With the Victoria And Albert Museum Patchwork Pattern Maker you will be able to upload any image and convert it instantly into your own, personalised quilt pattern.

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Making pop-ups is easy! These simple lessons should get you started.

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Livejournal’s Snuffykin followed the plans in Craft magazine to replace the uppers on her worn-out shoes with knitted versions. The newly remade Converse kick all kinds of ass. Link

After Bob of TheBobBlog saw a Park Planters pot by Tristan Zimmermann, retailing for $100 (or even higher), he decided that he could do one cheaper … with LEGO! Here’s Bob’s version, the LEGO Planter: Link

You could substitute Shortening, or some other oils for the lard, but the temperatures might need to be a little different.

* 3 pints of ice cold goat milk
* 1 12 oz. can of Red Devil Lye
* 5 1/2 pounds of lard
* 2 oz. glycerin
* 2 T borax
* 1/3 Cup Honey

Be very careful when handling lye! Wear rubber gloves.

Lye can be found in the drain cleaner section of your grocery store. Make sure it says 100 percent. Before you buy the lye, shake the can and listen to it to make sure it’s free flowing and has no lumps in it (you do not want lumpy lye).

Glycerin (liquid) can be found at your drug store. It gives the soap more moisturizing qualities.

Borax can be found in the laundry detergent section of the grocery store. This boosts cleaning ability, softens the water and helps with sudsing.

Lye heats the milk up very hot; the sugar in the milk will “caramelize” and this soap will be tan in color.

Soap made with 100 percent lard will not lather a whole lot, but makes a good cleaning, very gentle, moisturizing soap. Lathering and cleaning ability have nothing to do with one another.

Use a stainless steel or unchipped enamel pot for your soapmaking. Slowly (very slowly) pour the lye into the ice cold milk (the milk could even have small bits of frozen milk floating in it), stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. The milk will heat up very quickly due to the addition of the lye. If you add the lye too fast, the milk may scorch and curdle. The milk will turn an orange color and curdle a little bit, don’t worry. Add the honey. Let the mixture cool down to 85 degrees.

While the lye/milk is cooling, warm the lard to 90 degrees. Slowly pour the lard into the lye/milk, stirring constantly. Add the glycerin, borax.

The best thing to stir soap with is an electric handheld “stick blender”. You really need to stir the heck out of the soap mixture it to get it to “trace”. The “wimpier” and/or slower your stirring is, the longer it will take to trace. You cannot just let it be, or go away and let it sit; if you do not stir constantly, the soap will never “trace”.

Add the glycerin and borax.

Keep stirring until the mixture starts to thicken like thin pudding nice “traces”. The mixture “traces” when a small amount of the solution drizzled across the top of the main solution’s surface leaves a faint pattern before sinking back into the mass. A trace should be reached within 10 to 20 minutes of hand stirring, or 5 to 10 minutes of stirring with a “stick blender”.

Add any essential oils you wish to add to scent the soap at this point. Stir it in well.

Pour the mixture into your molds. I use the box my keyboard came in lined with a plastic kitchen garbage bag. Cover the mold and then cover it with a blanket. Leave it undisturbed overnight.

The next day you can cut the soap into bars using fishing line. Stack the bars on a cookie sheet lined with a large paper bag. It is not ready to use yet; the mixture needs to “saponify” and cure.

Let the soap cure for at least 6 weeks before use.

Be aware, you cannot make bar soap at home without lye (sodium hydroxide). Do not worry. Correctly made and cured homemade soap is milder than anything you can buy. The fats and lye go through a chemical reaction, or “saponify” and become soap; the end product no longer contains any lye.

Hand knitting has gone in and out of fashion many times over the last two centuries. The make-do and amend of the 1940′s and 1950′s has given way to today’s knitters making a statement about individuality and developing a sense of community. Today’s knitters are able to go online and communicate with knitters all over the world and exchange ideas, patterns and techniques.

155 images paper craft.