I couldn’t shake it, so I gave in, started a couple of dye baths in the basement, and let the fabric soak while I printed the postage and got the packages safely delivered to the mailbox.

It’s nice to have a box of dye supplies in the basement for urges such as this.  I used Dharma Trading Company procion dyes in China Red and Royal Blue.  I’d have preferred a darker blue, but I went ahead with the royal blue in the interest of instant gratification.

The napkins soaked for their allotted time, I wrung them out, ran them through the washing machine and dryer, and soon enough, these stained napkins:

got this new lease on life:

So.  There’s a lot less white in my everyday napkins now, and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that.  I kind of liked the white.  On the plus side, the stains are gone, and I won’t be embarrassed to put these out for guests.

The whole collection now:

If my sewing machine hadn’t been put away, I’d have also sewn a few new ones out of those extra fat quarters in the background.  I may still.

I wish this little exercise had made me want the striped fabric a little less, but no such luck.  The nice ladies at Fat Quarter Shop are sending me a small sample of the Panier de Fleurs woven so I can decide if the weight is something I’d like to see in a napkin.  I’m thinking, if I like it, I’ll pass on the expensive fat quarter bundle I was originally drooling over, and just get a few 1/2-yards of the most interesting stripes.  I can fill out the rest of the set with thrift shop and eBay finds.  I’ve already gotten a head start on that today in fact.

If I do end up doing a new stripey napkin set, I can relegate this over-dyed collection to party duty.  They actually coordinate really, really well with my primary-color party plates and cups.  That would be the perfect use for them.

(Uh oh. It really sounds like I’m talking myself into making a new set of napkins, doesn’t it?)

As you may know, we’ve been using cloth napkins around here since 2007.  I’ve gone a little loopy over them from time to time (the evidence can be found here, if you need some convincing).  I have an everyday set, and three seasonal sets of 20-25 coordinating prints each, and I change them out in January, May, September, and December.

I have been very happy with this setup.  Sure, all of those coordinating fat quarters were a little pricey when I first bought them. But most of these sets have been serving us well for four to five years, and are still going strong.  I’d rather not do the math (I like to avoid rude awakenings wherever possible) but I do feel some optimism that the benefits have outweighed the costs at this point.  Plus if we keep using the same four sets for the foreseeable future, the savings will just continue to grow.

So why bring this up now?

A few reasons, actually.  For one thing, there’s the state of my everyday napkins.  They get used the most out of all of the sets, and they are showing signs of wear.  I sorted through them today and discovered that of the original 25:

• four have gone missing – can’t find them anywhere
• twelve had visible stains
• nine are fine

(12 stained napkins)

(9 napkins still in nice shape)

(a few extra fat quarters)

Technically, I can deal with the missing ones by making some more. I have extra fabric from that collection.

And I’ve been thinking (for nearly a year now) that I could deal with the stained ones by over-dying them in navy blue and/or red.

So, problem solved, right?

Sure.  Sure, it would be, if I didn’t know about this  (“this” being French General’s Panier de Fleurs collection). I’m in love with the stripes, in particular, and the fact that there is blue in this collection.  Most of the French General fabric I have seen in the past has appealed to me, but it’s been all reds.  Red looks nice in my kitchen, but blue is really what belongs in there.  So now that there’s one of these collections with navy blue stripes? Swoon!

I have started daydreaming again about kitchen improvement.   About navy, cream, and red striped napkins alongside dark blue stoneware bowls.  About new curtains, new seat cushions, and a new apron.

Our kitchen has gone largely unchanged since we moved here 14 years ago.  The more I think about it, the more I want to splurge on that fabric, make some new napkins, rip down the old white+navy wallpaper, paint the kitchen navy blue, pull up the old white linoleum floor, put down some stone tile, or wood, replace the cabinets, get a new counter top…

The price tag on the striped fat quarters is hard enough to swallow on its own, but factor in the chain reaction of home improvement that could follow? Probably best to let this one go.  But, oh! the wanties are strong with this one.  Really really strong.

*sigh*  Think I’m going to try the over-dying thing on the old napkins.  I’m sure it will breathe new life into these designs.  It’s a shame that no amount of dye could make watercolor flowers and teapots look like vintagey stripes, though…

Darn you, French General, and your old-fashioned, European countryside charm!

It was Tie Dye Day at the kids’ school on Friday, and I thought they could use some new threads.  Their only other tie dye was t-shirts we made together four years ago (we made them big and they still fit!)  Not to be left out of the fun, I made one for myself, too.

