My neck of the woods

I went for a drive on Friday. There is this place only about half an hour from the city called Hvalfjördur (Whalefjord).  It's a long fjord that used to be the major road to the north, but has now been replaced by an undersea tunnel.  It's a very deep fjord and I remember how tiring it was to drive it on the way home, first all the way into the fjord and then all the way out again.  But it is a really nice place to go to, especially now that there is hardly any traffic there.

I had the idea to just wander about and look at the plants and see what I would find.  This is of course a slightly crazy time to go to the countryside, the plants are dying and all the leaves are turning yellow.  And red.  Glorious reds and oranges and it's just all very pretty.  I'm not much of an autumn person.  It's my least favorite time of year.  But this autumn has been quite nice and we haven't yet has a powerful low pressure system blow away all the leaves.  But it's getting a bit cold and as everyone knows it's always really windy out in the country.  So I dressed in my trusted ski overalls (bright red and easy to find should I get lost and have to be rescued).  I also made myself some sandwiches and took some cookies and something to drink and drove off.

I hadn't planned to pick any berries.  In fact I hadn't even thought about berries at all, and even if I had, I would have been sure that they were all gone.  But I saw so many fat and juicy berries that I had to pick them.  They were Empetrum hermaphroditum, which I understand are called crowberries in English. We call the plants krækiberjalyng and they are the most common berry that grows here. I will make saft from them.  Saft is just the juice with a bit of sugar to sweeten, but I thought using honey would be nice. It will be very healthy with all the antioxidants of the berries and the the antiseptic properties of honey. I like to have berrysaft to take in the morning, one tablespoon a day, with the fish oil.

I also found some lichens. Actually I found a lot of lichens and I collected some. I'm not quite sure what type they are, but suspect one of them is a Parmelia. I need some more lichen dyed wool for my someting-soft-and-warm-around-the-neck-this-winter-project. My mother also gave me an Umbilicaria lichen that she collected for me.  My mom wrote her BS thesis about moss and lichen that grow on the graveyard wall that is a stones throw from where we lived . I'm very excited to try to dye from that. It could give me that elusive purple.

And I wasn't alone in the fjord.  I had the company of the local sheep that still haven't been rounded up for winter.  I love the way they look, so haughty and arrogant.  Like they own the place.  And of course they do. I was just the visitor.  This is where they live all summer long.  I thought it would be nice to post a picture of them in their natural habitat.  So if you see Icelandic lamb in Whole foods, you can be sure that you are buying mountain lamb.  They are almost like goats they climb so high.

When I came home I went to the store and bought some fresh lamb's liver for dinner.  I used to get inards, like liver, hearts and kidneys for dinner very frequently as well as whalemeat and seabirds.  But so many people have stopped eating that although I don't know why.  My husband wasn't used to this type of food, but I've gotten him to like both liver and whalemeat, but he won't eat the kidneys and hearts, but the dogs love those.

Liver is really delicious and very easy to make.  We use lambs liver almost exclusively here, but calf liver is very popular in Italy and I think some nations eat liver from grown cattle.

But I think that if you can make a delicious meal with just salt and pepper as the only seasoning, then that food is the best.  So here is my liver recipe:

Slice one onion and brown it on a pan until it is soft in half olive oil and half butter.
Cut the liver into fairly thin slices and brown them on both side in the pan.
Pour some water over the whole thing and let it simmer for about 10 minutes or until the liver is no longer pink.  But don't cook it longer than that, check it by cutting into the slices.  Liver gets very tough and unappetizing if over cooked.
Thicken the liquid to a sauce by your preferred method, I use a maizena thingy from the store.  I also add a bit of cream to the sauce if I have some.
Season with salt and pepper.
Serve with boiled new potatoes, fresh salad greens and red currant jelly.

So now I just have to make the saft, make some Rhubarb syrup from the last of the Rhubarb stalks this year and then make fruit rolls from the left over mash.  I'm also wondering if I could make fruit rolls from the left over mash of berries.  And I'm all out of yoghurt and the sourdough bread is almost gone.  I bought a lot of broccoli at the store since they had them on offer and I've started to eat this delicious Broccoli soup for lunch.  So I'm making a lot of soup and freezing it.  And then there is all the timber that I got for free and plan to use to make raised beds for the allotment garden.  And I'm crocheting that warm thing and also a jacket type ting from the sweater that I unraveled last week.  I really wish I had another weekend coming.

Peltigera soap

I had to use the lichen infusions in soaps.  That's just obvious.  If one can get colour from something one has to try it in soap.  I was very curious to see what I would get from the lichens in terms of colour.  So I made a few soap with the different lichen decoctions that I had.

