English-Italian knitting glossary with abbreviaitions

Hello folks,

I have recently decided to combine my two great passions, knitting and foreign languages, to come up with a hopefully useful glossary of knitting terms from Italian into English and vice versa. I have also added an abbreviation glossary, with English and Italian  meaning plus the Italian abbreviation (where possible). I know there are a lot of these glossaries around on the web, but I never found one that I thought was really complete and exhaustive, so I decided to make one myself, and then thought of sharing it with other knitters around the world (if you even need to knit an Italian pattern, or translate your pattern into Italian).

Please feel free to download the glossary for free HERE. The download link is found at the bottom of the post, it's in red and it's called "glossario_maglia_EN-IT".

I would really love it if you sent me your feedback on it, any omission, correction or simple suggestion would be really appreciated. To do so, you can comment this post, or drop me an email at giulia@boccaperta.com. By the way, you can use the same email address if you wish to have an xls or ods editable copy of the glossary.

About shaving soap and other experiments

I have recently spent a lot of time knitting, which I love, but don't worry, I haven't forgotten about soaps!
In fact, I believe I'm getting so much better at making soaps, especially since my last two experiments were a great success.

 Firstly, a quick update on the wonderful Fennel Winter Treat. This turned out to be probably the best soap I've made so far; with the sweet smell of organic fennel, as much shea butter as your skin needs during the cold season not to get all chopped and dry, I have been using this soap every day this season, and now I couldn’t do without it! Plus this soap turned out nicely hard and bubbly, so it won't all melt in the shower as some of my previous soaps did. I believe I found the perfect soap, or at least a very good one!

Second of all, I also made another batch of shaving soap, but this time I changed a few things. It's still curing, so I don't know whether it will be as good as the first one I made, but it smells great and with paprika I gave it an interesting orang-y look that I'm very pleased with (the picture doesn't give it justice I'm afraid).

Here it goes:

SHAVING SOAP

Olive Oil                     60%                       600g
Coconut Oil               25%                          250g
Corn Oil                      10%                        100g
Castor Oil                     5%                        50g



Distilled water: 330g
lye: 135g (5% discount)


at trace: 10g of "allume di rocca" (I think in English this is called potassium alum, it's a type of potassium salt that helps healing the small wounds one can get when shaving. You can do without it if you can't find any.);
2 teaspoons of red paprika (don't put too much of it, it might irritate the skin!)
1 tablespoon of white clay
10ml of verbena e.o. (this has a nice mixed citrus smell including orange, lemon, grapefruit and others... men love it!)

Once it's cured, you or your men can use it with a shaving brush just like the old time barbers used to do. My husband and brother use it and love it, because even if it's slightly more complicated to use (it just takes a little practice, that's all) than ready-made shaving foam, it gives a much better result, softer skin and less irritation.

Feeback on my soaps, finally!

Hello there,

I hope you're good. In these snowy days I've had a few very nice compliments for my soaps, that made me so proud and happy as if I won some kind of prize. :)

I have been giving away some of the shaving soap I made a month or so ago, and all the feedback I got was enthusiastic about how smooth and moisturised it leaves the skin compared to commercial shaving foam or soap, how lovely and creamy its lather is and so on. I had a chance to see it myself, when my husband-to-be tried it: when he shaves, his neck generally becomes cherry-red and takes a good few hours to go back to normal, but the two times he shaved with my handmade shaving soap, he didn't get red at all! Plus his skin felt so soft and relaxed I almost couldn't believe it. My brother and father, who also tried it, gave me the same feedback, so I think I'll make some more of it soon, maybe with some eucalyptus or mint EO to make it a bit refreshing and antiseptic.

Also, I have one of my friends asking me for more soap, since with the commercial soap she used before she said she always had dry skin and had to put on her body and hand loads of lotion to make it better, but since she uses my karité and wheat germ oil soaps she doesn't even need lotion anymore!

I know all you soapers know what these first positive feedbacks feel like... I just canpt wait to make and give away some more soap!!! LOL.

Wish you all a good and hopefully relaxing weekend.

Basic soap base for re-batching

After the success of the very berry re-batching experiment, I decided to try to make re-batched chamomile, lime-blossom and fennel soap, so that I can use the wonderful herbal teas I have instead of spending a lot of money on EOs. So I decided to make a batch of "neutral" white unscented soap base, and then rebatch it with these herbal teas, and maybe try to colour it as well, or do so swirls. So that's what I did yesterday.

For my soap base I used mainly olive oil (my favourite and one of the cheapest you can find here), with some 14% butterfat and a little coconut and castor oils for lather. I used a very low lye discount (3%) so that I can later add some extra oils while rebatching without getting a oily soap. I made up the recipe myself, so I'm not quite sure of the result. If it comes out well, I'll be posting it here.

I did it CP, and I added some fresh cream at light trace, to see if I get a richer lather and a creamier soap.

EDIT: I have just unmoulded it and I was impressed by how easily it came perfectly out of the mould. I cut it and it looks so good I'm sorry I have to rebatch it!! It looks firm but creamy, a yellowish colour (I suspect it kind of overheated yesterday night while wrapped in my old blanket to gel).
I'll probably be rebatching it before it gets completely cured, maybe in a week or so, so that hopefully it is still quite soft and easy to melt down without all the lumps. We'll see.

My new babies

Just to update you on my latest creations. I will be talking about them in detail soon, for now just enjoy the picture and try to... picture the smell :P

From top left clockwise, you can see: Honey and Cinnamon Delight (HP), Macho Man (CP shaving soap), Very Berry (rebatched), On the Beach (salt soap) and Pink Lady (re-batched).

Can't wait to try them all out, the honey and cinnamon one smells simply delicious!