All week long I’ve been busily making soap. The last batch has gone into the molds this morning so I’ll have plenty of soap ready for holiday gifts. Seen here I have lavender with rhassoul clay, rose with jojoba beads, plumeria, dragon’s blood (sandalwood base), and ginger apple. Still in the molds is a winter citrus blend.
We haven't really had any hot weather to speak of but over the past week Jason noticed the a/c wasn't blowing very cool air so he put in a call to the repair guy. We might have skipped getting it serviced in the spring a time or two. It wasn't long at all after the repair guy's arrival that he reported a mousikin nest inside the unit. They'd chewed through the wire. Sound familiar? As in exactly the same report we got on the car a/c earlier this year? Ayep. Well, the mice have been evicted and the a/c is hunky dory again. Repair guy was even so kind as to show Jason how to turn off the breaker in the winter so that there's no warm spot to attract said mice again. I think the catnip for neighbor cats campaign has just gained even more momentum.
I also worked up one more experimental batch of soap. Jason asked for something with sea salt in. I'm not ordering new supplies until the fall so I had to go with what essential oils I had on hand and since I've just done sandalwood and lavender I went for mint this time for a change of pace. The sea salt is in rather large crystals and those don't seem to have behaved very nicely. It looks like those candles we made as kids with ice cubes to make holes when they melted. I'll give it a few days and then try it out to be sure it's okay. It does look like the soap set properly so I suspect the salt is just drawing out extra moisture.

The mailman left me a plethora of goodies out on the step today. On top was a package containing 8 wonderful ounces of Rambouilet Corriedale roving from Amanda for which I traded some soaps. I'm tickled pink about this barter. There'll be two more installments in March and April. Underneath that was a box from Bake it Pretty with candy molds for sheep, buttons and one large one that looks like a glass dish. Last but not least there was a copy of New Style of Heirloom Knitting, one of the Japanese pattern books I've been seeking for several months now.
I’ve been a busy bee this week and completed 5 batches of soap thus cleaning out my scent samples. As expected by a few readers, the sewing room does indeed smell pretty nice just about now!
What with all that spinning going on I need to keep my hands well moisturized so this week I’ve also been making lotion bars and body butter. I’m quite settled on the lotion bar recipe but I tried a new concoction for the body butter which contains hemp oil and carrot essential oil rather than the almond oil I used last time. I’m very interested to see how this new recipe does and with the cooler drier weather it’s a great time to test it out.