After some thought, I decided that they would all share the fragrance of Vetiver, but I would add other essential oils that I felt would match the colour or character of the specific lichen I was using.  Vetiver is a masculine kind of scent, rather dry and I thought it was a great base scent.  I knew that there was no hope of the lichen scent to come through the soaping process on it's own.

One lichen, Evernia prunastri (Oak moss) is extensively used in the perfume industry as a fixative and base scent.  The method of extraction is a trade secret and anyway, I couldn't get hold of that, it doesn't grow here, so Vetiver had to suffice.  But other lichens also have this very distinct and generally pleasant smell and one of the benefits of using lichen as a dye is that the wonderful scent stays with the yarn or cloth through it's lifetime and every time the garment is washed the scent is very noticeable.

I started with Peltigera canina and used a recipe for the soap that I think is going to be a good one.  It contains lard which I find gives a lovely hardness to soaps in the absence of palm oil, which I have a hard time getting without even getting into the ethical issues.  I didn't expect any colour from the Peltigera and I didn't really get any.  I'm pretty sure that whatever slight colour there is, is as much a function of the essential oils as the lichen itself.  So why bother?  Well, besides satisfying my own curiosity, I thought they might be cool to try out.  The Cetraria islandica soap that we made some time ago turned out to be very popular.  And lichens have many unique components and they are still being researched for all sorts of medicinal uses.  Many have anti bacterial, anti viral and anti fungal properties.  Peltigera canina has been used as a liver tonic and cough medicine, as well as to treat urinary disorders, thrush, tuberculosis, and rabies. I wouldn't count on it as a rabies cure, though!
The recipe for the lichen soap was:

30% Olive oil
25% Lard
25% Coconut oil
15% Soybean oil
5% Cocoa butter

The water phase was Peltigera canina decoction and I scented with Vetiver, Orange and Cubea litsea.  I put some dried plant material on top of it just to make it a little bit interesting.  I didn't have the dried lichen so I used Gallium verum, Ladys bedstraw, which I had handy.  Peppermint and Lemongras. (I made a mistake, the soap in the picture is indeed scented with Vetiver, Orange and Cubea litsea, but the water phase isn't Peltigera canina.  I got my soaps a little bit mixed up, sorry about that.  The right picture of this soap is in a post dated Nov. 7 2011.)

I made four soaps with the different lichen decoctions that I had and I had a blast.  They didn't give any spectacular colours, but there was one surprise.  But I like the Vetiver scent with the variations and I think these soaps just might be the coolest gift to the biologists in the family.

Will the lichen do anything for the skin?  I don't know, but I decided to use some of the decoction in a face cream.  It's quite nice and since I have been reading some magazines with cosmetics ads I'm pretending it's one of those 100$ miracle night creams that will make me beautiful overnight.  And guess what!  It seems to work.  Overnight!  I just love the placebo effect.

Lichen: Peltigera canina - Obsession nr. 1

Lichens have totally taken over my life for the moment.  They are so weird and different that it's hard not to be fascinated by them.  There isn't that much information around about lichen dyes and what little there is is often without latin names and that makes everything difficult.  I use latin names a lot although I realize that some people think that is very snobbish.  It isn't.  It's the only way to talk about specific plants without causing confusion.  I read about plants and dyeing in many languages and common names are very different from country to country and they tend to be quite arbitrary so that translating them is no help at all.

Lichens are totally different from other organisms and not much is understood about how they work. They may look like they are a single organism, but in fact they are two or more partners that form a symbiotic relationship. One of the partners is a fungus (mycobiont, for those who are interested) which makes the vegetative body of the lichen which houses the other partner, the photosynthetic (photobiont) one. The photosynthetic partner (there can be more than one) is usually green algae or cyanobacteria (cyano is from the greek kyanos=bluegreen) and it's funtion is to produce energy for itself and the fungal partner.  Cyanobacteria is quite well known to most soapers: Arthrospira platensis and A. maxima are the latin names of Spirulina which can be used to make green soaps.

There are about 13,500 species of lichen on the planet, but only 750 are found in Iceland.  Lichens are basically of 3 types:

1. Foliose - which means that they are leaf like in their structure.
2. Crustose - those are like a crust stuck to a surface and are usually very thin and tightly attached. These are about 75% of all lichens.
3. Fruticose - these are branched structures.

One of the problems with lichens is that they can be very hard to identify, but at least it's fairly easy to classify them by the above and work from there.

Since lichens grow very, very slowly I am careful to harvest only common lichen that I find growing abundantly.  I have a rule of never taking more than 1% of any plant material that I collect and therefore I have no fear of collecting too aggressively.

