herbs from 

Summer's harvest 

fresh from the garden

mint + lemon balm

reap the rewards

delightful......

what can I say....

this may just be the perfect soap!

I do not add any scent but smells especially

cinammony + minty

Bubbly fantastic - 

Sunday soaping

Casa de Dusty Tree was super soapy this Sunday

in the line up....Eucalyptus, Mint Scrubbie, Ocean Salt Bar & Jewelweed

Always a nice way to send an afternoon.

 (unless of course you are me and realize you are short on one of your oils half way through the soaping process and you need to make a run to the store....but still fun!)

As a side note, a customer told me she took a Master Gardener's Herb class at our local extension office and the teacher used MY Jewelweed soap as an example during her presentation of how herbs are used in a therapeutic method.  This girl is uber- excited!  So cool to hear.  I wish I knew who the teacher is to thank them!

new stuff

SoAp...YES soap!

With Market (quickly) approaching, I set out to make some soap. 

 During the Winter I cleaned and organized my work-space and I must admit I'm a bit more efficient when things are scattered everywhere in a big mess....almost like it is a bit of an inspiration to be 'IN THE MESS'.  With everything put away all proper, I wasn't sure what 'type' or design I wanted to make.  I knew I wanted to use: Cinnamon, Mint and Moroccan Red Clay, but I wasn't sure what I wanted my design to be so I turned to the internet.  

I did a quick Google search and found this inspiring.......

To me I see colorful stripes with green and orange accented with some brown.  I have to admit it is a bit hard to get a true orange in naturally dyed cold processed soap but I knew my Moroccan Red Clay would give me somewhat similar results.

so I made this.......

Moroccan Spring

A quick run-down of my process......

divided my batch into thirds and added my natural colorants

and started layering.....

 and layering.....

and layering until all the soap was gone!

It is nice to be back in the soaping seat again...look out for more bubbly goodness in the weeks ahead.  Thanks for stopping by!

Mint into the Dye Pot

I harvested a bunch ( I mean a bunch!) of spearmint, peppermint and chocolate mint from my garden this past summer and dried it.  I put all of the dried bunches together in a large box.  I didn't keep the varieties separate.  I got tired of moving the box around so I decided to squeeze the dried bunches with my hands to remove the dried leaves.  I filled a large freezer bag with dried mint leaves and still had some left so I pulled out my spice grinder and whizzed a bit to a fine powder to use in my soaps.

I got out my garden shearers and cut the dried stems up a bit and tossed whatever remained in the box + a few handfuls of some dried leaves into my dye pot added some water and let it simmer.


While the mint was simmering, I scoured a skein of Skacel Merino Lace - a discontinued yarn that I found at my LYS.  It was a bare skein of superwash wool.  After scouring it smelled kind of like bleach.

 Not sure if they actually bleached the fibers to get it white or if that stench is from the superwashing process.  From what I understand they coat the wool fibers with plastic so the barbs on each strand will not felt when agitated.....nasty!  I'm not a fan of superwash, but it was at my LYS, bare, within my price range and I had a gift certificate.  

This skein is 100g so that means I needed about 2tsp of Alum and the same of CoT for mordant.

Once the skein was cooled in the mordant bath I added my liquid mint dye.

This simmered for about an hour.  I pulled it out and it was somewhat of a tan bland color so I added 2 tsp of baking soda to the dye bath and mixed it around to dissolve.  This immediately changed the color of the dye to a darker color.  I made sure everything was dissolved and I put the skein back in.  The baking soda changes the ph of the dye - hence changes the color.  I let it simmer for a bit longer, turned off the heat and let it sit overnight.  The result is very pleasing.  

Reading online and in books, I see most people mention that mint dyes a green color so I'm happy with my result.  I'm planning to knit a cropped 3/4 length sleeve cardi with the mint dyed yarn and add a lace button band in grey....should be perfect for Spring.  Love the Grellow color combo.

Natural Dye Series - Part 3, Tea & Mint

Tea isn't anything new or different, most people know it dyes with a nice 'antiqued' look.  My husband and I drink a lot of tea so over a few weeks, I collected all of our used tea bags in a large ziploc bag.  I kept this in the fridge since I was afraid of mold.  There was over 50 tea bags ranging from Green Tea to Earl Grey to English Breakfast (all Twinings if you are interested).  

Here is how the dye took on the skein.  Kind of bland and boring if you ask me.

In addition to the yarn I dyed a plain white skirt that has been lurking in my closet for years.

As I mentioned above, I thought everything was bland and boring so I decided to give each a dunk in an Iron Post-Mordant.  My Iron Mordant is some old metal stuff the kids found in the yard while they were digging.  I put this in an old jar with some vinegar and water.  It sat for weeks until it was a murky orangey color.  I added about 1/2 cup of this into some water for the Post-Mordant. 

Each went in for a few minutes....probably 10-20 in total.

