Creating Aromatherapy Candles

Adding a few drops of essential oil to your melted wax before pouring is a simple way to make an aromatherapy candle. Alternately, if you want to add an aromatherapy scent to an unscented candle you can put several drops of essential oil around the wick before lighting. Essential oils are not the same as manufactured perfume scents because the oil is distilled from the actual plants leaves and stems as opposed to being chemical or man made.

Some suggested scents to alleviate different ailments and moods:

Lavender and Bergamot are good for anxiety. I find Lavender especially soothing and it is a pleasant smell most men enjoy. According to Fox News, every smell boosts men’s sexual arousal, but Lavender and the smell of pumpkin pie knocks it up 40% more. Lavender and Jasmine are recommended scents for depression.

Chamomile tea has been known to sooth shattered nerves and this essential oil’s smell is also comforting for irritability.
Ylang Ylang is one of my favorites and is supposed to be both relaxing and stimulating because it is touted to be both an aphrodisiac and an antidepressant. Bergamot is also used to lift spirits.

Peppermint and Citronella help invigorate you which makes sense because they are both refreshing.

For some essential oil recipe combinations see Ananda Apothecary’s site. They are for air fresheners, but if you reduce the amounts to a couple drops each they would also work for candles. I especially like their recipe called “essential sunshine”, a combination of lime, orange, grapefruit and patchouli. Candles by Montserrat offers many different essential oils for sale along with candle making lessons.

There’s an ancient soothing appeal to candles, but when you add an aromatherapy scent to them it can add to the ambiance by influencing your mood further.

If anyone has an essential oil recipe combo for pumpkin pie spice, let me know!

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I love to see variations on knitting patterns. It’s fun to see what knitters do with a designer’s ideas, and as a designer sometimes it’s fun to think about different ways that you could do things and change the look or feel of a project.

Tif Neilan played with this idea herself with a set of two bandana cowls called Variations.

These projects are both worked in five colors of sport weight yarn, and they’re worked flat in interrupted stripes of garter stitch in different colors. There is shaping worked in different sections to give it the shape it has, and you work a three-needle bind off to finish the project and join it into a cowl.

The bind off is meant to be visible, but since the rest of the project is garter stitch you can decide to wear the seam side in if you’d rather.

The difference between the two projects is their size, with cowl 1 being a smaller version and cowl 2 more like a shawl.

The first variation measures about 24 inches/60 cm around the neck and is 20.5 inches/51 cm long and the longest point. The second option is around 25 inches/62.5 cm neck circumference and 28.5 inches/71 long when worn. The smaller one uses 400-450 yards (402-411 meters) of yarn, while the larger calls for 655 to 660 (599 to 604 meters).

It could go without saying that this would be a great stash busting project where you could change colors even more often as you run out of yarn. But if you know me you know I’m never going to go without saying it. So grab your leftovers and get to stitching, why don’t you?

Both of the patterns are on Ravelry: Variations Cowl 1 and Variations Cowl 2. Don’t miss the projects tabs to see all the, uh, variations, different people have made!

[Photo: Tif Neilan]

Giveaway: 60 Quick Cowls

It’s All About Cowls – Free Pattern

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