I have known about lichens forever, as my parents taught us well and especially about the more unusual plants like lichen and moss, my fathers specialty.  But I wasn't all that interested in them although I remember noticing how many different species of moss and lichen can grow on one tree trunk in one of the last trips I took with my parents about a year before my father died.  He pointed it out to me and showed me how different things grew on different sides of the tree trunks as well as at different heights and on different tree species.

Peltigera canina isn't a particularly good dye plant.  So why did I write a post about it?  Well, about a year ago when I noticed this lichen growing on a rock in the woods on my evening walk with the dogs.  Something about it fascinated me, and I was hooked from then on.  I collected a little piece and took it home.  I was quick to identify it as the very common Peltigera canina.  It has been used as a medicinal plant to treat treat wounds, urinary disorders, thrush, tuberculosis, and rabies. I later found it growing simply everywhere in the woods and in many other places.  It is amazing how a whole new world opens up when we discover something new.  And what a wonderful world it is.

It will give a light yellow colour to wool and silk.  There are lichen that will give reds and purples, so yellow isn't all that special, but I love it anyway.  It's soft and natural and it goes well with many other colours.

I have been using Icelandic wool (Lopi) to dye, but for the lichens I decided to use alpaca wool.  It's so wonderfully soft that it's obscene.  I need something soft and warm for this winter.

Seaweed salt soap - and my icy cold hands

I went to pick seaweed with my cousin and mother the other day.  We timed it carefully since we wanted to pick a particular kind of seaweed, Pamaria palmata.  Dulce is the common name in English, but we call it Söl in Icelandic.  Dulce has been used for ages here as food.  They are very nutritious and are sold as snacks and some people used them in green drinks.  This is why we were going to collect some, because my cousin uses them in her nutritious morning drink and it is rather expensive at the shops.  Self sufficiency appeals to me, even if I don't really eat that much of the stuff.

Dulce grows at the very lowest point of the beach where there is movement of the sea most of the time and in order to pick it we had to wait for the lowest tide of the month and we were fortunate that this month it happened to be a Sunday.

We only had to drive about an hour from the city to find a nice place to collect seaweed.  There are these two really cute tiny villages with tongue twisting names (Stokkseyri and Eyrarbakki) and old houses made of timber, clad in corrugated iron and painted in vivid colours with white windows.  I really love those old houses, no matter how impractical they are in the modern world with their low ceilings and tiny rooms.  They have some really nice restaurants in those villages, but we didn't stop this time.

We had to walk pretty far out on the beach to find Söl, the species we were chiefly interested in.  We could hardly sea land by the time we found some and had almost given up and turned back.  It was really hard to walk on those round seaweed covered boulders and we had had to leave my mother behind pretty early on.  I left her, bless her heart, sitting on a rock, hoping she would make it back on land without braking any bones.  I had made sure to take some refreshments with us but unfortunately I had the car keys in my pocket, so she was left stranded alone on the beach with nothing to eat and no phone (that was is the car with the food).  She wasn't upset at all, but started to collect plants to show us when we returned.  Still teaching me about plants, like she did when I was little.  So I learned all about the few plants that grow by the sea.

Even if the sun was shining it was pretty windy and cold and we could hardly see land anymore.  But all that was forgotten when we started seeing the Söl.  We managed to collected three bucketfuls before we started to work our way back to safety, with the tide rising steadily.  I was beginning to get a bit worried that we would need to be rescued, but we made it back safely, if a bit tired and cold (did I already say that?).

We didn't just collect dulce. We also saw these really pretty green seaweeds that I now know are Ulva lactuca, or Laver.  I collected some because I wanted to use them in soap to see if I could get the lovely green colour.

That soap just had to be salt soap, I mean how could it not be.  Sea. Salt.  No brainer!  It did turn out green and a nice green at that.  The photo doesn't do it justice.  It will probably not last too long, but I'm enjoying it all the same.

I had decided to make about 2/3's of it non-salt and have the rest a salt soap.  So I poured quite a lot of soap into the mold and them dumped some salt into the soap batter I had left.  It turned out to be the exact opposite.  More salt soap than not.  I should have tried to get some fancy blending of the two.  But I thought it was going to be a straight line.  Oh well!


I used a lot of coconut oil to see if it lathers.  So the recipe is quite simple:

Cocoanut oil      50%     250g / 8.8oz
Olive oil            40%     200g /  7.0oz
Cocoa butter     10%       50g /  1.8oz

Seaweed blended with 200g / 7.0oz of water.

