut som måtte til for å ende uten et lutoverskudd i såpen.
Internett har ført til en ny revolusjon i hobby-såpekokingen. Det begynte i USA for omkring 15 år siden, og nå er nettet et forum der ivrige såpeentusiaster over hele verden henter informasjon og utveksler erfaringer, oppskrifter og metoder for å lage milde toalettsåper.
Her i Tinn Austbygd samles såpemakere fra hele Norden i en uke hver sommer for å utveksle erfaringer og treffe likesinnede; vi ble kjent med hverandre gjennom den nordiske såpe-e-postgruppen ”Savonalist” på Yahoo … der det alltid er plass til flere, og der du finner bokomtaler og annen nyttig informasjon og lenker til interessante såpesider over hele verden.
Man trenger ikke Internett-tilknytning for å lage såpe hjemme, for det fins en del gode såpebøker på engelsk, men det skjer så mye nytt at det er en stor fordel.
Hvis man bare skal kjøpe en bok, vil jeg anbefale “Essentially Soap” av Dr. Robert McDaniel. “Transparent Soapmaking” av Catherine Failor er også svært interessant. Begge kan bestilles på Amazon.uk.co.
Dessverre kan jeg ikke helhjertet anbefale noen av såpebøkene som er utkommet på norsk. Et unntak er “Kreativ med såpe” av Marit Linnebo Olderheim. Riktignok tar den utelukkende for seg bearbeiding av ”rett-i-koppen-såpe” - ferdigkjøpt såpebase som man smelter og støper – men den er vakker og full av gode ideer om tilsetning av farge og duft.
TUBULAR TUNISIAN
TUNISIAN-IN-THE-ROUND
I learned about rundhakking (the Norwegian term) tunisian-in-the round (circle tunisian?) from a Norwegian designer - you can find some things she has made with this technque here:
http://solvor.no/oppskrifter.htm
Her text is in Norwegian, but the pictures are international :)
The short version is:
All you need is any kind of double-ended hook - and you work with two balls of yarn ... it's a good idea to have different colours the first time, so you can see what you're doing.
1: You cast on as usual, but instead of working back and forth, you join the first and last chain stitch, making a circle. If you want to do a Moebius, do a half-twist before you join the chain.
2: Cast on stitches, as in normal tunisian - as many as you're comfortable with. (this is what I'm doing with the turquoise yarn)
3: TURN THE WHOLE THING AROUND, and, starting with a new ball of yarn on the bias, cast off until you have about 3 stitches left. (this is what I'm doing with the variegated yarn)
4: Repeat, and keep repeating.
It might be a good idea to practice making a simple cylinder or Möbius first - a scarf, cap, bag or a tea cosy or something.
If you want to make a poncho:
a: Start at the neck, casting on as many stitches as you need to get it over your head. Put 4 stitch markers at regular intervals.
b: Tunisian around, adding one or two stitches when you come to the markers.
Hope this is understandable - I don't have a digital camera, but I'll try to get some pictures taken soon.
A poncho in the round is very warm and lightweight when you use thick hooks, but more sturdy than knitting. I also made a tunisian jacket, starting like the poncho, but shaping the arms and the ... whatsit? bole? by casting off at the sides.
I learned about rundhakking (the Norwegian term) tunisian-in-the round (circle tunisian?) from a Norwegian designer - you can find some things she has made with this technque here:
http://solvor.no/oppskrifter.htm
Her text is in Norwegian, but the pictures are international :)
The short version is:
All you need is any kind of double-ended hook - and you work with two balls of yarn ... it's a good idea to have different colours the first time, so you can see what you're doing.
1: You cast on as usual, but instead of working back and forth, you join the first and last chain stitch, making a circle. If you want to do a Moebius, do a half-twist before you join the chain.
2: Cast on stitches, as in normal tunisian - as many as you're comfortable with. (this is what I'm doing with the turquoise yarn)
3: TURN THE WHOLE THING AROUND, and, starting with a new ball of yarn on the bias, cast off until you have about 3 stitches left. (this is what I'm doing with the variegated yarn)
4: Repeat, and keep repeating.
It might be a good idea to practice making a simple cylinder or Möbius first - a scarf, cap, bag or a tea cosy or something.
If you want to make a poncho:
a: Start at the neck, casting on as many stitches as you need to get it over your head. Put 4 stitch markers at regular intervals.
b: Tunisian around, adding one or two stitches when you come to the markers.
Hope this is understandable - I don't have a digital camera, but I'll try to get some pictures taken soon.
A poncho in the round is very warm and lightweight when you use thick hooks, but more sturdy than knitting. I also made a tunisian jacket, starting like the poncho, but shaping the arms and the ... whatsit? bole? by casting off at the sides.
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