Thursday morning, we all picked our own colors (fiber-reactive procion dyes from my Dharma stash):

• Aidan: China Red + Avocado
• Eamonn: Chartreuse + Cayman Isle Green + Royal Blue
• Me: Chartreuse + Cayman Isle Green + Dark Brown

And while the kids were at school, I did the tying, and then the dying.

I let them soak until the kids got home, at which point Aidan and I removed the rubber bands and sent them through the wash.

I love the way they came out – so vibrant!  I tried to repeat the same pattern on all three shirts – I just love the look of those bullseyes.

The only problem with tie dye, is that after you’ve had a successful batch, you want to dye everything in sight.  Anyone in this house that likes solid colors (read: Neil) had better lock up his wardrobe…

I discovered last year that I really liked cotton lawn fabric for summer – it’s so lightweight and breathable.  The only problem is that it’s hard to find inexpensively.  Enter Dharma Trading Company and their nice selection of unprinted fabrics.   Plain white cotton lawn can be had for a fraction of the cost of the printed varieties, plus you have the extra fun of embellishing it with your own designs.

One look I enjoy is the “ombré” look, which essentially involves a gradation of color from top to bottom.  Often you see it with a dark color at the hem, fading upwards to white.

I recently sewed and dyed a Summer top for myself, and while it didn’t come out exactly as planned, I’ve decided that’s more a result of the color I chose, than of the process itself.  Would you like to make a Breezy Ombré Tank for yourself?  Read on…

Tools and Materials

• 2 yards of Cotton Lawn Fabric
• Cotton Thread
• Sewing Machine
• Bucket
• Water
• Soda Ash Fixer
• Calsolene Oil
• Non-Iodized Salt
• Procion Fiber Reactive Dye (I used Cayman Isle Green #108)
• Big Stick for stirring
• Disposable Plastic Cup and Spoon (keep them in your dye kit, and they can be re-used)
• Rubber Gloves
• Washing Machine
• Professional Textile Detergent

Directions

Sewing the Shirt

You can either use a pattern you already own, trace a favorite tank top to make your own pattern (as I did) or follow an online tutorial (this is a nice, easy one from Belle Epoch).

If you are not up to sewing your own clothes, you can skip this part and buy a shirt pre-made.  Dharma has a lot of clothing blanks to choose from, or you can dye up a white shirt you already own – it’s a great way to give new life to something that may have gotten a bit dingy over time.

Preparing the Dye Bath

Add 1 ½ gallons of warm water to the bucket.  Stir in 1 ½ cups Salt, 1/6 cup Soda Ash Fixer, and 1 teaspoon Calsolene Oil, and continue stirring until everything is dissolved.

Put on the rubber gloves.  Any dye you splash onto your skin or your clothes will stain.  Just ask my poor bespeckled feet.

Place about a tablespoon of dye in the plastic cup.  Add warm water gradually, stirring with the plastic spoon until all dye is dissolved.  Pour dye mixture into the bucket and mix well.

I had several cups and buckets prepared, because I like to have a lot of little projects going at once.  This time around, in addition to the tank for this project, I did a prototype tank which I only wear to bed because the fit isn’t perfect, two white t-shirts that had started to look a bit yellowed, and just for kicks – a handful of the husband’s tighty whities that had seen better days.

Dying the Shirt

You may want the top of your shirt to be pure white.  I would have liked that, too, except I’d worn my new cotton lawn shirt – in it’s undyed state – out a few times and had managed to leave a couple of small stains on the front of it.  I needed to dye over them.  If you need to dye the top of your shirt, too, submerge the entire shirt in the dye bath for five minutes, stirring occasionally. Pick it up, and wring the excess dye out of it.  If you want the top of your shirt to be pure white, don’t put it in the dye bath, but do get it wet and wring it out well.

Hold the wet shirt over the bucket of dye, and lower it evenly down until all but 4 or 5 inches is submerged.  Lean the rest of the shirt on the edge of the bucket.  Take the time to spread out the shirt, minimizing folds.  Gently stir the part that is under water to make sure it is being evenly coated.

Repeat the process every five minutes or so, each time leaving less of the shirt submerged, until you run out of material to dye.

Washing and Wearing

Remove the shirt from the bucket, spread it out on the ground and rinse thoroughly with a garden hose.  If you are doing this project indoors, just run the shirt under the faucet until the water begins to run clear.  Wring the shirt out completely, and toss in the washing machine.