I scented it with a blend of Peppermint and a hint of Vetiver.  It's quite nice and appropriate for this sea inspired soap.  I used fine sea salt.  I like that a lot better than coarse salt.  It makes a smooth rock hard surface that doesn't scratch.   I look forward to trying it.  I kind of like salt soaps.  They are so different and this one is very authentic with real-live-seaweed that I picked myself from the sea with my icy cold hands.  Did I already say it was cold?

Fairy candy - Strawberries

Strawberries are Fairy candy.  Or they could be Goddess fruit.  Definitely they are otherworldly good when you grow them yourself.  Much sweeter and juicier than store bought no matter if they are imported or grown locally.  I think it's because they are picked just a little too soon so they don't get damaged in transport.

This summer I got a bowlful of my own homegrown strawberries for the first time.  A whole bowlful!  I've had a crop of strawberries before, but it's always been one or two at a time, but not a full bowl of fully ripe strawberries, deliciously red and sweet and juicy.

I have two varieties of strawberries.  Some nameless one I bought in a garden center (they never seem to care about named varieties here) and a named variety that I grew from seed so the name was on the packet, but I have since forgotten it (but I think I have the empty packet somewhere).  The seeds came from Denmark and the flowers are pink and the fruit is large and dark and juicy.  This variety flowers well and doesn't try to send out runners like the other one does.  That is a good thing since that means it will concentrate on flowering and producing lots of fruit.  But I lost most of the plants last winter so I want to propagate the plant that I still have.  So I saved a few seeds to sow and am hoping to raise a few more plants.

Strawberry seeds need to get a period of cold in order to germinate, so I put them into the freezer after cleaning them well.  I only have 11 seeds, but I find that it never pays for me to sow too many seeds at a time.  It only results in way too many seedlings and consequently neglect and death.  I prefer to sow a few seeds and take very good care of them all.  Putting the seeds in the freezer somehow doesn't feel very kind, but if that's what they want...

I grow them in a long and narrow box that I built and hung up on a sheltered wall in the garden.  I used some left over timber that I had, screwed the whole thing together and hung it up with some chains.  I take the box down in autumn and keep it close to the house, right under the balcony so it doesn't get soaking wet in winter.  That way most of the plants survive until next spring.  I gave them very good soil this spring and added lots of well rotted horse manure as well as some water retaining gel.  I also mulched with the manure and I have fed them with comfrey fertilizer to boost flowering.  I seems to have paid off.

The nameless variety sends out a lot of runners and this is not good for fruit production but I can easily get lots more plants.  I almost can't keep up with sticking them in pots.  I'm growing them to give to my younger daughter (her apartment has a garden) so that she too can harvest her own next summer.  Her husband doesn't really like strawberries.  Why is it that it's just girls that like strawberries?  Most guys seem to be able to take them or leave them.  My husband doesn't really eat them.  I'm not complaining, I would be devastated if I had to share my berries.  There really aren't that many of them.  And after all they are Goddess fruit, so really not for men, are they?

Gift from the gods, brought by the butler

Filipendula ulmaria - Meadowsweet is a lovely medicinal plant.  It is well known as a natural painkiller as it contains salicylic acid, the ingredient in aspirin.  The plant is however, unlike aspirin, quite gentle for the stomach and is used to treat heartburn since it neutralizes stomach acids and it is used for peptic ulcers.  It is anti inflammatory and as such it works well for rheumatic pain.  It is also astringent and a urinary antiseptic.  It is even gentle enough to treat diarrhea in children.

It's name in Icelandic is Mjaðurt, which means Meadplant.  Mead is a drink that the vikings drank way back when they were delusional enough to think Iceland was inhabitable.  There are no surviving recipes for mead, but it was probably alcoholic and some think it was made with honey, but it is fairly obvious that Filipendula ulmaria was used in it.

I got the idea to make a drink from Meadowsweet when I had finished the Rhubarb "champagne".  I was sure that it would make a lovely drink that would be even more like Champagne than Rhubarb.  The scent of Meadowsweet flowers is sweet and warm, almost vanilla like, but still very distinct.  The leaves have a slight almond like smell that is again a bit different.  I made a potful to try it out.  And Oh!  Jumm!  I really like it.  This is no drink for viking brutes.  They can drink robust Rhubarb drinks.  This one is a drink for the girls, wearing white lace, sitting in the garden in the sunshine with the butler reverently serving this delicate tasting and lovely natural champagne, like it's a gift from the gods.

The recipe is simple.

Take about 10 - 15 flower heads of Meadowsweet and put in a pot with cold water, about 4 liters/quarts.

Add:
A sliced lemon
500g. /1 pound sugar
1 desert spoon of apple vinegar.

Let this sit for 24 hours
Sieve this and pour the clean liquid into 2 liter plastic bottles, close them and let sit for a couple of days.

