Colorful Diamond Star Quilt

I made this quilt fast and furious over a retreat weekend, then quilted pretty soon after.  I gave it to my daughters BFF.  They were buds from the beginning of fourth grade until now.  She and her family have been so good to my daughter.  It was the least I could do to say thank you for so much. I dont think I ever shared it on the blog so here it is, in all it's colorful glory.

Charcoal Black Soap

Black Charcoal Soap.  It is so expensive in the store.  I found this recipe on the Soap Queen Blog.  She has a great tutorial video you can watch.  She is an awesome soaper.  Great recipes and she has her own store which I have ordered from.  I did change this recipe a bit, swapping out some of the tea tree oil for peppermint oil. 

I love this soap.  It is creamy and has great lather but yet is is harder than some of the other soaps I have made.  I am definitely new to making soap.  If I can do it, so can you. 

My friend made this for me- isn't it wild?  

CHARCOAL SOAP

1.8 oz. Castor Oil (5%)
9 oz. Coconut Oil (25%)
14.4 oz. Olive Oil (40%)
9 oz. Palm Oil (25%)
1.8 oz. Tamanu Oil (5%)
5.1 oz. Sodium Hydroxide Lye
10.1 oz. Distilled Water (15% water discount)
1 oz. Tea Tree Essential Oil

.7 oz. Peppermint Essential Oil
2 Tbsp. Activated Charcoal

1. Add lye to water (NEVER THE OTHER WAY AROUND). Stir until dissolved.  

2. While the lye is cooling, melt oils: Palm oil (it is recommended that you fully melt your container of palm oil before portioning out), castor oil, coconut oil, olive oil. tamanu oil. Cool to 130°F

3. Once your lye and your oils are under 130°F and about 10°F of one another, pour the lye mixture into the oils, and begin to stir.

4. Add charcoal slowly as it is super fine and will likely go all over.  Once it is immersed, then start your stick blender.

5. Stop, add in your essential oils.

6. When it is at trace, pour into molds. Spritz tops of soaps with isopropyl alcohol. This will definitely need 3 to 4 days to get hard enough to unmold.  Be patient.

Soaping supplies

Below in the pic you will see the pickling lime bag.  I will never use this again for soap. It's a super fine powder.  I much prefer the granules.  Easier to control.

My set up.

On Ringo Lake Fun!

Excited to be doing Bonnie's Ringo Lake.

Those are the words I typed several weeks ago.  Now. I am surprised to say that it's nearly a year since my last post on this blog.  I am working on Bonnie Hunters latest, On Ringo Lake.  I love the quilt.  It was much fun, as always.

It's my fifth one.  I guess I must really like doing her quilts.  Its not like I havent got ten million of my own quilts to finish.  It must be that community thing.  Lots of my other friends have been more obsesses with out local sensation, Charlotte Hawkes quilts.  She starts her Mystery Quilt very soon.  You can see her mystery, here.