Wash with Professional Textile Detergent according to the bottle directions.  Dry.   Wear and enjoy!

Notes

I am very imprecise about dyeing.  I often eyeball my measurements, and am sloppy about making sure the dye is entirely dissolved.  I go into the process with a direction and an open mind, and usually I am pleased with the results, even if they are not entirely what I planned.

In this case, my ombré tank was not as dramatic as I’d hoped.  I can see now that this technique needs a much darker shade to really shine.  The t-shirts that I did in purple and red, for instance, really showed off the effect.

The other thing I noticed about the color I chose is that it appears bluer near the top and yellower near the bottom, as if the yellow component of the dye doesn’t really “stick” until the material has been submerged for some time.

Also, there is something to be said for precision with this technique.  If I’d had the inclination to rustle up the supplies, I’d have rigged up a system I thought up, involving string, masking tape, and a big stick that would have allowed for a more controlled distribution of the dye (and likely eliminated that “dipping” effect that is so pronounced on the red tee).  I’m ok with loosey-goosey this time around, but if I decide to give this other idea a try, I’ll be sure to post an update.

I should mention, some of the other items I did had little splotches on them where the fabric had come into contact with undissolved dye particles.  I need to be more careful about that, because in general, I’m not crazy about little splotches.

So, while not exactly what I imagined, I still like the way my new tank looks, and it’s definitely the perfect weight for the 90-degree days we’ve been having here lately.  Bring on Summer!

So, I bought the other two skeins and finished the shawl.  But not before I ripped out the original and found a new pattern to try.  I thought that the openwork would stretch my yarn supply out a bit.  As it turns out, the bulky stitch makes up for the open areas, and it still took four skeins to finish the job.  Live and learn, eh?

I like it, although I haven’t decided if I like it $50-worth.  I would prefer it to go further down my back, so I’m considering taking it apart and re-doing it in a different shape.  It’s also got some pretty visible mistakes, but I’m thinking that if I live with it for a while before I do anything, they may be harder to see.

It seems I get less critical of a piece the more distance I put between the construction of it and the wearing of it.

I love this stitch – it’s unlike anything I’ve seen before.  According to Denise Layman, who wrote the pattern, the instructions for the stitch accompanied an antique knitting loom (125+ years old) that she scored on eBay.  Neat.

I should mention, I didn’t do the stitch exactly as written.  My Malabrigo Aquarella was much bulkier than the worsted called for, and so I adapted my process to make up for that.  It looks like my adaptation probably caused the finished shawl to be smaller than it was supposed to be.

I was a multi-crafty maniac yesterday, because not only did I finish the knitting, I also finished sewing this shirt.  It’s the ubiquitous Simplicity 3835, but this time I used the sleeves from View B.  Rumor has it fall has arrived, so the little extra material on my arms will be appreciated.

I used plain white combed cotton lawn on this shirt and then tub-dyed it this olive green.  I liked the white, but it was a bit on the sheer side.  I planned to dye it Sea Foam, but then I added a little bit of Chartreuse.  After that it seemed to need some Royal Blue.  Then a touch of New Black.  And a bit more Chartreuse.

In every other artistic endeavor of mine, I am exactingly precise about color.  But when I’m swirling shirts around in a bucket of dye, I’m like a mad scientist.  <Insert maniacal laughter>

Next on my work table? Christmas ornaments.  They’re back.  And I’ll tell you all about it next week.

Back in college, I thought it would be fun to dye my hair purple.  And for the last six years, I’ve been entertaining thoughts of  cherry red chunks of color – one on each side of my part.  Both fun and artsy ideas, that I have never had the guts to try.  So, here I am, on the cusp of a new hair cut, knowing that before the summer is over (maybe even before the week is over) I’ll be cutting off approximately ten inches of hair and going back to a chin-length style.  Why not have a last little bit of fun with the long hair?

I took my nine-year-old with me to the drug store to pick out some dye last night, and told him that if he wanted a little fluff of color in the front of his hair, I wouldn’t mind.  He was game, and we spent the next ten minutes debating the merits of blue over purple and green over red.

I got talked into green.

And it’s not so much “chunks” as it is wild strands of varying intesities of green & strawberry blonde.  Not exactly what I was going for, but fun nonetheless.

I don’t think I left the dye in long enough.  Either that, or I just didn’t saturate the hair enough with it.  While I like the chartreusey color I ended up with, it kind of reminds me of a blond dye job gone horribly wrong.  That’s why, as I type, I have more green glop atop my head.