When the plastic bottles are quite hard, you put them in the fridge to stop the fermentation.

When you open the cold bottle, the drink will have a gentle carbonation and taste divine.
This drink is lovely and refreshing and would go well with Macarons.  You know!  Those French lovely cookies that I'm always planning to make.  That'll be another post one of these days.

I am making another batch of it these days to give to the vegetable club of the Garden society who are coming to visit the allotment (and I offered to be their host).  I did give some to my husband, poor thing, he went into the hospital three times last month and finally got out last week (and no I never did smack him on the head with the bat :) and he's getting all better, finally.  Although that could be a result of receiving correct medical treatment rather than drinking this lovely drink.  But you never know, do you?
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My favorite books about soapmaking

I buy books.  A lot of books about all sorts of things.  If I get interested in something, the first thing I do is to buy a book about it.  Or even better, two books... or more.  So I have a few books about soap making.  I love all my books and I am always so grateful to the authors that they took the time and made the effort to write a book to share their knowledge with me and many others.  I would like to share a few of my favorite titles and books about soapmaking are first in line.  I have to say beforehand that I do not know any of the authors.  I have only bought their books and read them.  I haven't read every book there is about the subject, but if I see a book about making soaps, I look it over thoroughly and buy it if it interests me.  What are your favorite books?  I might be missing a few!

I think my absolute favorite book about making soap must be Anne Watson's simple little book with the big title: "Smart Soapmaking: The simple guide to Making Traditional Handmade Soap Quickly, Safely, and Reliably, or How to Make Luxurious Handcrafted Soaps for Family, Friends, and Yourself".

It was my first book on  making soap and I did read an awful lot of reviews about a lot of soapmaking books before I chose that.  I wasn't disappointed.

The book doesn't have glossy photo's, just very nice black and white line drawings.  It isn't big and it isn't expensive.  What the book has is very clear instructions on how to make soap.  It talks about the dangers of lye (so much so that when I made my first soap I looked like I was ready to go to the moon), equipment and ingredients.  And it lays out in very clear steps how to go about making soaps.  Anne gives quite a few recipes and I would think that anyone, anywhere would be able to find ingredients for at least a few of them.

The best part of this book is that Anne doesn't try to make the process complicated.  She simplifies things quite a lot.  Especially that "trace" thing that had me scared that I wouldn't know when it happened and then everything would be ruined.  Or that the soap would seize and then everything would be ruined,  Or that I wouldn't be able to get it out of the mold or that I wouldn't be able to cut it.

This is a book that I would recommend to any beginner interested in starting to make soaps.  It is by far the best in my humble opinion.

Another life saver that I want to mention is Soapcalc.  I use it every time I make soap (I tend to make a new recipe each time, that's crazy but that's the way I am.  I'm sure I'll come up with THE one perfect recipe one of these days).  But Soapcalc is absolutely invaluable.  I know there are other soap calculators out there and I'm sure they are just as good, but this is the one I started to use and have gotten so used to.  Soapcalc lets me choose grams or pounds or percentages and change between them in the middle.  I love that.  It doesn't look particularly good, but it is functional.  The only thing that is that I would say is:  Don't use the default 38% water.  It makes for a very wet soap.  Change it to 30% or even less.

Anne has also written another book with and equally interesting title:  "Milk Soapmaking: The Smart and Simple Guide to Making Lovely Milk Soap From Cow Milk, Goat Milk, Buttermilk, Cream, Coconut Milk, or Any Other Animal or Plant Milk".  That is excellent for those who are interested in making milk soaps.  Milk is a bit difficult to work with and here I learned that the best milk soap makers can make very white soaps using milks of all sorts.

I also discovered in that book that there are plant milks and that in soapmeking the same rules apply to those as to traditional milk.  I come from cow country and it was almost news to me that sheep and goats produce milk, but coconut milk! Almond milk!  That's not milk to me, but apparently when it comes to soapmaking, it is.  Oh well!  You live and learn :)



Another book which I found very helpful was Susan Miller Cavitch's "The Soapmaker's Companion: A Comprehensive Guide with Recipes, Techniques & Know-How (Natural Body Series - The Natural Way to Enhance Your Life)".  What is it with these long titles on books about making soap?

What I liked about that book was the complete opposite of what I liked about Anne Watson's book.  This book had loads of information about all the different additives that is possible to use in soapmeking.  Variations like colors and scents and shaving soaps and exfoliating soaps and ... the list is endless.  And that is terribly interesting when one is starting out and is just very thirsty for more ideas to work on.  So that is one great book to have on the bookshelf.   Again, there are no large glossy photo's in this one, but nice line drawings and plenty of inspiration.


