Citrus Swirl Soap

I've been wanting to make a batch of soap for my husband. He likes citrus-y smells so I thought it would be fun to use some dried and ground orange peels along with several citrus essential oils for his batch.

I also wanted it to look sort of orange and yellow with a bit of darker orange.  I decided to dry some orange peels and try using those. I cut them up and let them dry and then ground them in the blender.

I was thinking that the ground orange peels might give it a darker colour but then was reading in a soap making book that quite often you end up with a different colour than you think you might based on how the plant material reacts with the soap.

It suggested using spices to get different reliable colours. I wanted to try paprika but was out of it and so I googled to see what colour turmeric might give and decided to give that a try.  After pouring most of my soap into the mould I added a spoonful of turmeric to a small amount of soap and whizzed it to mix it in - it went quite red when I added it .  It ended up being a sort of saffron colour, and looked great when swirled into the main batch of soap.

It ended up looking just the way I had hoped and it smells delightful (I'm hoping the citrus smells don't fade too quickly).

Here it is almost dried after sitting overnight.

This was a basic coconut oil and olive oil soap. I had used this combination before for the first batch we made and really like the hardness of the soap and the lather.

Each batch I make has me wondering why I waited so long to try soap-making.  It really is a very simple thing to do and SO much fun to be able to make all kinds of different soap.  The toughest part is trying to wait patiently while it cures before you can try it...something, it turns out, I wasn't able to do with my batch of peppermint soap.  More on that later. ;-)

Puttering

Yesterday was just the kind of day I like - a day for puttering.  A slow start to the morning. Coffee in the sun room.  S busy with a wood project (a gorgeous walnut table set he is making), the boys busy with their fun and time to plant more seeds for me.  I wanted to start a few tomato plants in the hopes of having some very early tomatoes to offer.  I planted some of my purchased seeds and then went through my box of saved seeds and had a moment of wonder when I couldn't find any of my saved tomato seeds.  A rummage through the garden "shed" and I discovered another box of saved seeds that was mostly all tomatoes.

I'm thrilled with the variety that we will have this year.  I have several planted as trial early birds but will wait to do the main tomato seeding in several more weeks.  Tomato seeds really are so very easy to save, if you've been wanting to start saving some of your own seeds but haven't tried it yet I highly recommend starting with beans and tomatoes.  If you're interested in keeping up with our market garden I've started a blog to share what's going on with our endeavour and you can see it here.

This is what our sun room is starting to look like - seedling trays all over.  Snow outside and tender green shoots inside! (J...see the little found greenhouse you gave me?  S just shook his head and muttered a bit when I dragged it inside). ;-)

There was time for a walk in the woods and time to catch up on things I won't have time for in a few weeks - like finally shelling my saved beans to use for planting this year.

Time for soap-making  and special drink making (made a batch of mead (or Sima) with E) and time to make some delicious caramelized onion soup with a few tomatoes from the freezer for extra flavour.

I don't normally freeze tomatoes this way anymore (although I know many people like to) but I found them so handy for this soup that I will do some again this year when I am in a rush and have too many tomatoes to deal with...and I'll be able to use this soup as justification for doing so. ;-)

My boys love this soup too and we've decided we should have it much more often.  This week I told them I would make it with bread and cheese on top and then broiled. I'm hoping that E will make one of his yummy loaves of bread. 

Just my kind of day.

Hearts

While I love my felted sweater hearts...

I really love chocolate hearts from Annegret's (our local chocolate maker).

And...I really, really love having a husband who gives them to me.

Happy Valentine's Day!

More Seeds Arriving

Friday we arrived home after our weekly homelearner ski day just in time to get this - our big seed order from William Dam (I'd already received my order from West Coast Seeds the week before).  The boys teased me that it was better than Christmas for me...and they were right.  I could hardly wait to get started but, since I'd been skiing all day, I managed to wait until the next day to start planting. ;-)

I wanted to get a head start on some parsley since it takes awhile to germinate so I potted them up on our window sill.   Seeds have always been truly magical to me so when I came across this Thoreau quote years ago I copied it down in my gratitude/grace notes book.

I have great faith in a seed.
Convince me that you have a seed there,
and I am prepared to expect wonders.