Before I go in for a hair cut, I may just add a little blue to the mix.

This is as much fun as tub-dying my t-shirts

I wonder what I’ll look like tomorrow?

[edited to say, this is what I look like tomorrow.  Definitely appears more intentional now.]

That left me feeling distinctly dissatisfied, naturally, and instead of putting away the sewing machine, as had been the original plan, I went to work making something I could actually wear.  First up was this dress, from the ubiquitous Simplicity 3835 pattern.  I’d never made either of the dress views before, and strictly speaking, I still haven’t…

This is essentially the view C shirt that I have made so often I can do it in my sleep, lengthened to view B (minidress) length.  I didn’t do any of the other view B things, like make the sleeves longer, or add a zipper & darts at the back.

I still don’t know if I like it.  I’m conflicted about the length, which was definitely too short for a 45-degree Easter Sunday, but may be ok for a 90-degree casual afternoon in the back yard.  It might also do well as a tunic over jeans. I made it from a thrifted full-size sheet, so the good news (besides that fact that it was super cheap) was that there was enough of the sheet left to try again, this time in the longer view A length.

Again, I didn’t do any of the fancy zipper-related stuff. This version definitely makes me happier than the first.  The length is more “casual carefree summer” and less “be careful who you might be flashing.”

I didn’t need two green dresses, though, and in the longer length, that lime was a bit MUCH, so I dyed it brown.  I suspect the polyester content of the thrifted sheet made the dye less vibrant in the end, but that’s exactly what I was hoping for.  I wanted some of the green to come through.  I like this one. I may even wear it sometime! Heh.

Well, as long as I had the sewing machine out, and still didn’t really have anything I felt like wearing on a daily basis, I made myself another white shirt. This time it’s not bamboo, but a nice linen cotton blend that I have experience with – I know can throw it carelessly in the wash and have it come back out in one piece.  And I need that because, let’s face it, “carelessly” is really the only way I know how to do laundry. I don’t plan to dye it.  At least, not until the first spaghetti sauce or coffee stain lands on it.  By my calculations, that will be roughly next week.

The necklace I’m wearing there is one that I’ve had in my head for a few years, and finally managed to get out when I came across the right chain for it.  The chain is silver-plated, and the beads are foil-lined glass.  The clay beads are essentially double-sided buttons with the holes drilled at the edges instead of in the center.  I’m glad I went with a light aqua edging on these instead of something dark.  I think it works well with the silver, and will look pretty up against this formerly white t-shirt that I dyed a soft aqua this week.

(Would there be any interest in me making more of these necklaces? Perhaps for the shop for Mother’s Day gifts?)

One last thing, and then I’ll let you move on to somebody else’s blog for a while.  I used some of the scraps from the necklace-making activity to put together a few sample pairs of copper earrings, and two tiles for pendants.  I bought a small pile of copper findings last week that I’m really looking forward to playing with.  I think copper is an excellent companion to my Swamp color scheme, and I should be able to make some bracelets & pendant necklaces in addition to the earrings, given the time.

(Any interest in seeing some copper items in the shop, too?  Lots more ear wires where those came from.)

I’ll be away this weekend, but I hope to check in from the road and yap gleefully about the class while it’s fresh in my mind. Now I’m off to pack up my clothes & my clay supplies, and get into a mokume gane state of mind.  Have a great weekend!

I’ve had this post planned for oh, two or three weeks.  I was going to show you this luscious bamboo fabric, the two fabulous shirts I sewed from it, and the magical transformation that came over them when I stirred them around in a few buckets of dye.

There were a few glitches along the way, but I’m going to share the story anyway, because I’m nothing if not stubborn

It started, as many of these dye-bath adventures do, with a virtual trip to Dharma Trading Company, wherein I purchased two yards of 57″ Bamboo Dobby fabric.  (I also bought some yarn and a little book of fabric swatches in case I felt like someday experimenting with another kind of unusual fabric.)  Bamboo dobby is dreamy.  It drapes beautifully, has superior moisture-wicking properties, and is pleasant to sew with.  My two yards were clamoring to become two summer shirts.  And so they did:

I very much loved the one on the left.  Let me get sidetracked for a moment here and tell you about this pattern.  This is the ubiquitous Simplicity 3835 Built by Wendy top that is all over the internet.  I’ve made a good many of them myself in the last two years.  The thing is, when I bought my pattern two summers ago, I was brand new to sewing and I bought the size that was entirely too small for me.  I modified that pattern to make it fit, but it always seemed to have issues of one kind of another.  I finally splurged and bought myself another copy of the pattern in the correct size, and wouldn’t you know, this first try fit me right out of the gate.  I didn’t have to futz with the pattern one iota.  So nice.  Can’t wait to make more!

