Natural Colorants in Soap -- and a CONTEST!

It was a bit hectic and I'm not sure I'd recommend it or even attempt it again, but I made four batches of soap at once.  My husband was kind enough to watch the kids while I worked in the kitchen.  I thought it would be about the same amount of time as one batch, but no ...much longer! (duh, of course it was...what was I thinking?)  It was worth it since I was doing embeds and not exactly sure how much soap mixture I needed per mold (because of the size of embeds) so I was able to use the extra mixture from three batches to make a fourth.  I simply swirled the left over paprika infused soap, indigo infused soap and sea kelp together.

 Here are the four bars waiting patiently to be cut.  

And here they are cut.......

Red Wine & Chocolate at Sunset

(the brown balls are made with red wine, I coated them in cocoa powder and embedded 

these balls in a paprika infused soap base)

Tomato & Sea Kelp --

Misbehaving Stripes

(made with tomato soap embedded in naturally colored  Indigo soap base)

'The yet to be named soap'

(a mixture of Sea Kelp, Paprika infused & Indigo Soap -- swirled)

As a matter of fact, I think I may do a little contest.  Leave a comment under this blog post for your chance to win a small gift from me.  Please tell me what you think I should name the above soap ('The yet to be named soap')....do this by February 24, 2013.  I will use a random number generator to chose the lucky winner for the small gift and will then read all of the comments and pick my favorite for the name of the soap.   Also please include your contact information so I can email the lucky winner.  Thanks and GOOD LUCK!!!

(one entry per person please!)

Shaken not Stirred...

I've been thinking and experimenting with the hopes of getting a reddish color naturally in soap.  It has been my quest for a few days and wahwahwah....not a chance with what I've tried or how I tried it.

First was just a total jump right in approach with boiling some red wine to remove the alcohol and then freezing it to eliminate the volcano effect.  I mixed the red wine ice cubes with the lye with no extra water.  It smelled horrible and turned a dark maroon brown color....looked kind of yuck.  I swirled this raw soap mixture in the mold with another batch colored with Rose Clay...calling it Wine & Roses Soap.  The red wine soap turned brown after a gel.  Days after being cut it still looks the same...no color change.  Still a brown.  It isn't an ugly brown color, just brown.  No smell remains...purely unscented.

Wine & Roses Soap

After this batch, achieving a red color was still on my mind.  I wanted to try two more approaches.  The second was still red wine, but I was going to add it to the batch by the 50/50 method.  And my third attempt was to use tomato paste.  I added the paste after a light trace directly to the batch.  

Here is a picture of the soap in the mold...the large one is the tomato paste and the smaller one being red wine.

And here they are after a gel and unmolded 24 hours later.  The red wine is still brown but not as dark as attempt number one (with it being ice cubes) and the tomato paste is a nice pale orange color.

I decided to make soap balls with the red wine 50/50 soap (second attempt) and have some soybean oil infusing with paprika for a bright orange base to toss the light brown balls into.  I'll shake the soybean oil everyday for about a week to get a nice dark color.

Here is the making of the red wine soap balls....totally reminds me of peanut butter balls at Christmas time.  As a matter of fact the 50/50 red wine soap looks about the same in color to a batch of peanut butter balls.

Hi, my name is Rebecca and I'm addicted to knitting....

I knit...a lot!  Here are a few of my latest knitting pieces.  

I finally knit a color work mitten on DPN (that is double pointed needles for you non-knitters).  I've been hesitant to do this thinking the colors carried in the back and the needle intersections would pucker.  I finally just jumped right in and decided to give it a go...boy was I wrong.  It was simple!  I'm now stalking my next color work mitten patterns.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I submitted a pattern to a yarn company.  I was denied, but I have to understand that this is a major yarn company who probably gets lots and LOTS of pattern submissions from some well known designers.  I admit that yes I have been knitting for ages, design and knit my own patterns, used to work in a yarn shop in Los Angeles and taught many people knitting basics, fixed major problems and did a lot of finishing work...I have never wrote an entire pattern with the intention of it to be sold or posted for free on Ravelry...so technically I've got the know how and the skills, but I'm a nobody in the 'knitter's world'.  I plan to change that in a very small way in 2013.  I have a spiral bound notebook filled  with many of my own patterns that I've developed throughout the years and I'm going to make some official pdf patterns available on Ravelry. (Ravelry btw is a knit and crochet community online...again for you non-knitters.)  But in the meantime...here are a few of my recently completed or in the works projects.

