Meet Applejack, the newest member of the family!
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Finally some time to chat
Amidst our adventures in making handmade natural soaps, we have managed to enjoy some outdoor time, watching the grass slowly grow and the leaves in the wood behind the house ever so slowly turn, well, not yet green, but thinking about turning green.
I've managed to eek out some new yarn ....
This is a lovely 50/50 Merino silk from a roving I purchased from a fiber artist in New Zealand. Beautiful colors, deep purples and super soft.
I also managed this boldly colored skein in 100% Merino. Usually I turn 100% Merino into a thick and thin because often in the past I have found it difficult to spin, but my skills and knowledge have improved with time and I am able to now spin a nice, consistent strand of single ply Merino.
In between skeins Jim and I have been mad chemists in the kitchen making a new batch of soap about one every other day. I opened my new Etsy shop, The Savvy Soap (how original, I know) and although the shop is not fully stocked, there are racks of soap waiting to complete their curing process so that I can put them up on the site.
Many favorites ... smells, aromas .... and some that just don't turn out. And then there are some that are really horrible until they finish curing and they are wonderful, like the coffee vanilla Neroli batch that will be finished curing in a couple weeks. Lovely brown color with spots smelled horrid for the first two weeks (and while we were making it). The horrid smell has finally left it and it smells great!
The batch here to the right is made of Moroccan clay and other amazing ingredients formulated for oily skin. I think this would make a fantastic facial bar. Swirled with a natural brown pigment for a lovely effect.
And then, we discovered BATH BOMBS!!!
Now I want to take a bath every night. They are so amazing! Drop one into the water and it fizzes for a few minutes and then the water is super soft and smells utterly wonderful. Since we tend to goof up about half of each batch - the mixture is resistant to sticking together and tends to therefore get stuck in the mold when I remove it - I have been able to indulge myself. And so has my family. We've all had a bath bomb bath in the last week!
Our bath bombs include Dead Sea Salt, which makes the water feel light and leaves your skin feeling soft, and usually some oils such as olive oil, grapeseed oil, or sweet almond oil, which leaves just a slight silkiness to the skin. So instead of the bath drying out your skin, it moistens it and feels wonderful!
My yarn shop thus feeling neglected, I spun up some destash bling batts and loose fiber and along with some sari silk crocheted a beautiful fuchsia infinity scarf.
I've managed to eek out some new yarn ....
This is a lovely 50/50 Merino silk from a roving I purchased from a fiber artist in New Zealand. Beautiful colors, deep purples and super soft.
I also managed this boldly colored skein in 100% Merino. Usually I turn 100% Merino into a thick and thin because often in the past I have found it difficult to spin, but my skills and knowledge have improved with time and I am able to now spin a nice, consistent strand of single ply Merino.
In between skeins Jim and I have been mad chemists in the kitchen making a new batch of soap about one every other day. I opened my new Etsy shop, The Savvy Soap (how original, I know) and although the shop is not fully stocked, there are racks of soap waiting to complete their curing process so that I can put them up on the site.
Many favorites ... smells, aromas .... and some that just don't turn out. And then there are some that are really horrible until they finish curing and they are wonderful, like the coffee vanilla Neroli batch that will be finished curing in a couple weeks. Lovely brown color with spots smelled horrid for the first two weeks (and while we were making it). The horrid smell has finally left it and it smells great!
The batch here to the right is made of Moroccan clay and other amazing ingredients formulated for oily skin. I think this would make a fantastic facial bar. Swirled with a natural brown pigment for a lovely effect.
And then, we discovered BATH BOMBS!!!
Now I want to take a bath every night. They are so amazing! Drop one into the water and it fizzes for a few minutes and then the water is super soft and smells utterly wonderful. Since we tend to goof up about half of each batch - the mixture is resistant to sticking together and tends to therefore get stuck in the mold when I remove it - I have been able to indulge myself. And so has my family. We've all had a bath bomb bath in the last week!
Our bath bombs include Dead Sea Salt, which makes the water feel light and leaves your skin feeling soft, and usually some oils such as olive oil, grapeseed oil, or sweet almond oil, which leaves just a slight silkiness to the skin. So instead of the bath drying out your skin, it moistens it and feels wonderful!
My yarn shop thus feeling neglected, I spun up some destash bling batts and loose fiber and along with some sari silk crocheted a beautiful fuchsia infinity scarf.
Please do visit our new shop. And I promise to keep spinning. I still have a pile of roving, including some bling batts and some 15 micron Merino that I will spin into thick and thin (because it's so lovely that way).
Next in the soap making business is lip balms! Placed an order yesterday and should receive the ingredients mid-week and maybe our first batch will turn out??
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
THE SAVVY SOAP!
The Savvy Stitch will be branching out May 1st, opening a sister store - The Savvy Soap!
Handmade soaps take 4-6 weeks to cure after the initial preparation, which takes about one hour from start to finish including set up for a small, 8-9 bar batch. Our first two batches are now ready and we have distributed them to all the bathrooms in our home and everyone is raving about them. They can even be used as shampoo (!).
My husband had these scaly patches of dry skin on his tummy and after two days of using the handmade soap the scaly dry patches are gone!