Finally, I have to mention a special favorite of mine.  This is a series of books about absolutely everything.  Well, everything that is remotely related to the country:  Storey's Country Wisdom Bulletins.

I just love them.  They have bulletins about raising chickens, natural remedies, growing the best blueberries and building a root cellar to name but a few.  And they're only around $4 each.  They are all written by different people and they say they have more than 200 different titles, some of them very interesting.  "Axes and Chainsaws".  How cool is that!

I have a few.  No!  I didn't get the one about axes and chainsaws, but I did get the ones about natural remedies, hand creams and cheese and soap.  I think I also ordered the one about beekeeping, optimistically hoping my husband would suddenly change his mind about that.  Or maybe I just dreamed that.  I can't seem to find it now, but I did find a lot of titles that I would like:  "Great Rhubarb Recipes"!  I need that one :)  And "Making Grapevine Wreaths" (although I think my grapevine is about to give up on life), "Planning & Planting a Moon Garden" might be the answer to that or maybe I should just get "Sleep and Relaxation: A Natural and Herbal Approach". That actually sounds really good.  I should just do that.
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Luxury from the garden - Lilac infused oil

The end of July is such a busy time.  I feel that summer is nearly over, almost before it began and there is still so much to do.  I have a long list of things to complete in my allotment garden and my own garden at home is getting very overgrown and slightly neglected.  I was late in dividing the plants this spring, mostly because of the cold weather, so I need to do that in autumn.  I have a few plants that are getting way too big and they have smothered some smaller ones.  So I need to tidy it up a bit this fall, if it is to look decent next spring. But as I sit and look out into the garden I am amazed that is looks quite nice.

I have mostly chosen plants and shrubs with pink flowers (Peonies, Dicentra, Astrantia, Deutzia, Clematis, Honeysuckle, Lonicera tatarica, Lilac, Syringa palibin, and the dainty Saxifraga x urbium) and a few with white ones (Peonies, Rhododendron, Lily of the valley, Astilbe, Amelanchier, Philadelphus), dark reds (Peonies, Astrantia, Hollyhock) some violet (mostly Campanulas) and an occasional yellow (Primulas, Trollius, Rosa Friesia, Honeysuckle, Iris pseudacorous) and blue (Clematis Alpina, Iris sibirica, Geranium and Violas).  I have a small Japanese maple with it's lovely aubergine foliage and a similarly coloured Viburnum diablo as well as my apple tree to contrast all the green foliage of the ferns and shrubs as well a a couple of Euphorbias, one lime green and one purple. So all in all I am pleased with the garden. I do miss some of the plants that I have tried many times to get to grow in my garden, but without success. Clematis montana, Anemone sylvestris and A. hupehensis and many, many Hellebores are among my many casualties.   And all the Mediterranean herbs, Rosemary, Thyme and the lovely Lavender.  I have killed them all repeatedly.

I am always interested in adding new plants, especially if they have a nice scent. I really, really like the ones that smell good and constantly bury my nose in them and inhale deeply.  I have often lamented the fact that it isn't possible to make essential oils from some of the loveliest flowers like Honeysuckle, Lilac, Viola and Lily of the Valley to name but a few.  But I have found a way to capture some of their scent to keep for the winter months.  I infuse their flowers in oil.  So now my kitchen tables are covered in flowers that I am drying slightly which I then intend to cover in olive oil.

I pick the flowers in full bloom when they smell the strongest.  It is of course best to pick them in dry weather around midday, but before it gets hot, but beggars can't be choosers, so I pick them even when it rains.  I just let them dry off a bit before I put them in a jar and pour oil over them, making sure the oil completely covers the flowers.  I am using Olive oil now, but I have used Almond oil, Peach kernel and Sunflower oil as well as Jojoba.  It is best to choose an oil that agrees with your skin and has a decent shelf life.

The important thing is to infuse the same oil at least three times.  I let the flowers or petals sit in the oil for 2-3 days and then strain it and squeeze the plant material well with my hands to get all the oil back in the jar.  Inevitably there is always some water that gets mixed up with the oil and it can look quite gunky.  The smell of the oil may also be slightly off in the middle stages of this process.  Don't let that bother you, all will be well.  When the last flowers or petals have been strained out I let the oil sit for a bit and let the gunk sink to the bottom.  I then use a Turkey baster to transfer the oil into the final squeaky clean container, be it a bottle or a jar.  That way the oil is pristine and completely free from any impurities and the gunk is left at the bottom of the old jar.  It may be a good idea to add some vitamin E to the oil and store it in a cool place to ensure that it keeps well.  I use infused oils as a face serum and body lotion and I also use them in my creams.  They make really nice gifts when bottled in pretty bottles with nice labels.

