Flower Dish Cloths...

On Pinterest, I found a pretty picture of flower dish clothes. Happy to see that there was a link to the pattern, I grabbed some cotton yarn and hooked up a few. I love the way they turned out and can't wait to make more.

Here is the pattern. It was really easy and quick to do.

****Edited to add on 7-6-2012 - the above pattern is no longer there. Please try this link to get the pattern or see my post about the new pattern here.****

{hugs}
Laura

Laundry Soap...

I do a lot of laundry.

With four grown people in my house, two of them being high schoolers that both play sports, I do about 10 + large loads of laundry a weekend. At the time I found the shower cleaner recipe I also found one for laundry soap. Well, I just made my second batch and I love it. It's easy to make, works very good and saves a lot of money.  You can find the recipe here ---> Homemade Laundry Soap.

So you know, washing soda is very hard to find in my area. But, after a little research I found that washing soda is soda ash which is used to control the ph in swimming pools. You can also order washing soda online.

I found a couple of recipes for laundry soap that use baking soda instead of washing soda or add it in along with the washing soda. The two are very different from each other and there is some controversy about using baking soda over washing soda.

The laundry soap works great. Everything smells clean with no heavy perfume smell. If there is a heavily soiled area, I pour some on the spot and rub it in before I put it in the washer.

I am happy to make it simply for the amount of money it saves me. Money, of coarse, that can be spent on more yarn - that makes me very happy.

{hugs}
Laura

Little Blue Bird...

I've been working on this little guy for a few days. He turned out so cute - my little blue bird.

{hugs}

Laura

Shower Scrubby...

I love to check out the Tangled Happy blog every day. In July of last year, I found this pattern for a flower pillow. Well, the second picture in the post is for a shower scrubby. You just crochet 4 rounds of the pillow pattern and stitch them together. I love this idea and I have been thinking about doing something like this with cotton yarn. I can just throw it in the laundry with the towels to get it clean, which makes me happy.

For the scrubby that I made, I crocheted 4 rounds of the pattern for the front and 5 rounds of double crochet plus a strip of 5 double crochets across - and long enough to fit the hand - to make a "handle" for the back. I used Sugar and Cream yarn in Cream, Robins Egg, Rose Petal and Ecru.

Can't wait to make some more...

{hugs}
Laura