 -- Henry David Thoreau

I too expect wonders each year at this time. Spring...or even almost Spring...is such an exciting time for gardeners. Seeds do require a certain amount of faith and this, I think, is something gardeners have in abundance - faith in seeds and trust in the Earth.

Earlier in the week I had started some Kelsae Sweet Giant onions and some Ailsa Craig Sweet onions and was pleasantly surprised to notice them already sprouting on the weekend as I planted the parsley.  My sunroom windowsill is looking decidedly Spring-ish and that makes me very happy indeed.

The Fog

Several days ago the fog came...I want to say on little cat feet except it feels more as though it came stomping in on great big mountain lion feet.  And now I feel as though I'm waiting for it to move on.  Our valley has been socked in for days and it starts to feel somewhat confining. 

It does, however, make for some incredibly delicate and lovely scenery. 

All the trees and shrubs - even the weeds- are enveloped in icy shrouds and they look beautiful. I was wishing I had my camera with me on the weekend when we went by a row of trees with their black branches covered in soft rime - the contrast was stunning.  We have a large weeping willow and a weeping birch tree in the front yard and every time I look at them they seem even more beautiful.

So today, instead of being grumpy that there was no sunshine during my walk I decided to grab my camera when I got home. The photos don't completely capture the delicate beauty of it but stopping to take them and to really look helped me to let go of my wish for sunshine and appreciate that foggy days can also bring pleasure if we are open to it. 

Peppermint Soap for Laundry

We've been busy making lemonade out of lemons here lately.  A flood in the basement kick-started my Spring cleaning a little earlier than usual.  ;-)  I do actually love Spring cleaning and I likely would not have made as much time as needed for it this year (since this week I'll start seeding the greenhouse for the market garden and things will just keep getting busier after that) so I'm choosing to find the silver lining in the flood in this way.  All the Spring cleaning upstairs is already done and, as soon as restoration work is finished,  the downstairs will all be deeply cleaned as well. 

Awhile ago I decided to try out the homemade dry laundry soap that I've seen on other blogs instead of making my usual liquid laundry soap.  I used Dr Bronner's peppermint soap and enjoyed the scent so much that I decided to try making my next batch of homemade soap with peppermint oil.

The boys helped me to make it the other day and this morning I cut it into bars to cure.  This is the first time I tried making an all vegetable shortening recipe (other methods here and here) and it came out well and will make a nice bar to use in the laundry soap recipe.  I followed the excellent video tutorial on this website (there is a fantastic amount of soap-making info. there).

Slipper Clogs Made from Felted Sweaters

Slipper clogs made from felted sweaters...as opposed to the Felted Slipper Clogs I usually make.  I've been making the Fibre Trends Felted Slipper Clogs for quite a few years now and they are always well-received as gifts (we all LOVE them).  My parents each have two pairs and have brought them back to me a few times now so that I could put new bottoms on (from felted sweaters) since they wear them so much that they wear holes in them (yes I do accuse them of being "shufflers" and give them a hard time).  When I was repairing them yet again last month and thinking that perhaps they each needed a new pair, I thought that I should just find a way to make them - the whole slipper - out of felted sweaters, because that would be so much quicker and easier for me than knitting a whole new pair.

So...I thought I would use my Dad's upcoming birthday as a chance to try it out.  I made a pattern of what I thought the top should look like then traced the bottom of one of W's slippers to use as the slipper sole. 

I cut one top for each slipper and two bottoms each (since that is the part they always wear through I wanted to make it double thickness). 

Sewed them altogether then just slightly turned the ankle edge under (to the wrong side) to finish it off.

Then, even though I had already felted the sweaters before cutting, I threw them in the washer for a bit more felting to sort of tighten them up and finish them off. 

They came out quite nicely and I'm pleased with them.  W tried them on so I could be sure they would fit my Dad as well.  It probably only took about an hour total to make them and I think now that I've got it figured out I could make another pair in only half an hour - a big time saver for me compared to when I knit them.  We'll see if they pass the test when my Dad tries them out. If so, I'll have to tell him that now he can go ahead and shuffle to his foot's content since I can make slippers so much more quickly now.;-)