Tephie's Personal Bombshelter MarkII

Still no plot really, but there are a few more characters, which will help. Of course two of them were mostly filler, though I don't think Muriel is inclined to stay that way. Other than that there was also some world building today, or rather, world enhancing since I think I'm writing what amounts to "this world plus supernatural beings".

But I'm feeling around the edges of one, maybe. At least I'm getting words down which makes this much better than this time last year.

One thing I have noticed in my various NaNo stories is that when I'm stumped for what to write and it's logical for my characters to eat, or I'm getting hungry myself, they eat and I tend to describe the food. These are the sorts of things that would be cut, logically, but sometimes I think these would also be great places for endnotes and a recipe section at the end of the novel. :D

This is mostly so when I'm freaking out next year I will have proof that in 2009, as in 2007, I didn't have anything until a character showed up on the 29th.

I don't know what Apollonia does but she's making herself comfortable.

Now I need at least a genre and maybe a second character, based on past NaNo novels I can get something if I have that much.

It's been a while since I made any soap, and I still have lots of lye and oil around so someone has been pushing for more soap to use up the lye. :D

So I threw together a recipe (olive, canola, palm, and coconut for the curious) and figured I'd use up the aloe juice in the back of the fridge (unfortunately I didn't finish it off with this batch) and why not use some cut St. John's Wort while I was at it, and some tangerine and ti tree essential oils.

I had to beat the lye about a bit to break it up but that went well enough, no mishaps which is always a plus when handling lye. I dissolved it in water, half the total liquid for the recipe. The other half I did with the aloe juice into which I put the SJW after running it through my coffee grinder. My coffee grinder was bought entirely for grinding up herbs and things for soap and has never been used for its intended purpose of grinding coffee beans. I let the aloe sit on a warm burner while the lye cooled and measured out my oils.

While I was measuring my oils I realized I had palm oil and had accidentally used palm kernel oil in my calculations. A quick check with the calculator showed me that adding half a pound more palm oil would make my lye amount work. I normally make 8 pound recipes so it was a relief to find that the mold, an old plastic shelf that is a convenient low pan when you flip it over, will hold 8.5 pounds. My vertical mold holds only 8 pounds and the only reason I hadn't prepped that one was that I was expecting the soap to get rather hot while curing. That turned out to be a very good bit of foresight on my part.

Anyway, I warmed the oils just enough to melt them all, turned off the heat and went about doing a cold process soap. The lye went in and I stirred it for a while, then added the aloe, letting most of the vegetable matter stay in the pot, what went into the soap will add nice flecks of scrubbiness. At that point the soap was a nice creamy egg yellow. Alas, the aloe juice has sugars in it and lye and sugar means heat so it was shortly looking more like pumpkin pie.

Then I added the tangerine and ti tree oil... hello hot and seizing soap!

Suddenly my nice calm cold process soap was a fast moving hot process, without turning on the stove. The stick blender (long used for soap and missing several "teeth" off it's guard) was brought into play and I now have 8.5 pounds of dark glossy brown soap cooling in the mold. Well, cooling after it finishes reacting, it's still very hot right now.

I'm sure it will be fine.

For "Financial Solutions". Why? The motherfuckers keep calling me. The first time or two I just hung up, my only phone is a cell and I don't like paying for junk calls. The next time I listened to the message and pressed 2 to get off their list. I did the same the time after that. Today however I pressed 1 to get a person:

Fucktard: Financial Solutions, how are you today?

Me: Fine, but you've called me four times and I pre-

Fucktard: *hangs up*

Me: ...ssed the do not call... twice. *instant hate on*

So, the next time, shall I just hang up and live with the fuckers calling me? Press 2 again and hope the third time is the charm on getting OFF their fucking list? Press 1 and immediately say "Give me your supervisor"? Or maybe "DO. NOT. Hang up on me." and then tell me to be sure my number is off their list?

Is there anywhere I can stab these assholes where it will hurt?

Lately it seems I can't read recipes in comments without hitting on the infamous Mug Cake. Now for an emergency chocolate hit it's okay but the texture was always too... meaty, for lack of a better term, for my taste. This is undoubtedly due to the lack of leavening and the fact that there is a whole egg in one large coffee mug worth of cake. So I played around a bit, adding a pinch of salt, a smidge of baking soda, things of that sort, and managed to make it taste a bit better but it still didn't really have a cake texture in my opinion. So I tossed the "must fit in a coffee mug" requirement and came up with this.

Coffee Soup Mug Cake

This may work with a smaller mug, but to be safe get yourself a 20 oz mug of some sort. Spray the inside of the mug with your preferred cooking spray.

Mix up in the mug:

¹/₄ cup flour
¹/₃ cup sugar
3 Tbsp cocoa powder
¹/₄ tsp salt
¹/₈ tsp baking soda

Blend these dry ingredients before adding the following wet ones, it will make things easier.

