Felted Soap Makes A Splash with Local Students

It’s become a tradition for my daughter and I to attend “Colonial Days” at one of the local schools.  Every November we dig out my old Silver Dollar City dresses and pack up the spinning wheels, looms, and fiber to demonstrate some Old World skills in spinning, weaving, knitting, and the like.

This year, we wanted to share a hands-on project with the children – but it had to be kid-friendly for ages 3 to 10.  Kendra came up with the idea for Felted Soap, which she enjoyed at a craft fair not too long ago.  We gathered a few supplies (100 bars of soap and a whole lot of llama roving) and got set up.

Colonial Day Costumes
(Both of these were my work dresses when I was 16 years old. Yes, my daughter can wear it )

Kendra sets up with buckets of water, soap, and wool.

The children were thrilled to get their hands some fluff and start wrapping their soap bars.  Then they put them inside a piece of nylon stocking and added some old-fashioned elbow grease.

Agitating the fibers to fuse, or felt, them together to encase the soap.

After several minutes of rub-a-dub-dub, we’re ready for the Big Reveal!  What will be inside this old hose?

Squeezing out excess water and peeling away the stocking reveals the magic.

And now we have our own exfoliating bars of soap that won’t leave a slippery mess in the shower!

Completed Felted Soap with Kool-Aid-Dyed wool

This is a terrific activity to do with your own kids at home, or your local homeschool or after school group!

If you’d like to try your hand at some felted soap, check out this video for complete instructions:

A Chicken Goodbye

We suffered a tragedy on our little farm recently.  Two large dogs came through the area and systematically killed all but 3 of my wonderful flock of chickens.  In what my husband has termed “The Massacre of 2012″, my dear feathered friends and sometime-subjects of essays met their end.  (Read my “Sister Wives – A Tale of Poultry Polygamy” here.)

In thanks for their years of egg production and the many days of joy they brought to my life, I am re-posting one of my first blog posts I wrote when they were just a day or two old.  Good-bye little ones, you will be missed.

Original Post Begins Here…

Here is a Buff Orpington pullet – a future egg-layer at 3 days old. They are alert and curious, very strong and stable on their feet, and the first to figure out how to eat and drink!

Only days after they hatch, the buffs have a few delicate adult feathers peeking through the down!

The Blue Silky Bantams will one day sport a topknot on their heads and feathers on their feet and legs. They will always be small, but are known for being excellent mothers and having agreeable little personalities. These little cuties are noticeably smaller than the buffs, and are quite wobbly on their feet. They often fall over if they run into a fellow hatch-mate, and get tired easily. The runt of the group drops off to sleep without notice – tipping slowly forward onto his beak and taking a little snooze!

The blue and white silkies get distressed unless they’re in a group. Let’s face it, everything is better when you can cuddle!

This is a White Silky Bantam – the kind my family had years ago, along with our Rhode Island Reds. They’re like the French Poodles of the chicken world – all flash and fashion! Of course, their blue and green “peewee” eggs are practically useless, but with this kind of cuteness, who cares!

A little glimpse of the future! Blue skin and feathered feet!

Dyeing Wool “In the Grease”

Although I have written a previous post on dyeing raw wool “in the grease”, a picture is worth a thousand words.  And a video with toe-tapping music is an entire novel!

Enjoy this presentation on coloring your fibers to get that beautiful marbled appearance…

Learn to Hand-paint Wool Roving,

with another fun video and step-by-step instructions!

Related articles

• Choice of Dyes (textlnfo.wordpress.com)
• Project: Dye Your Own Yarn, Naturally (craftzine.com)