why do I sew for her anyhow?

Okay, so the purple bubble dress is not long enough... luckily I still had some good sewing inspiration left in me and I pulled together two Midsummer dresses... nice and loooong, right down to her toes (well, when she isn't wearing my heels, though she probably does so with more grace than I do).  Nope, though she looks happy playing the princess here, she still does not like them that much.  I think of the three though, this pretty garden dress is the favorite (At least it is the one she is most likely to agree to).  

It goes with her cell phone and her tiara that was made by a friend of Deepa's, It is her special occasion crown, which basically means whenever she declares it so.  

So I am frustrated, darn disney princesses,  We have been reading more generic (well non-disney) classic princess stories which she loves, and perhaps not the most empowered girl stories out there, generally as long as there is some good diversity, I am find with some of the classics.   She has watched tangled and brave without any issues... BUT, since she started seeing the disney Cinderella (first book and then for a movie night... the movie)... she thinks that princess gowns need to show a lot of your chest, so she spends a lot of effort pulling her dresses and shirts down around her shoulders and as low as she possibly can (the above dress has even been found around her waist) which she thinks is the best way to wear ... everything.  Sigh

 Some of my favorite mermaid fabric here for another bag, this one for for Pearl! I did a poor job fussy cutting the fabric though.... too bad, but it still makes a great bag!

 And a dino print for Andy, surprisingly difficult to find a dino print that I liked, this one is pretty good... but not exactly what I had in mind.

And soap!  So, in the cleaning out of their house, mom finally found her soap recipe that inspired my soap making to begin with.  She made it as a hobby years ago, but stopped some time after we moved out to California.  I hoarded, then would only buy fancy expensive soap, until she gave us some of her old supplies and I finally got up the gumption to try my own.  At any rate... voila soap.  This recipe... 1.  It makes a TON of soap, way more than my other recipes.  2.  Notice the slight difference in color between the bars and the molds... Well, for the first time I noticed a gel stage (some find it critical, I am still not sure what it does for the soap).  It was a warmish evening and the box mold is wooden and farily well insulated in and of itself.... so it gelled.  It makes for a slightly more translucent bar, the non-gelled mold soap has a creamier appearance.  I am still curing them, but suspect they both will behave fine.  3.  This is a long slow cure.  It was soft forever, like weeks,  I took the bar out within the first week but it was soft to the touch for three weeks.  It is still a little soft, (four weeks?  maybe....) but definitely more soap firmness.  We'll see how it holds up.  I am patient.

Update:  I still like this recipe, but it did take a long time to set.  I did it again with coffee grounds (about 20g) and some brewed coffee for the water. I also added a good slug of coco butter in place of some missing coconut oil, about 1/3 cup or so (I shoudl know g, I measured, but forgot).  Left it in the mold for 3 days, took it out and sliced it slightly thinner, about 1".  In a last moment inspiration, I added peppermint to make it smell nice (the coffee aroma was weak at best), I'm not sure it was the right plan, but it's what happened, now you have coffee peppermint soap, might be good for Christmas.  My plan is to have the stumptown coffee soap and some local hops soap to round out the whole PDX thing.