Soapmaking efforts

I have had a wonderful weekend with a visiting good friend.
Time is always to short if you have good company.
We talked a lot and among things also about soapmaking and I promised to make a shampoo bar for her.
What the heck was I thinking?
I wanted to do this one hot process so I gathered my stuff and got going.

The Trace stadium looked good to me.

I peeked at 15 minutes and I had my crockpot on hot!

I could already see that it was browning on the sides, but I thought that was part of the process.

Here you can see that is what was kind of burning.
So the crockpot went on low.

After an hour I put my mixture in the moods, but look at how it looks!
It looks like scrambled eggs!

So I have taken a shower with the bar and I have to say......

It worked. My hair is stil wet so I don't know what it looks like when it has dried up, but it feels nice. 

The latter was amazing. We have very soft water and the you get more lather too.

I will keep you updated and I might send her the shampoo bars after all.

Yesterday and today I have knit knight and as you all know I cannot knit because of my tennis elbows. 

I can do Inkle Loom weaving though so yesterday I started with a double weave project and it looked better on the back then on the front.

Have to work on that then!

Here are the pictures. The pattern is from Laverne Waddington.

This is the front

and this is the back. You see the pattern better on the backside.

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Productive weekend

I have had a productive couple of days.
Last week I did some soap making and I not sure yet if the recipe turned out ok.
This is what my shampoo bar looks like right now.

I tried to put a stamp on them but they were to soft. So I will try it out in a couple of weeks.

This week I did a lot of weaving.
Projects with techniques I thought I could never master.
Some I did and some I didn't.
I am very pleased with this one.
I think started this one about a year ago maybe more.
Trying to right letters in the double weave technique.
Now I don't why I haven't looked at it for so long.
It is actually pretty basic once you get the hang of it.

My glue can in as well.
It is called bookbinders glue and I have used it on the pink strap as well as on my husband to be guitar strap.
It give such a good ending and it is kind of flexibel as it is hard.

Last Friday it had been two weeks ago my dear friend past away and as it turned out I was in the basement looking for something else and there it was the strap she started and have given to me to finish because card weaving was not here cup of tea.
You have to know that she was a very good weaver, spinner, craftswoman in general and made beautiful things.
Always looking for something new to learn.
So Friday it was time to finish it and I did. The lower part is the piece that she did and the upper part is my work.
I will treasure it for ever!

And then today I finished also a card weaving project approximately from the same era as my pink strap.
I could not and stil cannot get my head around this pattern.
It looks so good in the book from Louis Ström and I have to learn how to read the pattern.
She is giving a class again at my place in april so then I'm going to master this.
Definetely! I will not give up!
I made so many mistakes and the wool was hard to handle as well.
I'm still happy with the colours.
It didn't came out right in the picture because it is dark so early here and I wanted to write the blog right now.

So today I finished this strap and I can't remember when I got this fiber from my friend that passed away and had spun this like a couple of months ago on a spin retreat and today I plied it on my Hansen E-spinner.
Still haven't made a skein of it.
Maybe later.
This is what it turned out on the bobbin.

Until we meet again!

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Making washing powder

It has been a rough week.
After I made the soap I got some horrible news that a close friend of mine had passed away.
I was defastaded and had to fly out to the Netherlands.
So my grinder soap was waiting for me a whole week.
I came back last Friday and it will take some time for me to understand that she is really gone.
Yesterday I decided to grind the soap flings to powder.
Wel it didn't go as planned.

The first grinding I did, I was pleased with.
This should have dried out for 2 days and it became 6 days.
But my thinking was, the harder the better, right?
Because then it would have been easier to grind.

So then I started to grind it in a coffee grinder and it didn't turned to be powder like hers.

A lot of the soap clung together and it was hard again so I guess what happened was that the grinder went to fast and it stuck together.
It didn't become powder at all.
I tried different methodes like food processor and a mixer with those nut grinders.
I hope you know what I mean.

So that project was not successful at all.
My daughter is picking up another crockpot for me as I sit her and write so in the afternoon I will make a shampoo bar as planned from the beginning.
I bought one of Jan's e-book from The Nerdy Farm Wive.
The book is lovely with a lot of tips, recipes and a walk trough how to do it and a lot of information about oil etc.
As soon as her milk e-book is coming out, I am on it.
What also is very nice about the book is that the measurements are also in grams.
Here in Europe we always work with grams, although Sweden measure a lot with deciliters and I wasn't used to that at all.
For me, that is not as precise as grams.
As you all now I dye wool as well.
Not as frequent as now, but that time will come to again and I had to buy a very precise scale so that is working in my benefit now, because the soapmaking is very precise.
Well hope to talk to y'all soon to see my experiment with my first shampoo bar.

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