Keeping busy trying new things...

..Like making soap from Rhonda's recipe at DTE blog. 

I didn't follow the recipe instructions very well as I had the oils heating before I put the caustic soda/lye in the water so it took ages for the temperature of the lye/water mix to cool down from 85degC to 50degC and I had to reheat the oil in the meantime. However it didn't spatter when I mixed the water and oil solutions (I was wearing my rubber gloves and sunglasses though) and blended nicely after about 10 mins of mixing with a stick blender. I then poured them into silicon molds I had purchased cheaply at the local supermarkets and waited, and waited, and waited for them to cool and begin hardening. 24 hours later, when  they were still mushy around the edges, I asked for help on the DTE forums. The advice was to put the whole lot in the freezer, still in the silicon molds, so I did this overnight and demolded them the next morning. The 2 soaps at the rear are the ones I kept unmolding early on to see if they were set, so they are a bit mangled around the edges but they can be hand soaps for the bathroom basin. I found another use for my scrapbooking stamps too!

  

I've made a few notes on my soap recipe for future soap making sessions

• Mix lye/water first or it takes much longer than 30 mins to make soap because of the long cooling time
• For intricate mold patterns lightly oil the pattern itself for a clean imprint if giving for a gift (not essential but me being fussy)
• Either half fill "presents" molds or cut the finished soaps in half sideways while soft or I'll have humongous soaps that will be a bit difficult to use
• Let soaps firm a little more before stamping 
• Research superfatting with essential or other oils - jojoba, almond - for home use and for gifting

.....And washcloths to use with them

I started the blue and cream knobbly knitted one the day before I went to visit DS after his accident. I'd purchased the different coloured yarns at my favourite op-shop at 50c/ball! As I was a passenger it helped to fill the time on the long drive and I had it finished, except for weaving the ends in, before the return trip had ended. The purple and cream crocheted one was made just before that but I also hadn't woven the ends in either as I couldn’t find my fine crochet hook. Think I'll double the yarn in the future like I did with the blue/cream one. I finally finished them a couple of days ago as I realised I could just use my large eyed darning needle to weave ends in - duh!

Cheers,

Robyn

So many things, so little time!

Hello, slack blogging time again! I’ve been researching and that means quite a few hours on the computer because of my ISP and the system. Unfortunately I have the quickest responses and downloads in the middle of the night, and less family interruptions, so I’m a bit ‘pop eyed’ at the moment L.

I have been making things though and here’s some items I should already have posted:

The dishcloth I made for my swap partner in Down to Earth's dishcloth swap

Much better than my practice effort J

The lovely knitted one I received from my swap partner, Mim, adore the lacey edges!

And a purse/wallet I made using my friend Cyndi's pattern. It’s not in my colours so it will probably be given to my Mum to sell on the Pensioner’s Hall trading table.

Cheers,

Robyn

On My Mind......Swaps

Here's my practice dishcloth for the dishcloth swap that I'm involved in on down_to_earth. I need to work on the joining corner as it's a bit wonky. That's the corner in the bottom right of the photo.

Lucky the swaps don't need to arrive before 1 June as DD12 has borrowed the crochet hook and misplaced it and I don't have another anywhere near that size. Shopping day next Thursday though and a few hours of industrious crochet crochet whilst watching Dr Who and Inspector Morse should do it :).

This is the buckeye block I made for the Acorn Gatherer's swap with Linda on Our Craft Forum. I like the colouring better than the practice one and Linda likes it too.

This went together surprisingly easy and I only had to unstitch once or twice :O.

I'm in a private block swap with Mary though and I had to put the block aside or I would have set fire to it! I'm having trouble matching one of the sides to the centre square of a nine patch and after unpicking a few times and trying different ways of assembling I still can't make a half square triangle set meet the corners properly. Think I'll have to do this one again or at least redo the strip.

To see what's on the mind's of other people visit Rhonda's blog.