I am quite excited to be getting my first batch of Lilac oil.  The lilac flowered quite profusely this year so I can sacrifice a few perfect flowers without denuding my shrub.  Last year I made Lilac drink, which was really nice, but this year I am making infused oil from my Lilacs.  I'm also in the process of making Rose oil and Calendula oil and will make some Honeysuckle oil as well when they flowers and another batch of Honeysuckle infused honey.  I still have my rose oil from last year and it smells divine and I can't think of a lovelier way to start and end each day.
...

My Icelandic sweater - Dyed with Rhubarb root

I finished knitting my Icelandic sweater.  Knitting it didn't take that long, less than a week.  It was finishing it off that was a bit fiddly as I have never done one that is cut up in the middle.  Like a cardigan.  I actually only knitted one Icelandic sweater before and that was many years ago.  So I'm no expert.  They are usually knitted from rope roving which we call Plötulopi.  It's not spun and it pulls apart very easily.  But you can also just as easily twist it back together.

There are fashions in these sweaters as in everything else and today they are usually knitted with a pattern only around the shoulders rather than at the front of the arms and the bottom of the sweater as well.  The fit is also tighter.  Although I have to say that some of the older patterns are beginning to look quite good to me.  I used a pattern called Héla that available free on the internet, but I adapted it to suit my needs.   I made the sweater longer and changed the rib to a proper rib and I added a steek.  That was new to me.  I found really good instructions for that at the excellent See Eunny knit website.

I made the pattern myself.  It's just flowers and hearts and something.  I wanted to make it girly because I thought it suited the colours.  The sweaters are usually made from naturally coloured wool, so this is a nice change.  I really enjoyed dying from Rhubarb root.  I got very nice colours and there is something really soft and gentle about the colours that is completely different from synthetics.  I also loved to be able to knit with colours that I made myself.

I know my husband wants a sweater so I may start to knit him one soon.  His will not be girly at all and I don't think I'll use my natural dyed wool for his sweater.  It'll be quite traditional with natural sheep colours.  I know that he wants a light background colour and probably brown tones rather than gray.  Now I just need to find a nice pattern.  Since his is going to be in the round it'll take much less time.  I should we able to finish it in one week.

I like to have something to knit or crochet although I only do it sporadically.  I have been crocheting a pattern for a hat from the 40's and am looking forward to putting that together.  I love 40's hats.  I bought one in a charity shop that I absolutely love.  It's black and I use it when I go to funerals.  I used to wear hats all the time in the early 90's, but I guess that went out of fashion.  The one I'm crocheting now, I'm doing it in a shiny red yarn and it could look good.  Or just terribly silly.

I love blog awards

Topcat of Titania's Dreamy Delights awarded me with a blog award. Thank you for that :) Getting an award is just really nice.

The rules of the Versatile Blogger Award are:

1 – Make a post and link it back to the person who gave you the award

(and include their website address)

2 – Share 7 random things about yourself

3 – Award 7 recently discovered bloggers with this award and

contact them to let them know they have won.

The hardest part is to nominate 7 blogs.  There are so many to choose from, but the good thing is that I get to choose someone who hasn't been nominated and I decided to nominate a few blogs from far away. Many of these I can follow by using Google Translate and although I know the translations are sometimes quite approximate (to be kind) I wouldn't be able to understand anything at all if not for those translator. Thank you all international soap makers who delight me regularly with your wonderful blogs.

Happy Tiny Bubbles - Finish blog: http://happytinybubbles.blogspot.com/
Les savons de Lavandine - French blog: http://lessavonsdelavandine.blogspot.com/
Grön Sape - Norwegian blog: http://gronnsaape.blogspot.com/
Delicate Matter - Russian blog: http://tmateria.blogspot.com/ I had a problem posting a comment to her, so I don't know if she'll see that.
Gioia Made Soap - English language: http://gioiasoap.blogspot.com/ Also problem to post comments here, but...what can you do?
Sapo Onis - Spanish language (I don't know from which country) http://sapo-onis.blogspot.com/
Monchi Soap - Japanese blog: http://monchisoap.blog102.fc2.com/ I just have a hard time posting a comment on that site so I don't know if she'll see that.

The seven random things about myself:

1.  I have two Bichon Frise dogs.  They are Perla, the mother, and Táta, the daughter.  Perla is my sweetest darling, she is most beautiful, well mannered and dainty.  Like me, she is a fussy eater.  Táta is very boisterous and she'll eat anything that crosses her mouth and as a result she is a bit chubby.  She's constantly ona diet, but it's hard because she'll eat the bird food and the goldfish food (and her mothers food if she can).  She loves to get wet.  And she loves absolutely EVERYONE.

