Happy birthday to me!

Yesterday I turned 27. This was waiting for me in the dining room after I dropped the kids off at school.

One might describe Matthew's giftwrapping style as imaginative.....






Chocolate, fiction, and YES! The complete 24 volumes of The Family Creative Workshop published in 1974. These books have EVERYTHING! Origami, brewing, tatting, canning, papermaking, gardening, printing, beading, beachcombing, astronomy....not to mention the BEST retro photos and illustrations! My favorite part so far is the index book where there are dozens of reference charts like metric conversion tables, stain removal per fabric type charts, natural dyebath recipies and compatable materials (just what I'm looking for)!

Thanks sweetie!

apples and chilli

Every fall we take the kids up to Minneapolis to visit Josh, Mary, and Gabrielle (Matthew's brother and his fam). I love spending time with them in their beautiful home. Gabrielle and Mara are only 3 weeks apart in age, they're buddies. Plus I just like the city. But as a bonus, we always drive up the weekend that they host the Annual Apple Picking and Chili Dump.

You may be wondering what a chili dump is. Well, Josh spends the afternoon after we get back from the apple farm baking cornbread. Then around 5pm or so, guest start arriving. With them, they have a container of homemade vegetarian chili. Each of the containers are emptied into a huge pot on the stove. We eat. Then more of J&M's charming friends roll up on their bikes and empty their containers into the pot. We eat some more. The chili gets awesomer and awesomer. Then Jeff shows up and I am thankful that the children have already eaten because the chili is always too spicy after he dumps. The backyard fire is lit, the barrel is emptied, conversations get nostalgic, good times ensue.

Anyways, here are some of this year's pictures from the farm.

mara my model

Mara was a good girl last week. She worked very hard to follow my directions while modeling my new children's clothes. I now owe her some My Little Ponies. More pictures here.

Thank you Chicago!

Renegade was a blast! The weather was great, the people were awesome, my booth looked spiffy, I sold as much as I hoped to without selling out too early, the credit machine worked, I got out lots of business cards, and my booth-mate Stephanie was a great helper (and sold lots of her jewelry too!)

Back at home, the husband cleaned a bit, Makai made peace with the bottle, and no one really missed me.

Jeeze, I've been worrying about all those things for weeks, now I can finally catch up on rest.....ahhhh.

Well I just want to dye.

Bill Murray in The Royal Tenenbaums says that line before he woefully takes a timid bite off a cookie after Gwyneth Paltrow's character dumps him. I love that.

Anyways, I'm dying a lot of old sheets and such for my fall collection. How else do I exclusively use recycled materials while still being able to offer multiples in each design? It's been fun. I'm mixing dyes, overdying, twisting and tying.

I'm using rit dye right now. But it's really important to me to continue on and further my mission of environmental and self -sustainability. So I'm really very interested in natural plant dyes. I am determined to learn and switch by the end of the year. So if anyone knows of any resources, please share!