1 egg
3 Tbsp vegetable oil
¹/₄ cup milk
¹/₂ tsp vanilla

Mix well.

Microwave on high for 3-3¹/₂ minutes. The cake will rise above the level of the mug!

Be sure to center the mug in your microwave so the cake will cook evenly and to minimize the chance of a spill over (I've only had it dribble over once, and the mug was not centered in the oven so there was a bit of a tilt, and the small dribble didn't make it all the way down the side of the mug so it was easy to clean up).

You may need a friend to help you eat it, or be greedy and save half for later. ;)

This recipe is slightly modified from one I found online somewhere.

1¹/₄ cup warm milk
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 Tbsp butter
¹/₄ cup sugar
³/₄ tsp salt
4 cups flour
1¹/₄ tsp yeast

Set the bread machine to the dough setting (or do it by hand, but I like the set it and walk away of the machine).

When the dough is done (1¹/₂ hours with my machine), turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, give it a few quick nudges and shape it into a dozen rolls. Keeping with my lazy approach I use non-stick foil to line my pans and put the rolls in the oven with the light on to rise for an hour or until doubled in size. (The light gives the oven just enough warmth for the rolls to rise well.) Pull them out and heat the oven to 350, bake for 10 minutes or until nicely browned (the lower tray always needs a couple minutes on the higher rack after the other tray has come out for me).

In the future I may try a variation using whole wheat for half of the flour and turbinado sugar.

I know a few members of my friends list/circle sew, therefore I will share out a link for drafting a corset and if you then use their link to share the link with a friend you can get a second PDF for including gussets, gores, and corded panels. Do note that this is basically an advertisement for Foundations Revealed, but the tutorial (which is for altering an existing pattern but could be adapted to drafting from scratch) is useful.

Yes, I intend to write another partial novel this year. I have no idea what I am going to write but the odds are it will be something in the science fiction and fantasy continuum as usual.

Also as usual, I've been getting pings off my older NaNo attempts. Last year's story was really hard to write, I spent the first half of the month whining (sorry Kris!) and writing was about as easy and pleasant as pulling teeth. Once I moved the story from England to New England it started rolling for me and ended up picking up things I hadn't expected, like alchemy and alchemists that aren't what they seems and occult books that manipulate events and people around them... and Lovecraft's cousin. Needless to say that story is a bit of a mess. The last few days have found my brain turning that tangled knot in all directions and tugging on things that look like they might lead to loose ends. I think I might know how to untangle it now.

And that is how I know that NaNo is coming, because my brain never gets enchanted with the older stories until it knows it has to start coming up with a new one.

But then I do tend to drop off the face of the planet in the summer. Nothing all that unusual happened this year, I went and saw the family and came back with some paperwork to deal with but that's mostly settled now.

Unsurprisingly, I did some knitting. ( See what, some tiny, some not. )

On an unrelated note, any other Semagic users having trouble posting? It keeps telling me it can't connect to the server, and that server happens to be LJ, IJ, and DW!

In more ways than one.

So, I've been knitting things for Anjeni on small needles, sizes US#0 and #1 mostly (2 and 2.25mm) of late. And really, I never, ever, expected to knit with needles that small.

And they are too big.

So I used a Joann's 40% off one item coupon to get $1 shipping and ordered a Susan Bates sock set. It contains sizes 1 and 0, which I have but I could use another set of 0 anyway (and I now have three sets of 1s) but more importantly, it has sizes 00 and 000 (1.75 and 1.5mm). The cost for the 4 sets is still less than the cost of 2 sets in steel (the Susan Bates are aluminum) so I figured it was reasonable for testing if I actually can stand knitting that tiny.

So, onto the testing. ( Cut to spare the uninterested. )

If there is one person or more on your friends list who makes your world a better place just because they exist and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the internet, then post this same sentence in your journal.

Someone made a Wall-E from bits and pieces of, well, junk. I am in awe.

Well, it's been a while so here we go.

First, some non-knitting things.

 

Some lounging around pants from a bit of old tee shirt and, more importantly, sandals. Finally something not slippers to wear on her feet!

Now on to the knitting. Up first, the hammock!


Unblocked, blocking, and done!

It's a bit larger than I was aiming for but it will work. I think. I still need to actually make it into a hammock for her.

( Booylicious pants under the cut. )

dancing_serpent brought up the question of where people would prefer to have people leave comments on their journals when posts are crossposted.  It's a good question and my answer is whichever service you want to leave comments on.

Nearly all my posts are crossposted to Livejournal (where most of my IRL friends have their journals), InsaneJournal (where I have a permanent account), and Dreamwidth (where I am in love with their revisions of LJ's code engine). Occasionally a post will also go to JournalFen but I reserve that account for more fannish sorts of things, and should I ever finish a fanfic and decide to post it you can expect to to be there (and possibly to a second LJ that I have for things that LJ has in the past decided to go RAWR BANNINATION! on without any legal, or moral, need to do so).