2.  I like to wear white.  Specifically White Levi's 501's, White Jockey T-shirts and White Keds.  I got really bored with all the black clad women here in the dark North.  I mean, I know black is sophisticated, but when EVERYBODY dresses in black ALL THE TIME it just gets depressing.  So I rebelled.  I wear my whites when I garden, so sometimes, technically, I wear brown also!

3.  I'm 5 foot 10 (177.5 cm) like Princess Diane.  I wanted to be small and blond with curly hair and brown eyes when I was little.  I added: A smaller nose and bigger boobs to that list when I got to be a teenager.  Now I'm just really happy with the way I am "warts and all" so to speak.  I even made peace with my straight hair.

4.  I love American Country music.

5.  I sip cod fish oil from the bottle every morning.

6.  I work out with a good friend of mine 3 times a week.  We lift weights, go to spinning classes, do Yoga and Pilates.  My favorite form of exercise is Pilates, by far.  I think it's because it's easy and it doesn't have to cost anything (have I mentioned that I'm a closet cheapskate).  I used to do it at home, on the floor, every day for an hour.  Boy did I look good then :)

7.  I am a HUGE fan of Terry Pratchet.  He writes fantastic social commentary books in the form of Fantasy literature.  Best known are his Discworld series.  My favorite characters are DEATH and the  Wiches, particularly Granny Weatherwax.  I plan to be like her when I get old.

Was that too much information, perhaps?  Oh, well!
...

Lupine soap - looking for lime green, but no such luck!

It isn't often that I'm lost for words.  Some members of my family would say that is impossible.  I talk a lot.  I just seem to deal with things verbally.  But now I feel stunned.  I just don't know what to say.  I probably shouldn't even mention it.  I mean I'm sure to offend someone if I admit to wanting to take a baseball bat and give my husband a good whack on the head.  Don't get me wrong, I love him dearly.  But what is it with men that makes them live life in a way that can only be described as:  Suicide by lifestyle?  So there!  Now I've said it.  I feel better all ready.  (And he is slowly regaining his health and way to frail to be able to take a whack on the head.  So I just give him a kiss every now and again.  It measurably improves his oxygen saturation.)

I did make a soap while he was in the hospital.  I woke up in the middle of the night and got this strong urge to visit him.  Which I did.  I have learned always to listen to such urges.  When I got back home I was still wide awake and decided to make a soap using the leftover Lupine decoction I had from dyeing earlier.

Lupine is an alien in Icelandic nature.  It was originally imported as a soil improving plant, because it has the ability to bind nitrogen in the soil.  Unfortunately it is a thug, colonizing large areas of land and in the process it eradicates the more delicate native species.  Instead of 20 species cohabiting, we now have this one.  Very showy, but a poor substitute for the local Flora.  But since it gives a very lovely lime green when used as a dye plant I've sort of semi-forgiven it.  And at least by picking the flowers, I can prevent it from setting seed and spreading even further.  So that is a satisfying, if quiet, revenge.

Lupine flowers make the most wonderful dye.  One would think that they would produce a blue or a purple, but they give the most wonderful lime green colours to both protein (wool, silk) and cellulose (cotton) fibers.  Naturally, I wondered if I could get the ever elusive green colour in soap by using Lupine decoction.  It would have been so much fun.  But it didn't work.  Instead I got this quite soft yellow.  Not bad, but not green.  I fully intend to try it again and use lower temperatures next time to see if that makes any difference.  Since I made this soap in the middle of the night and was quite tired, I didn't bother to wait for anything to cool down much, so I soaped this one at unusually high temperature (130F instead of the more usual 90F) and that may have had an effect on the colour.  I'm also pretty sure that the temperature is the reason it seized on me, but I did get it into the mold alright, in spite of that.

Lupine soap

Olive oil 40% 200g / 7oz
Coconut oil 30% 150g / 5.3oz
Grapeseed oil 10% 50g / 1.8oz
Rapeseed oil 10% 50g / 1.8oz
Cocoa butter 10% 50g / 1.8oz

Water 33% 165g / 5.8oz (this was water that I had simmered Lupine flowers in for an hour)
Lye 70g / 2.5 oz

I added some lavender and Cubea Litsea EO for scent and that smells lovely.  Lupine doesn't have any scent itself.

I was thinking as I made this soap, tired at five o'clock in the morning how amazingly relaxing it is to make soap.  I realized that I now relax by making something, creating something rather than trying to relax by laying down on a couch like I used to.  And what a wonderful way to relax.  And have fun at the same time.  Naturally.