Weekends…..

....are usually the time when I cook for the week, wash the laundry and clean house and possibly potter around gardening.

I don’t really like cleaning house through the week as I already spend between 26-30hrs doing pretty much the same at work – sweeping, mopping, vacuuming and wiping stuff down. To come home and do it just seems like I haven’t left work. I think I need a change of mindset as I should make myself do at least one job a day at home then I can have more of my weekends free – even those ones where I'm rostered on Saturday morning and don’t finish till 9am.

This last week had a few little surprises in it. I discovered that I can cook on my woodstove. Why on earth I never realised that before is beyond me but I thought the little handle was so one could lift the tiled section up to clean under it…..I never thought of putting my camping teapot or my saucepan there. That’s going to save me a little bit of gas charges over Winter.

I also received a lovely hand knitted beanie from Shirley over in WA. Adore the colours and finding myself living in it on cold days as it’s so warm! Thank you again Shirley!

I finally bought the knitting needles and found some 8-ply wool for the sock knit-along at the DTE forums but they have been sitting there mocking me as I haven’t even cast a stitch on yet! I really need some more socks to wear outside work so I’ll have to motivate myself!

Hoping everyone had a lovely weekend!

Cheers,

RobynLouise xo

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