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The second batch of soap I made with my soap making kit from brambleberry.com was a small batch of lavender infused soap. I used the recipe that came along with the kit, but instead of mixing my lye with plain old water, I boiled some lavender buds I had laying around–they were food grade, and I had always planned to make ice cream with them, but never had–and soap seemed a great way to make use of them. It’s hard not to love a classic, relaxing scent like lavender.

I was still working with the cardboard mold that came with the kit, and as I discussed last time, I wasn’t completely thrilled my soap biscottis. I wanted soap bars, so I did surgery on my mold.

I finally found a use for that washi tape I had lying around. (I’m not even sure where it came from, but it’s pretty funny.) By shortening the mold, I was able to make the soap taller.

It almost looks like regular soap bars! It’s still a little short and wide, but it seems like it will be a little bit more practical to use in the shower.

I sprinkled a few buds over the top of the soap, but because I was still wearing some honking big rubber gloves, it was really more of a dump. Overall, I like the effect. And it smells wonderful. I added just a few drops of lavender essential oil, but I’m thinking most of the scent comes from the infusion. Next I need to get some little reusable tea bags and start infusing some olive oils.

In my few free minutes over the last two weeks, I have been knitting on my pogona, not without progress.

One of the best things about knitting stripes is that I don’t want to stop. I want to see what it’s going to look like after the next stripe. And the next stripe. I’ve stayed up way too late a couple of nights doing this.

This might be one of the coziest looking things I have ever knit. I give all the credit to the handspun. It makes me wish it wasn’t going to be 100 degrees outside today so I could cuddle up with it.

We are finally starting to have some summer harvests, though the going is slower than I expected. Part of it might be that we got a bit of a late start, and part of it may be that it’s our first year in clay-y soil. Does anybody know any good cover crops for us to lay down in our beds for the winter? Or would it be best to mulch really heavily with compost and newspaper?

The tomatoes are ripening. The peppers are growing, even though the bushes they are on remain small. The cucumbers are doing what cucumbers do, but getting them enough water is a problem. They are all balloon shaped because it’s so dry–a problem I have never had before. The eggplants, like the peppers, are small, but producing one or two slender little ichibans at a time.

So far, we have one zucchini. One. I thought we would have six billion, but our zucchinis aren’t producing very many fruits. The little ones keep sprouting up, but they don’t ever seem to take. The blossom is about to fall off our one fruit, so I’m going to cut it tomorrow and hope the rest of the little ones catch up.

My main triumph is that I made salsa with the peppers and tomatoes you see in the bowl above, along with a handful of cilantro–all from the garden. Delicious.

How’s your garden doing?

Since I went gluten free two years ago, I have been searching for a good banana bread recipe. My husband likes to take bananas to work as a mid-morning snack–but he very rarely eats a whole bunch in one week. I’m not too keen on fresh bananas, but I love banana bread. My mother had a phenomenal recipe, which my dad continued to make after she passed. That particular banana bread is one of those nostalgic pieces of my childhood that represents love and family and happy memories. I know that’s a lot of pressure to put on one recipe, which could be why it took over two years to develop one that tastes the same, but incorporates a few healthier options.

My mom’s recipe isn’t up for grabs, but here’s the one I’ve come up with

Gluten Free Banana Bread
Makes Two Loaves

3 1/2 cups Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Flour
2 cups mashed bananas (I throw mine in the blender)
2/3 cup raw honey (full disclosure, I never measure, just pour in what I think is enough, and is probably always less than 2/3 cup)
1/2 cup butter
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp xanthan gum
pinch of salt
4 eggs well-beaten

Mix all ingredients, folding in well-beaten eggs last.
Bake in two parchment-lined loaf pans for 45 minutes at 350.

Do yourself a favor and please,please, please use the parchment. If you just grease the pan, your bread will stick. I grease the parchment, and then I am able to lift the bread straight out of the loaf pan and set it on the cooling rack.

I like to eat my banana bread plain, or with just a little bit of butter. My husband likes it with just a little bit of honey and cinnamon on top, especially when I don’t get quite enough honey in the bread before hand.

We still haven’t had any real harvests of the summer veggies. The peppers are popping out nicely, and the oldest tomatoes are finally starting to turn orange on their shoulders. The cucumbers are slow to grow, and as they get bigger, are doing this strange curly thing. I’m going to pull some tomorrow to put in our lunchtime salad, just to make sure they still taste OK.

Here’s hoping I’ll be eating a tomato sometime this week!

My house faces south, and I have this big concrete stoop, that at some point, somebody painted red, along with all of the sidewalk in the front yard. Why, I have no idea, but that’s something to explore some other time. Right now, it means that I have a front stoop that gets a lot of light and reflects heat back up pretty darn well. That makes it perfect for solar dyeing. Don’t worry if you don’t have a red, south-facing stoop. Any spot in your yard where you get a good 6-8 hours of sun should do it.

I haven’t done a lot of work with this gray Columbian fleece, and as much as I adore the natural gray color of it, I also have plenty that can be dyed. And since I want to drum card most of this fleece at either sell it as batts or roving pulled from a batt, I’ve learned the hard way that it’s a lot easier to dye the locks first. I have been super busy lately, mostly stuck under an infant, and that makes it difficult to pay attention to a dye pot. Passive dyeing seemed the way to go.

I started with six quart ball jars and six different flavors of Kool Aid. Fruit Punch, Strawberry, Orange, Lemonade, Blue Raspberry Lemonade, and Grape. I’m still loving the rainbows.

I dissolved each pack of Kool Aid in 8 oz of warm water, then diluted with another 8 oz. Then I submerged 1 oz of dry Columbia locks in each jar and set them out in the sun until the water ran clear. (Kool Aid has citric acid in it, so you don’t need to soak the wool in a vinegar solution first.)

I left these outside for about a day’s worth of sun, on the solstice no less, so you never know, they might be magical, then brought them in to cool. You can put these in the sun for a couple of days if you need to get them hot enough to absorb all the pigment, but don’t leave them too long, anytime you introduce water, not to mention whatever the heck is in Kool Aid, your wool will mold if you leave it wet too long. Give the locks a good rinse with some wool wash and lay them flat to dry.

I love how these came out, bright on the bleached tips and muted on the bulk of the locks. These six ounce are going to make a couple of really nice, nuanced batts.