Fresh Fish Served Daily

From time to time I like to look at the search strings that bring people here. Seems that the majority of the hits I’ve been getting over the past week are for “Lyra’s hat” or some variation thereof. I’m curious, visitors: which hat are you looking for? She wore several different ones. The one I was looking at was the green and white pointy one. I’m fairly certain I know how it’s done, but I definitely don’t have any yarn that bulky in my stash so I’d have to buy some before I can try it out. Once I do I’ll post my pattern.

I tend to get a little obsessive over hobbies from time to time, but when it comes to knitting I find that that much less likely (comparatively). However, I did spend at least five minutes squinting at Lyra’s hat during the Golden Compass on Friday trying to determine how it was made while essentially ignoring the dialog. Once I did determine the method of its making, I promptly decided I would like to make one like it in the future.

I searched for a bit but wasn’t able to find a picture that shows it well. Unfortunately this is the best I could find. It’s made with an impossibly bulky yarn on needles that could probably double as table legs, and it’s pointy in the back like an elf hat or something.

On a related note the movie was ok, but felt a bit rushed. I imagine the sheer amount of material they had to cover had something to do with that. I do look forward to the other movies more, as the first book is mainly a setup for the rest of the story.

Why is it that flickr doesn’t have an option that would allow you to keep certain photos out of your photostream? I don’t really think that my contacts need or want to see a bunch of photos of yarn in their contacts’ “recent photos” feed.

I just learned how to crochet, and here’s my first project: an amigurumi totoro. I think he’s the cutest thing ever.

I used a pattern I found here.

I have a problem.

I’m a picky knitter.

I want to knit lace, but I’m not going to wear a shawl. Ever. Shawls are for earthy women. Me? I’m a jeans and a t-shirt kind of girl. Shawls are too flowy for me. The only lace item I’ve ever done is a scarf (which I’m still working on, btw…lace takes a long time, and I can’t memorize charts that complicated). I could always adapt a lace pattern into another project, but it seems like most of the really beautiful lace designs are triangular (for making shawls).

I also hate baby knits. Just about every knitting book I’ve picked up has some kind of baby knit in it. I get that it’s cute to make things in miniature, but I think I’d rather just get a doll instead. Why handknit something wonderful for someone that’s just going to puke on it and/or outgrow it in about a month?

Socks. Socks are wonderful. I just haven’t been able to bring myself to knit something that takes that long to make and then just gets covered up by some shoes. I’ve made one pair so far, as a gift for Dane, and he’s only worn them around the house a few times. I think I may be able to remedy this by getting some kind of footwear that actually looks good with colorful socks sticking out of it.

Ok, I think I’m done ranting. Maybe I’ll feel better once I finish a project or two again, and pick out some interesting new ones.

While Dane is away
I’m supposed to be sewing
costumes for the con.

Unfortunately
I am a lazy git, and
watch Netflix instead.

Got my invite for Ravelry yesterday. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s probably because you’re not a knitter. Because if you were a knitter, you would already be signed up on their waiting list. (Seriously. Everyone on the various knit/crochet communities I read has been talking about it.) It’s a place to keep track of your in-progress and completed projects, see what projects and yarns other people are using, read reviews, and join groups and add friends like your standard LJ/myspace crap. This is fabulous for me. I can’t think of a single time where I used the recommended yarn when doing a project, it’s usually too expensive. So I can find the pattern I’m looking for and see what yarns other people have used for theirs. It’ll also encourage me to keep up with my projects and take pictures. It hooks up to flickr for project pictures, with a neato drag and drop interface. I know my CS fellows will tell me that drag and drop is for n00bs, but I’ve gotten lazy in my old age.

Obviously I’ve also signed up for flickr. I hate to say it, because I always liked having my stuff on my own site before, but it’s way better than my gallery in it’s current state. I dig the group pools. That’ll be great to find pictures once Dragoncon rolls around. I still haven’t decided if I should try to revamp my gallery and use flickr for moblogging, or just switch over completely.

FINALLY made a Jayne Cobb hat for myself, after making several for friends. This one is a little smaller with smaller earflaps, so it doesn’t look quite as goofy. It’s already goofy enough. The goofy face is because I was trying to take a picture in the mirror and didn’t want to look completely emo.

I’ve been working on knitting a Harry Potter scarf for over a year now, using the lovely pattern over here. It looks great and it’s an accurate pattern, but it’s still pretty huge. I mean, I can’t imagine an eleven year old wearing a scarf this wide, the thing practically engulfs me when I wear it. And boy is it BORING to work on. You just knit round and round for what seems like ages. Therefore, it’s been sitting in my project box half-finished for a long time. I figured the movie coming out next month is as good a deadline as any to aim for and might actually encourage me to get it done. Luckily I’ve gotten good enough to be able to knit it without looking, so I’ve been working on it any time I watch TV. I’ve already finished four new stripes in just a few days.

After a long period of research, Dane and I made our first batch of handmade soap this weekend. If you don’t know anything about how soap is made, it’s basically a combination of oils, fats, water, and sodium hydroxide (lye).

To start off we searched for lye. Not many places carry it since it’s a pretty dangerous alkaline that burns through flesh, plastics, and metals when it reacts with water. Dane finally found a small container at a nearby Ace labelled as a drain opener. Ok, that was the hardest ingredient to find. Next up is the oils. Most soap recipes use coconut oil, and this recipe also used palm oil, both of which are not common in your regular grocery stores. We tried Whole Foods without much success. Dane suggested Sevananda, the hippie store in Little 5. There we got a tub of coconut oil and a smaller jar of palm oil. Coconut oil looks more like butter than oil, and has about the same consistency. Palm oil is naturally bright red in color, which made my brain go “this must be spicy” when in reality it’s as mild as any vegetable oil. We also looked for grapefruit seed extract to use as a natural preservative. We found grapefruit seed oil, and I’m still not entirely sure what the difference is (if there is one). It does have a citrus-y smell. The last two ingredients were olive oil and distilled water, which we picked up at the Publix easily enough.

We also needed some new equipment. Since I already mentioned that lye will eat through just about anything, the only material you can use is stainless steel, so we got a huge stainless stockpot. We also needed a silicon spatula and stainless steel stick blender to stir the stuff, and a scale to weigh everything.

Fully equipped, we started on Sunday afternoon. Added the lye to the water (never the other way, it’ll ASPLODE), stirred a bit, and got the hell away. (The fumes burn your nose and throat while the stuff is reacting.) While that was cooling we heated up the oils, and once everything was the right temperature we mixed the oils and the lye solution together and blended for a while. We used the top of a cardboard box for a makeshift mold. Last I checked it looks pretty good, we’ll cut it tonight and then it’ll have to cure for three to four weeks before we can use it. My only complaint is that we should have used a soapmaking supplier to get our oils. Palm oil is naturally red, so our soap turned out a pumpkin orange color, but soapmaking suppliers sell a version that has been processed to remove the color. It also would have been cheaper. Ah well, now we know (and knowing is half the battle!) I’ll post updates and maybe even a picture once the soap is ready.