Sewing and Soaping

Yesterday, I was more creative than I've been in a long time and the best part was that it didn't take a ton of time.  This week, all 5 of us have been fighting off the dreaded stomach bug in one form or another.  Yesterday, I decided that I needed to make chicken soup.  Of course, the kids didn't eat it but my husband and I had it for lunch and dinner.  Since it was last minute, I decided to buy packaged broth and use a chicken that we had cooked earlier in the week as well as some escarole from my husband's uncle's garden and frozen veggies.  I also bought a chicken so that I could make my own broth and chicken soup for later.

Later in the afternoon, I brought my sewing machine up from the cellar and made a quick strip rag quilt made out of flannel that I had bought when the twins were infants.  It worked up really quick, and even though I still need to bind them, the twins used them last night.  I like my daughter's blanket way better than I like my son's, but that could just be the colors.

All sewn and snipped, waiting to be washed

All washed, waiting to go in the dryer

Finished in the dryer waiting to have the binding put on

Later, last night, I decided to do something that I have been wanting to do for some time now.  I made soap in the crockpot.  I was a little nervous since I was told how dangerous lye could be, and even though it is very dangerous and caustic, it wasn't any where near as scary as I thought.  I most likely used the wrong oil mixture for a good hard bar of soap, but for my first try, it wasn't bad.  I am going to try again tonight with a better mix of oils.  I will use a different soap calculator than I used for my batch last night.  The one, http://www.thesage.com/calcs/lyecalc2.php, I used last night was good for telling me how much water and lye to use given the amount of oils I was using, but it didn't tell me that I didn't use a good balance of oils.  I am hoping that after some time curing, it will harden enough to be an ok bar of soap.  I removed it from the mold and cut it so there is more surface area expose to air.  I can't wait to make more soap.  I think I have become addicted after just one batch and that batch didn't even come out right!  I think, at least for me, the lye calculator to use is: http://www.SoapCalc.net/calc/SoapCalcWP.asp.  I like all the information that it gives.  I know there is some controversy to which calculator to use, but I like http://www.SoapCalc.net.

In the crockpot cooking

colored and put into mold

un-molded and cut

I'm pretty happy with how creative I was yesterday.  If I could be creative, just a fraction of what I was yesterday, I would be thrilled!

Amy