A busy week or two

I was working on ITP pours again but I had problems getting my batter to the thicker trace I wanted. How often does that happen? Only when you don't want it to. The white, black and red soap I made with low water, which with the right FO moves extremely slowly but it was truly ridiculous. I prep'ed my batter and got it colored. Blended and blended and blended with my Badger mixer but it wouldn't come to medium trace. I left it and went out, weeded the garden, dug up a bunch and planted at least 60 tulips, made some chai tea, peed about 4 times and periodically checked on my batter. Still too thin. After about 2 hours of that nonsense (no exaggeration- I started at 4 pm and finally broke at 6pm), I decided to just pour the damned thing and as soon as I saw it flow, I knew it was way too thin for what I wanted. Then, as I was covering it with a blanket, I managed to knock it partway over and because it was thin, I lost about 1/5- 1/4 of the batter. Screw it. I set it back up, covered it and let it do it's thing. It's fine but I was trying for a specific effect which I didn't/couldn't get with that trace.

I wasn't certain I would get anything good out of the hanger swirl because the colors got so thick that I had to shove some of it down into the black with my fingers. When I put the hanger in, I met with much more resistance than I've ever had so I envisioned chunks of batter I had broken away floating like flotsam and jetsam in the black. I was much relieved when I cut it.

My last sad soap....It looks like it had such potential. Part of the batter was fine but the thinner batter I used seemed to have been at trace but it must have been a fake. I was soaping outside because it was beautiful out but it was 60 degrees and I use a lot of tallow, so it must have chilled too much. Granted, It was pretty ugly in the mold but you just never know what lurks underneath the surface and I was hopeful. It gelled and then the thin parts had some separation. It was oily and gross but I had to slice it to see what was there. I actually like it, even though spots of it look like vomit. And it lathers like a beast.

I had one or two botches that will never be seen by eyes other than mine. It's best that way.