Going Without Shampoo?

Keeping your hair clean without shampoo. Would you try it?

The Boston Phoenix: The No Poo Do
Natural Family Online: Why You Should Go No ‘Poo
The Carousing Classist: Taking the Hippy Dippy Plunge
The Daily Mail, UK: Could you Survive without Shampoo?
Simply Living Lightly on the Earth: The No Poo Movement

Crochet a Poppy Pin

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Red Poppy group on Flickr, mostly real flowers rather than designs or art/ crafts.

Flowers by Irene has a pretty knit/ crochet poppy .

Frayed at the Edges makes a knit poppy.

Erssie Knits has a crochet poppy but the pattern is not available on the site.

Seawood has crochet poppies (flowers) with a big button in the middle.

Kittyboo Crochet has a nice poppy pattern :

A little poppy brooch, made by me, using Rowan Cashsoft yarn. Here is the (very rough and ready) pattern using UK terms:

Make 2.
Ch 6. SS into 1st stitch to form a ring.
24 dc into ring.
DC into each DC, increasing every other stitch to get 36 stitches.
1 ch [1 dc 1 tr 7dbltr 1 tr 1dc 1ss] 3 times with last ss into 1st ch.
Fasten off.
Join the two pieces.

For the centre I really just made it up as I went along. It’s a bit hard to describe but I basically made lots of loops and tied them together (a bit like making a tassle) then cut off the tops and stitched into the centre of the poppy.

Curious and Crafty Readers has the loveliest crochet poppy pattern of them all, I think. Here is the centre and the other page has extra finishing touches.

Pink Grapefruit Splash

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This is my favourite shower soap now. It is Pink Grapefruit Splash from Softsoap . It must be in the US but I’m not sure if it will be in the UK and farther. If you see it at the store pop open the top and give it a smell. It is very fresh and pretty. Does not give me a problem with allergies either.

This is not a paid ad. I just love the stuff and I use it every shower. I went to the website to look for a better picture of their graphic with the pink grapfruits but there wasn’t one. Very disappointing. They even offer ecards, but none of them have that same picture. I’d wear that picture as a dress if I was young and skinny. Not so young or skinny I can still use the soap and enjoy the smell every evening.