Northern Lights Mittens

Kung Fu Panda in the works...he needs to have his legs sewn on

Welted Fingerless Mittens

A leafy business card display

As for soap...I've got the oil and lye mixtures sitting on my counter cooling off just waiting to become a batch of Cucumber Banana Soap.....stay tuned for the big reveal later this weekend.

First Soaps for 2013

So I thought I'd try red wine in soap to see what type of results I'd get.  I expected red or mauve but I got brown.  That is okay since I swirled  it with some rose clay for what I'm calling Wine & Roses Soap.  Looks pretty cool.  I took some leftover spiced wine from Christmas (it was kind of gross...so no worries on the waste and not actually drinking it) boiled it for a few minutes to remove the alcohol then put it in the freezer.  I really didn't want to experience a volcano with the sugar/alcohol and lye.  I think next time I'll try the 50/50 wine/water method to see if I can keep the red color. 

Wine & Roses Soap

I then decided to do something with all of my leftover soap shavings I had sitting in a bowl...... that I'm so surprised my cat never knocked over.  I grabbed some Eucalyptus infused oil for the base and dumped in all of the shavings....gave it a good mix and then tossed in the remaining orange balls I had.  I think it looks pretty awesome....maybe one of my favorites.  It smells sooooo good too!  I just love all of the colors and the fact that I used scrapes that otherwise I'd have no clue what to do with.

Here it is in the mold

Bits & Bobs Soap

Thank you!!

I am (almost) completely sold out of all of my inventory.  I know totally unbelievable!!!!  I've got only TWO bars of Kitchen Coffee Lemon Balm left.  After the 2012 holiday season, I'll be making more so stayed tuned!!!  Thank you everyone for such a wonderful and SOAPY 2012!!!

Indie Knit & Spin update

A huge THANK YOU to everyone who came out and supported indie busineses last weekend.  I had a great  time!  The weather was perfect, we had a great turn out, there were fabulous vendors and fabulous shoppers supporting us.  I sold out of many items and have only a small inventory remaining....that is a good thing...great thing really.  I cannot express it enough how much I thank all of you who came out to make this day so wonderful.  I've even had people follow up on my blog and send in re-orders.(there is a tab at the top of the page marked TO ORDER)  This is just amazing.  Thank you again!!  I've included here some photos of my booth.  I think it turned out fairly well for not ever doing this type of thing before and for not setting up a trial table at home.  I had an idea in my head and it worked out more or less. 

The booth

A close up

and the 'Rebecca' behind Dusty Tree Soap (actually next to...I was set up in the hallway so my table was pushed up against the wall.)

I've also become a member of the Home-Handcrafted Soapmakers Guild, Inc.  You can find me here.  I'm super excited about this and am waiting for a link from them to have my own Soap Guild Store.  Watch this space for updates and details.

A whole lot of finishing touches!!

Sorry I've neglected you blog, but I've been busy.....both kids had ear infections, submitted a knit sample to a yarn company, planned a four year old's birthday party, had a splinter in my finger surgically removed (huh, seriously!)  hosted my parents for a few day and turned 40 myself (blech!)  Oh...and as you can see from this picture heavy post put all of the finishing touches on my soap for the upcoming Indie Knit and Spin.  Please come out to visit me!!  I'll need someone to rescue me so I can have a bathroom break..hahaha!

It is Nov 17th 10am - 4pm Wilkins School Community Center, Regent Square, 7604 Charleston Ave.

 My Dad helped me cut the soap cigar type bands

 Wrapping the soap

 More wrapping the soap

 and a bunting banner I made for my table display 

(btw..that painting in the background is by Dusty Genard...The Dusty who our son is named after which is where I get the name of my soap company.....our two kids - Dustin & Dimitri.  And maybe if I try hard enough I can do the whole 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon thing, but I won't)