So while pondering on this "where to comment" issue and my habit of shotgun blasting posts to multiple sites I thought I'd just let you all know you can drop me off your friends/reading list on any service you have decided not to follow any longer without offending me. While I have decided to maintain interactive presences on all three services I don't expect others to do so. If you've decided not to post to LJ you certainly don't need to keep me on your friends list there, especially not if you have friended me on IJ or have me on your reading list on DW. You don't have to eat the spam if you don't like it to avoid hurting my feelings. :D

Also, if I have you friended/on my reading list at more than one service and you would prefer to focus interaction on one over the other, just drop me a comment about which name to drop of my list on what service and I'll do it. That way I'll be sure to comment where you would prefer to read it. :)

Your result for The Social Persona Test (What kind of man/woman are you?)...

The Renaissance Faire Wench (QLAF)

Quirky Liberal Alpha Female

Take The Social Persona Test (What kind of man/woman are you?) at HelloQuizzy

Back in October 2007 I did a knitting survey, I think it's about time to update it. Changes are in red.

Mark with bold the things you have knit, with italics the ones you plan to do sometime, and leave the rest alone.

( The list is a bit long. )

In an attempt to keep the knitting posts from being huge, and from my journals from being neglected for months, an update before I have tons of photos to link.

Anjeni has been basically hanging out around my PC since I got her. She has a stand in front of my knitting books and sometimes sits on the edge of the shelf above my monitor. Other times she sits in her favorite chair on top of my stacking drawer units on the shelf over my monitor. The chair and the stand are basically out of the way so she's there most, but neither place is very cat resistant nor are they good for photography. What to do about that? Clear out a shelf in the bookcase obviously.

She can stand in there, with about an inch of head room, so the ceiling is definitely low, but it works. The dresser is an old jewelry box, all drawers without a flip top for rings as most boxes of the style generally have. The chair and love seat were given to us by Kris.

Now dolls don't need beds really, but when you have set dressing you really should go for the whole shebang. Given the lack of room on the shelf she could have a narrow bed and her chair and dresser with basically no floor space, or she could go for something less Western traditional, such as a futon (no frame, so it would be folded when not in use) or, say, a hammock. A really spiffy and decorative hammock. A lace doily draped over a hammock "frame" (stretcher bars and edge lines the doily could be stitched to). Maybe some bead edging. It could be arranged decoratively in the corner when not in use perhaps. The first problem is the doily, the mechanics can be determined after that is made.

So I went looking for a good doily pattern to use and immediately hit on a problem. Most doily patterns don't have a firm size. Depending on your yarn/thread and needles/hook you can make any pattern in multiple sizes. In fact, a lot of the knitting patterns just tell you how many rounds they have. So I figured the best way to work around this problem is to make a small doily with the yarn and needles I plan to use and measure it to figure out how many rows my target doily should have.

Thirty two rows and barring the loops from the crochet cast-off, seven inches in diameter. I'm looking for a sixty round doily pattern. That turns out to be a rare, rare beast so I may be using an 88 on smaller needles.

So what to do with my test doily? As it turns out it's a bit small for a proper shawl for Anjeni, and the girl doesn't have anything to wear one with yet anyway. For now, it gets to live on her dresser.

In other knitting news, still doll related, pants with booty coverage in progress:



Japanese short rows are awesome, just saying.

I love it, the darker the better, and finally I have a good recipe for it using the bread machine.

1 ¹/₈ cup warm water
¹/₃ cup molasses
1 ¹/₂ Tbsp oil
1 ¹/₂ tsp salt
1 ¹/₂ cup all purpose flour
1 cup rye flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
3 Tbsp cocoa powder
2 tsp dry active yeast

Run through your bread machine set for a 1.5 pound loaf on the whole wheat setting. This bread actually rises more than my normal white bread recipe and has a wonderfully fine crumb.

This recipe isn't as dark as I would like, but we were only able to find light rye flour, so it might be dark enough if I could get some dark rye. Also, the molasses on hand was black strap, which along with the cocoa powder might be adding a bit of bitterness that would be avoided with a less harsh variety of molasses. I like it fine as is however, and seeing as how I'm the one with the extra taste buds in the household.... :D

The original recipe is here if you want to see what changes I made.

Yep, about time for an update. Before I cut for images I feel I should inform you all that there is a shift in my knitting lately. You see, someone *cough*tamashitoshiro/ToshiroDragon@LJ*cough* sent me an extremely unexpected and generous birthday gift. As a result, my knit and craft urges have been focused on that gift for the past month.

First, the last thing I finished before my birthday:



Now I can say I've knit entrelac. I also knit all the purl side rows from the knit side, aka "knitting backwards".

Okay, onto the gift and the stuff I've made for it.

( Click to see what I got! )