Anyway, moving on…  The shirt on the right was a modification of the Summer Blouse from Weekend Sewing.  And oh, what a bad modification it is.  The V in front ended up being entirely too deep for my taste (I actually pulled it up a little for the photo), and I just didn’t like the way it looked.  My hope was that dying it dark would make me love it more.

This morning I assembled the two newly-sewn shirts, and two “slub tees” from Target that I thought would be perfect for this.  I tried various experiments with these, since, for me, that’s where the fun of dying is:

1. The first shirt bathed for 30 minutes in chartreuse, then I wrung it out, put a few rubber bands around the middle portion, and placed the bottom half in a royal blue bucket for 5 minutes.  Then I wrung it out again, put another rubber band below the first two, and left the bottom third of the shirt in a dark avocado bucket for 5 minutes.
2. Shirt number two bathed for 30 minutes in royal blue.  Then I wrung it out, crumpled it up in a tiny ball, secured it with a rubber band, and left it in the dark avocado bath for 10 minutes.
3. The third shirt spent 30 minutes in chartreuse, then I wrung it out, tied it in a big knot around the middle, and left it in royal blue for 10 minutes.
4. The last one spent 35 minutes in dark avocado, and 5 minutes in chartreuse.

After following the dye manufacturer’s washing instructions, these are the four shirts I ended up with.  I really love the way the two t-shirts in the back came out, especially the dark one, which I happen to be wearing right now.  So, yay, Target tees!  The shirt with the v-neck doesn’t really look any better with the dye than it did without, so I think that one is still destined for the junk pile.

The Simplicity top?  I love it, I really do.  Except for a few things:

• It seems to have shrunk, despite the fact that I pre-washed the fabric before I sewed with it.
• I’m not too crazy about the placement of the dye pattern.  It seems a little “off” to me.
• Worst of all, though, the !@#$%^&* bamboo frayed so much it pulled apart at least four of my seams!!  I’m not sure I can salvage it.  This photo op may be the last time I ever get to wear this shirt.  Poop.

So, what went wrong?  In researching bamboo online a bit this afternoon, I came up with two theories.  Either I should have pre-washed the fabric multiple times to get all of the shrinking potential out of it, or I should have ignored the dye manufacturer’s instruction to wash the finished shirts in HOT water.

If anyone has any wisdom pertaining to the successful sewing with and dying of bamboo dobby fabric, please leave a comment.  I don’t want to give up on this material.  I love the sustainability of bamboo, but even more, I love the way it drapes.

In the meantime, I’m going to see if I can fix this messed up shirt (the royal blue one got messed-up in the same way, but I don’t really like it enough to bother fixing it).

I also have an idea for a bamboo experiment that might answer all of my questions, if I’m patient enough.  Big if, though

Sarah forwarded a link to me this morning for a Martha Stewart “Easy Batik” project. I’ve always really loved the look of batik, but have never considered trying it myself – entirely too complicated. But Martha’s project looked very very simple. The only thing I found wrong with it was the fact that it didn’t have the batik “look” that I like. You know, the variegated, layered colors, with the motif appearing in lighter versions of those colors?

I was pretty sure I could get that look by combining Martha’s technique with my own tub-dying one. So I just went for it, and I have to say, I’m quite pleased with the results. Here’s a bit of an overview, in case you’d like to try it yourself. Just keep in mind that I am about as un-fussy as it gets with this kind of thing. When I set up a couple of dye baths in the back yard, I never know what I’m going to get out of them, and that is half the fun!

So, we started out with nine plain bandanas, and a couple yards of plain linen I had laying around. We then picked three colors of fiber-reactive dye that I also had laying around:

• Chartreuse
• Blue Violet
• Dark Brown

As it turned out, that pretty much translated into yellow, purple & rust, but that’s ok. Like I said, it’s all part of the fun.

We swirled our fabrics around in the various buckets, sometimes taking them out of one, and dumping them in another at whim. Sometimes, we’d twist them up before putting them in a new bath, so that we’d have bits of both colors showing. We followed the major steps of a traditional tub-dying method, but without worrying about any of the precision, the timing, or whether we were contaminating one bucket with another’s color.

