super-quickie jic anyone is looking for updates. i've fallen behind on emails for those next on the list but WILL be contacting you this week to see if you'd like to proceed with your custom(s) or wait till after the holiday craziness (or at least i know it's a little crazy here). carm, your yarn is dyed and steaming right now, your do-over shirt is batiked and will be dyed tomorrow. gen, we've already touched base today but the yarn feels like it will be dry tomorrow -- i'll reskein and send a photo probably in the morning. can ship in the afternoon if we connect in time, otherwise the yarn will go out in tuesday's mail (so long as it looks good to you!). up next is batiking andrea's shirt and dyeing the yarn (i should have plenty of corrie!). also batiking sarah shirts and working on my super-secret (okay, not really) spotted box samples. and kayleigh's poor babydoll dress still needs to get painted, omigosh! you've been SO patient waiting for this custom, i owe you like 3 more shirts in thanks. i might post a few pics tomorrow of a few in-the-works things.

okay, i think that's it for tonight, time to hit the hay and cross my fingers the kids sleep till at least 7:30am so i'm not walking into walls from the get-go tomorrow. anything less than 6 hours of sleep and i just want to crawl into a hole these days.

here's the list starting after the new year, so i don't forget. because if i don't write it down that is exactly what i'll manage to do i'm sure. sleep deprivation has not made me a smarter person, that's for sure.

janet
carina
julia
kim
heather
sophie

okay, phew... i feel better now. :)

gosh i feel like a train that's been derailed over here. i managed to get little done this past week unfortunately so now i need to catch up. it's amazing what preparing for hosting a birthday party can do to my schedule (jasper's party was saturday, his actual birthday is tomorrow -- my goofy boy is 4 years old!). problem being i do most of my work in the kitchen and dining room and those are pretty important areas to have clean and usable for a party! ...and then dh's side of the family didn't end up making the trek up due to potentially bad weather for the drive back, so it was just my parents who ended up coming. all that prep, stress, money on cake and enough food to feed at least 15 people, and so on... such a waste of effort!

anyway, enough ranting about that sore topic, onto custom updates:

working on now:
kayleigh's shirt - dyeing done, painting jolly roger in flag on babydoll top
-- painting tonight or tomorrow, shipping next week
carmela - pear shirt and matching yarn
-- re-batiking shirt tomorrow (next size up, smaller pear, lighter green), then need to dye shirt and yarn, paint shirt
sarah - 2 blue/black jolly roger shirts, first color dyed
-- batiking tomorrow! dyeing this week
andrea - car (or treeforg or lizard) shirt and coordinating yarn
-- car design chosen, yarn tbd, need to work out size, style, colors this week

and also working on some goodies for the january spotted box ;)

and after that:
terra - contacting this week to work out details
alison - contacting this week to work out details
jennifer - fairy or butterfly shirt (tbd) - contacting this week to work out details
steph - yarn tbd
debi - swap yarn tbd
melanie - custom shirt(s) - passing?

just a little spam for a sad cause -- there are a bunch of charity auctions taking place beginning december 7th at 8pm eastern at http://hyenacart.com/something/ to benefit a family that just lost their 3 young children to a tragic fire in their home. i batiked a shirt, and then decided i wanted to do more so also dyed 7oz of yarn to coordinate, and am offering the set up with the 100% of the proceeds being donated. there are tons of other custom and semi-custom slots for just about everything... woolies, toys, diapers, soaps, bags, banners, and so on... please c'mon out and help us give the family one less thing to worry about in their time of mourning this gutwrenching loss.

pretty pictures, as promised. :) they always look very washed out to me in the blog, but if you click on the photos you can view larger, more true-to-color/saturation versions.

"beach pebbles" on peace fleece worsted (for michelle)


"berry blast with a slice of lemon" on BFL aran (for leanne)


"neapolitan" on peruvian fingering (for liz)

a custom update! (i know you're so thrilled you can hardly contain your excitement)
pretty pictures coming tomorrow if the yarn all dries :)

in progress:
michelle's custom yarn - beach pebbles on peace fleece
-- drying! shipping this coming week
dye leanne's yarn - berry blast with a slice of lemon, 7-8oz bfl
-- drying! shipping this coming week
liz - neopolitan sock yarn
-- drying! will bring to mmg wednesday evening
kayleigh's shirt - dyeing done, painting jolly roger in flag on babydoll top
-- painting this weekend, shipping next week
carmela - pear shirt and matching yarn
-- shirt is batiked, need to dye shirt and yarn, paint shirt
andrea - shirt (car? otherwise lizard or treefrog) and yarn tbd
-- sent design ideas for shirt!

and after that:
melanie - custom shirt(s) - passing?
sarah - 2 blue/black jolly roger shirts, first color dyed
terra - contacting this week to work out details
alison - contacting this week to work out details
jennifer - fairy or butterfly shirt (tbd) - contacting this week to work out details
steph - yarn tbd
debi - swap yarn tbd

just because i'm so proud of the selection of stuff we're stocking today at the leaf shoppe, here's a pretty preview of about half the goodies. :) not all of them are mine (obviously).