i am just in love with this shirt and have decided i must make one for dd. maybe one for me, if i could find a shirt style that would both flatter me and not make doing this a big pain. but just lookie, i love when the picture in my head comes out in color so well!

wrapped up a few things in the past week or so, with more to come. here's the stuff that's DONE, or at least mostly except for an overdye on the elephant shirt because my brown came out too red (grrrrrrr). some are customs, and the flamingo pear shirt is instock at All "4" Kids as part of Brandi's awesome crazy 8s birthday celebration! have you seen her new felt food, btw? that stuff rocks!!!

so i'm still slogging through my customs list at a snail's pace it seems. summer has been much busier with stuff than i anticipated (what was i thinking?)... since we haven't been hanging around the house nearly as much as i expected, of course i haven't been around to do nearly as much as i expected. i should probably add a disclaimer that i'm horrible at estimating time in the first place (need to learn to at least double my guesses), so between that and being busy i'm sure people feel like they've been waiting forever! but just look at some of the fun the kids have been having... i'd say it's all worth it. while i'm sorry i've kept people waiting so long for some customs, i have to remember i'm a mom first and keeping my kiddos happy and busy with fun stuff matters a bunch. it's been a good summer, and while i'm looking forward to them both starting preschool in a few weeks (just parttime) and things starting to cool down a bit before too long now, i think i'm really going to miss all the running around for fun in the sun we've been doing lately!

the midwest fiber and folk fest was last weekend in the next town over last weekend and i found my new obsession there -- natural dyes! i took an all-day workshop on saturday and it was a blast. i learned a lot and got to play with yarn -- doesn't get much better. on lunchbreak from the class i also got to meet up with the amazingly talented kim of kimberly r and we talked shop a little bit while walking around and checked out a few of the vendors. then i had to rush back to class -- so much for food or shopping. oh well, it was worth it.

here's a pic of the miniskeins we made in the class. dyes used were from madder root, indigo, bee balm, marigolds, golden margarite, queen anne's lace, and weld. i think that's it, but it was tons. one thing about natural dyes -- if you're gathering and extracting your own dye, it's a labor-intense process. even if you're just using the powdered dye from a commerical source, it's still quite a job. but the results are just beautiful! see for yourself...


and while we're talking yarn, here's a peek of several things planned to stock on august 1st when i'm guesting at lemon tree lane. still working on the yarn for that last one, and still might pull of one more set if i can, but if not it will be these three.

so i didn't get over here to post before i stocked the other day, but these goodies went up at the leaf shoppe and there are still a few things left! ;)

just a peek at stuff that is in the works this week. some is for customs, some is for instock for next wednesday at the leaf shoppe, and some is for my guest stocking at lemon tree lane coming up august 1st.

just wrapped up a custom that had me pretty much shaking in my boots when the customer first floated the idea. she wondered if i could do something with a metamorphosis theme. in batik. plus paint. hmmmm. but i managed it and am pretty darn happy with the results, save for a little paint that went beyond its bounds in a place or two. nothing horrific, just not quite perfect. anyway, without further ado, the pic --

also wrapped up these other custom shirts --







in other words, it's been a pretty good week. now i just need to keep the momentum going and knock out customs for a few other people that have been waiting oh-so-patiently even though i started several weeks ago, before vacation...

i have lots of customs to wrap up. here's a pic of some in-progress shirts, and then there are several more i need to draw and wax up as well. and yarn! i will hopefully get back on the yarn wagon and dye up some pretties soon! i bought some new racks that i think will help out my process and fix some of the bleeding problems i was having on occasion with the old ones... fingers crossed!

and for even prettier pictures, here's thumbnails of the shirts i stocked at the leaf shoppe last night! sort of a low key stocking as i was the only person to get anything up in time... but so it goes.