When we were happy with our swirls of color, we (actually, I’m going to stop saying “we” here because, realistically, all the boys did was choose one of the colors, try on some rubber gloves, stir a bucket once or twice, and squirt a bit of bleach here and there. I did the rest while they played Ultraman nearby.) Ok, so when I was happy with how everything looked, I wrung the dye out of the fabrics as best as I could, and laid them out on the ground.

And then, because I’m entirely too impatient to wait for the fabrics to be washed and dryed, I just picked up the bleach pen and started squirting out a few designs while everything was still wet. Looking at my big piece of linen, I saw Fall colors, and decided that the images on it needed to be leaves. I’m not a particularly talented drawer, but I can scribble ok, so I scribbled some oak leaves and a few others to fill in the empty spaces. The boys were much more abstract with their designs.

After the bleach did it’s job, I rinsed it off of the fabrics with the hose. A few of the designs, including the linen, I put back in one of the tubs, just to give the motifs I’d drawn a tinge of a different color.

One cycle through the washer & dryer later, I had a nice stack of purple & gold linens to play with. I’m not sure what will become of the bandanas. I’d have made the boys shorts if any of them looked enough like each other to become a pair. I suspect I’ll just set them aside to use as handkerchiefs for Eamonn, who has a strong (read: meltdown-inducing) preference for hankies over tissues.

The linen became a skirt, after supper tonight. I figured if it was going to be somewhat fall-themed, then it should also be longer than my others and supply some extra warmth for those crisp Pumpkin Latte kind of nights.  I’m very happy with it, and it’s nice that it doesn’t look like my other 32 handmade skirts.

The potential of this technique has impressed me enough that I have already placed an order for some new dyes and some plain cotton that I can play with. I would like to make something in the aqua/green family (anybody here surprised? No, I thought not.) and I’d like to plan out the design a little more carefully this time instead of just scribbling gigantic leaves all over the place.

Not that there’s anything wrong with gigantic leaves

Meet the cast of characters in today’s story:

1. Ugly Gray Pants came from Target. I bought them this past spring, because a tan pair I had previously purchased fit me so nicely. And frankly, finding a pair of pants that fit me comfortably was more important to me than finding a pair of pants in the perfect color. Unfortunately, I really hated the way the gray looked on me, and the drawstrings at the ankles pretty much sealed their fate to hang useless in the closet.
2. Dingy White Shirt has been featured here before, as a failed tea dying experiment. I thought it could use some new life.
3. Green Bamboo Shirt has also been seen here recently. I knew the day I made it that I wanted it to be a darker color.

Yesterday morning I was down one child (Eamonn had his first solo sleepover at Grandma’s house) and feeling like doing something outside. Aidan did too, so he installed himself at the patio table with some markers and paper, and got to work drawing some games for us to play. Meanwhile, I set up two buckets of dye with colors in the approximate following proportions:

• Royal Blue + Black + 1/2 Red
• Dark Brown + 1/2 Black

I threw in my three misfit characters (and also a pair of underpants for each of the kids just for fun) and spent the next hour or so stirring and mixing, and stirring some more, until everything was ready to come out of the buckets.

I never fail to be amazed at the vibrancy of these dyes. The clothes emerged from the baths so rich, and dark. Some of that color was lost in the wash, but I think that may have had something to do with the fact that I didn’t have enough salt in the baths, nor did I use non-iodized salt as required.

Nevertheless, I’m still quite pleased with the results. Allow me to present our transformed cast (I’m noticing that this photo is slightly darker than the clothes are in real life, by the way):

1. Grayish Purpleish Blue Pants, which make me so happy because they are close to the color of a pair I tried to get at Target this summer, but couldn’t find in my size. I’ve cropped them and eliminated the drawstring debacle altogether.
2. Grayish Purpleish Blue Shirt, which is still just a pajama top, given the (poor) way in which it has always fit me, but it’s no longer dingy. And that’s nice.
3. Brown Bamboo Shirt is definitely a better color for me than it was before. I’d like to go even darker, and perhaps I will when I buy more salt! Closer look here.

And now I am going to spend the rest of the day in my lovely “new” pants (I spent yesterday afternoon in the lovely “new” bamboo shirt) and see if I can’t talk myself into cleaning something, or answering some email, or one of the myriad tasks I haven’t been able to find time for this week…