I only placed the part of the skein that was originally dyed with tea, not the whole skein.  The remainder of this skein was dyed with some mint (see below).

It darkened the skirt at bit...it is linen.

And the wool a lot.

Next, I put some fresh mint from my garden into the pot for the other half of the skein.

Here is the yarn in the dye pot with the mint tea.

It is a nice golden yellow, but I wondered what it would look like with an Iron Post-Mordant.

So in it went.  I only did half of the half dyed with mint.  I held it in the Iron bath for a few minutes checking it ever once in a while until it was a darker color.

and the final result

and what I've been knitting with the yarn...Splitbark Mitts by Stephen West

Now I figured, since this is technically a soap blog...here are a few snaps of soap where I used mint or tea as a natural dye.

Next up in the Natural Dye Series is Black Eyed Susans and Coreopsis (Verticillata to be specific) and unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your interests) this next series is only involving yarn...no soap. 

a Quickie

My Table at Ligonier Country Market

Can't wait to get these into the dye pot with some wool

Dried Mint harvested from the garden earlier this year

some herbs just hanging out to dry

New SoApS and some yarny goodness fun!

Here are the latest soaps from my previous post.  I always get such a different look on my Chocolate Mint even though I always make it the same.  Each one is different and unique...I guess that is what I like about making soap.  The thrill, the excitement when you cut into a batch.

AND now for the yarny goodness........

I've been experimenting with natural dyeing even after my last posting where I messed up and heated the black bean juice.  I still have to repeat that one and try for a blue!  But this time I used some dried herbs from my garden.  I had Lady's Mantle and Chamomile.  Here are the pics from my adventure.....

I got these huge cones from my local thrift store for $1.00 (not each, but total!)  I have no idea what type of wool it is or where it came from or even how old it is, but I thought it was perfect to use for learning how to natural dye.  I've been measuring off about 1.5oz of wool for each batch.

I wash it with my lanolin soap

Let the wool soak by itself, resist the urge to push it into the water.  Let it soak for at least 30 minutes (I soak much longer)

I used alum to mordant.  I found this in my grocery store.  Add fresh water and your mordant (this case alum) to a pot you no longer care to use for cooking and add your wet freshly washed wool.  I read somewhere online that for 4oz of wool use 1 tbls of alum...so figure out your amount.  Bring gently to a simmer..never boil...you will felt your wool.  Some people use a thermometer, I just simply place my hand on the side of the pot to feel if it is too hot (please don't burn yourself...my hands are my best thermometer...that is how I tell if my lye is too hot too when soaping..the feel test isn't accurate by any means, but do whatever works for you).  This picture shows my mordant wool that has the excess water squeezed from it.

Here are my dried herbs (I never did weigh them or the water so I'm not sure of my ratio)  Dried Chamomile and Lady's Mantle that I chopped roughly with a pair of scissors.  I placed the herbs into the pot and then filled with fresh water until they were covered and simmer like you would tea...the house smelled so good!  This would have probably been a delicious tea to drink.  I simmered for about 40 minutes, turned the heat off and allowed to cool.  

Once cool, I squeezed all of the water out of the herbs and added them to my compost bin.

Here is the tea.

and the yarn in it...again return to a simmer and let it go for about 30-40 minutes, turn off heat and allow to cool.  Rinse until your water runs clear....this took me awhile and I was nervous that I was rinsing all my color out of the yarn.

Here are my latest small skeins...only 1.5 oz each

Up next MARIGOLDS!  I plucked every flower off of my remaining plants and placed in the freezer for a later use.  I put them on cookie sheets until they were frozen and then put them into freezer bags.  I got two bags around 12 oz each.

What I did yesterday

Another four batch soap session!

from top to bottom I made:

Nettle & Red Moroccan Clay

Green Tea with Lemon Balm (from my garden)

Tomato & Sea Kelp

Chocolate Spearmint (also from my garden)

Can't wait to cut into these and see those colors!!  Totally natural, no dyes.

Then a bit of an error.  Lesson learned do your research before you turn on the heat.  So, I made a batch of black bean soup from scratch (meaning I soaked the beans overnight).  In the AM I looked at the water and thought what a cool color, I want to do something with that.  I thought about making soap with it, but figured it would turn nasty grey with the lye so I decided to dye some yarn.  I got everything ready and put it on the stove to simmer and THEN started reading about black beans and the natural dye process online.  There is a ton of info on it, just google it.  OOPS....everything states NOT TO HEAT IT!  Mine was simmering away by the time I read that bit of important info.  I guess if it gets hot, you get a murky grey/brownish color (see mine!).  If you let it be in a sealed glass jar for a few days you get BLUE!!  Seriously blue.  I can't wait to try it again.  I decided to let mine sit around for a few days longer and actually dumped in a strong brew of Chamomile tea to help with some sort of better color.  I think it will be fine in the long run and I'll still use it.

Peek a Boo!