custom pads

it's been fun making a few customs up. it's quite rewarding in different ways to have a woman who knows exactly what she wants and to have one who's completely new to cloth pads and has given me the opportunity to be their first step on their cloth journey.

i really get quite passionate about what i do. i love the fabrics. i love the adjustability of my pads in length, width, thickness and content to suit each individual's needs. and i love the feedback when someone gets a truly beautiful pad and says they look forward to being able to wear them.

i had an auction for a mermaid mother and baby and was humbled by how well it went. but of course i don't actually think one pad is enough for the amount spent so in the first pic is everything that went for that auction. the second pic shows the actual pad won - so it's my dyed purple BV with the mermaid on the back; the other items included a liner, bag and i tossed in a second i had here too.

the other 3 pads are 2 customs for heavy/night pads - 27cm and 30cm long with hidden PUL.

my hubby calls the purple bv with purple paisley on black the *ultimate goth pad* - smile.

the bamboo print was used with permission of michelle at sustainable hemp products.

hugs

karen

ok so on the dyeing front

ok so my dyeing adventure started when ally and i visited our dear friend the fletchers - we'd finally got our quaterly rates bill so i was happy to know that we used less the average water in our council; i'd asked some questions on reducing water usage on nappycino and also instigated a few more water saving behaviours around our home so i could do some dyeing without guilt.

so the lovely lesley gave me a dyeing demo with some hemp and dye i took over with me - it's the pink one in the picture.

lesley used the directions from a website which she's given me the link to (must find it again - sigh) and it's really quite a simple routine.

the photo is of the smooth side of hemp fleece - the fuzzy side seems much more even.

ok so in the pics from the previous post there's the nappy bucket full of dye - first round. i did that lot by memory instead of reading the instructions so the concentration of the dye ended up being way too low as the bamboo/organic cotton velour came out looking like the purple hemp above. so i called lesley (for the 3rd time that day i think - thanks for your patience and hand holding lesley) and asked if i could go over the top of it. so i did. and this time i read the instructions as well as remembered lesley's demo and the dye mix was much darker (as i wanted) and that's the pics of me at the sink - doing lots of agitating and then showing hubby the colour.

so the BV and greg's fisherman's pants went in first with lots of swirling and time in the soak. then i took them out and put the silk, hemp and a less than white terry square in. so in the pics in the previous post the glossy one on it's own is the BV - it's a bit darker than that as you'll see in the next post with some pads i made out of it. the pic above has greg's pants (darkest), silk scarf (looks pinkish) and the towel nappy (which is rather pale). i don't really know why they all came out different shades but i'll learn with practice i'm sure.

i was surprised how much colour kept coming out with the 2 rinses i did - however i have put some things in our wash and had no problems with dye on other items.

hugs

karen

first dye-ing attempt

will write up later

just wanted to put some pics up

greg wanted one pair of his thai fishermans pants purple and the other black (waiting on the co-op) so i took the opportunity (after a lesson and lots of phone support from my dear friend lesley of cherubskiss fame) to dye a few things.

here's the end result. it's a long story and we're about to watch spooks and do some more padmagicary.

hugs

karen

weekend at the yurt

so we headed off to nimbin saturday morning to visit friends we've met via the online cloth nappy community.

we had a lovely time - set up the tent overlooking all the green mountains about 100m from the yurt

ally had the best time running around with J - mostly chasing chickens, collecting eggs and playing in the sandpit. before an outdoor bath and yummy woodfired pizza for dinner (made in the home made pizza oven).

sunday saw a quick trip to the markets to get hubby some more thai fisherman's pants - we'll dye these ourselves seeing the ones we got in november last year are *still* running in cold water. got some purple for one pair and will get black for the others.

grabbed ally a mango smoothie then headed out to the first garden (nimbin had an open garden weekend) - it was lovely with a flower section, orchard, hardwood plantation for furniture making, herbs, and rainforrest type area. we bought some homemade biscuits and P got some chillies to put in lunch.

headed back to the yurt for a yummy lunch of dahl (me sans chillies) and no knead bread.

then off to the second garden - a fabulous 4 acres plotted into garden rooms which had been on BH&G a couple of years ago. there were some stunning above ground no dig vege patches, a sculpture and flower garden, a japanese garden, musical instrument garden (the man of the house is a composer) - yes that's a piano in the garden, there was a tunned hubaphone (think xylophone made of hubcaps), and some power tools set up as a mini orchestra. the other two pics show ally reaching up to touch this huge drooping flower - T said something about fairies dresses but i don't know if that was descriptive or it's actual name. and the possum is made from corrogated iron. the bathroom had a full window and the privacy was provided by it's own little garden.

after that we said our goodbyes - ally's really bad at goodbyes (just like her mummy) and was pretty upset and tried several tacts to get us to go back. however she was clearly exhausted as she fell asleep at Uki and woke as we entered the driveway about 90mins later.

got home to see my auction was going very high. but didn't notice until late yesterday what it ended at. thankyou to my gorgeous customers for giving my work the validation that you have. i'm so pleased you think my work is worth it (and yes i think it was a bit high so watch this space to see what the wonderful winning bidder will get).

yesterday i also got my sckoon pads from the auction that my BV pad a few posts down was donated too - they are lovely and soft.

have a great one

mermaids galore

last weekends custom mermaids are finished being constructed - i need bury threads, snap, label and package up to post out tomorrow morning on the way to nimbin

the other stash is for a flannel loving friend - i've added a mermaid for fun

more long mermaids up today on ozebaby

hugs

going away

this weekend we are off to nimbin to visit friends living in a yurt - we'll take our camping stuff.

so i've got to finish off the mermaid customs tonight and tomorrow to post saturday.

i've got an auction to run over the weekend of the last mermaid mother and baby in aqua.

plus some custom slots for post partum and heavy/night pads.

more competition coming so i feel the need to let my whole range come back into view before i take my 3 month hiatus.

have a great one

donated pad

http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~obsidian/donatepads/index.html

to help raise fund for shipping of pads

see link for further info

this will be on buyena.com

bamboo velour top

bamboo towelling inner

and gorgeous asian print

thanks

kaz