Just Soap.
This is our first batch. A mixture of Olive Oil, Coconut Oil, sustainable Palm Oil, and Shea Butter. No scent. They turned out beautifully.
Batches not yet pictured include a Lavender Rosemary conditioning bar - we just cut those bars last night and they are sitting out to complete the curing process. We used essential oils and some ground Rosemary for a creamy, somewhat lightly spotted bar.
Initially we will be offering handmade, natural vegan soaps ....
with tentative plans to branch out into lip balms and lotions later in the year.
Here are our first batches.
This is a Rose petal infusion with Rose colored clay added along with some old English Rose scent.
One of our very favorites. The color is a nice, matte rose.
Rose clay is good for a soft detoxification of the skin.
Himalayan sea salt citrus blend. Heavy spicy citrusy scent.
Somewhat exfoliating.
This soap was a bit of a challenge to make. You add the same amount by weight of salt as you do the oils and when the salt is added the mixture turns into a solid in about two seconds, during which time you have to mix it all up and pour into the mold, or else, your finished.
There are a few chunks of unsalted soap in our salt soap, but overall it really turned out ok. Scent is a little strong but at least it's so lovely.
My husband had these scaly patches of dry skin on his tummy and after two days of using the handmade soap the scaly dry patches are gone!
This batch was attempt to make a unisex scent using Vetyver as a sensual base note and a fragrance called Amazon Lilly Rain as a top note. Evidently I overdid something and the bars REEK (IMHO).
I was telling my 25 year old son about it and he said, "oh, teenage boys love stinky stuff like that, you can market it to teenage boys" so I asked him for a good name for the soap and thus, "Extreme Herbal Musk" was born. My goal is to let parents of teenage boys know about this soap. :)
Other than the smell, it's very pretty. Green tea was used as part of the liquids, giving it a nice, tan color.
This is our first batch. A mixture of Olive Oil, Coconut Oil, sustainable Palm Oil, and Shea Butter. No scent. They turned out beautifully.
Amidst all our happiness and success we did have a fail batch
that was totally and completely my fault. I don't even know how I
made such a ridiculous mistake; I calculated the water and
sodium hydroxide incorrectly and the soap never solidified.
We went back and added the correct amount of oils,
but the water was still way off (too too much) and it still didn't solidify.
So my husband, who evidently struggles with failure in the lab,
is trying to boil the water out of it today. I think he's finally ready to
admit defeat and toss our first "fail soap".
Another favorite - we call this one "Manly ish".
The company we purchased the raw ingredients from sent a free sample of a fragrance called "Tobacco and Bay". Not being a smoker or a fan of tobacco in any way, I was skeptical to say the least. It's amazing! The scent is absolutely wonderful. I therefore went and did some research on tobacco scent and evidently it is a complex fragrance including citrus and a myriad of other deep notes.
We used black tea as some of the liquids and then added two tea bag's worth of loose tea to the mix, making the soap turn out spotted. It kind of looks like leopard spots.
This soap also includes Bergamot essential oil (citrus) and a fragrance called "Sea Moss". I like the smell, not as strong as the Extreme Herbal Musk, but still probably in the deodorant-ish soap category.
This is a wonderful Pink Clay bar with a citrus fragrance called "Energy" which is supposed to be uplifting and light. I know I love the smell of it and often find myself picking up a bar and putting it to my nose for a sniff.
Batches not yet pictured include a Lavender Rosemary conditioning bar - we just cut those bars last night and they are sitting out to complete the curing process. We used essential oils and some ground Rosemary for a creamy, somewhat lightly spotted bar.
And another unisex maybe men's bar with a Karma blend which is supposed to be very popular. We tossed in a bag of loose Earl Grey tea into that bar so it too is creamy and spotted.
Tonight we are making a Hawaiian black sea salt bar with Lavender, Ylang Ylang, and Plumeria. Wish us luck, the salt bars are tricky!
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
New Curly Scarf
I completely fell in love with this scarf. It started with the yarn. I had 2 oz of this beautiful lavender Wensleydale locks. First I made the yarn and decided that I wanted to take it a step further and actually make something with the yarn - something that I like. I have a blue one that is very similar and I wear it with my blue jeans and it looks really hip and whimsical.
I have a little bit of the yarn left over .... probably not enough for another scarf, but I'll figure something out. I just sit there and fondle it until something occurs to me :)
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Winter Wonderland!
So you can see a little about me, my life, my pets. This has been a good old fashion Michigan winter with tons of snow and really cold temps. I went out this morning and took some photos of the dogs, and then at sunset again and captured some shadows and trees.
This morning
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| My Border Collie, Chloe. She likes to play fetch and loves the snow |
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| Weeds standing in the snow |
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| Brave little weed |
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| Haleakala. She loves the snow too, but she just likes to dig for mice in the undergrowth (which is under three feet of snow right now). Sometimes she steals the stick and plays keep away too. |
Tonight's Sunset
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| Waves in the snow ... shadows from the setting sun |
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| Black Walnut tree at sunset ... this tree has been hit by lightening a few times. |
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| Backyard Hickory tree ... and the moon |
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| Sam and Jet snuggling |
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| Jet with sun setting behind |
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