Holly Blog

My Favorite Things...3

When yearning for Paris, I dress the kitties up in their favorite berets & bake catnip scented Madeleines...

So now that you have a bit of back story on who & where we are, I will fast forward to Quilt Market in Salt Lake City...It may be that by now the Yo-Yo Lamps are old news...Marvelous Megan (aka M2...those of you who followed the DayZ Dozen Blog Hop know her as the "the woman who wears a lot of hats") has told me that word has come back to her is that people have already mentioned these lamps in chat rooms and such online...I haven't actually been into any of these chat rooms, but M2 is well versed in this sort of thing and has LOTS of quilting buddies all over the US.  BTW, If any of you have any good pictures of the lamps (or any from our SLC booth for that matter) please, please, please, let us know about them, as it turns out I have a very shaky hand that produces mostly lousy pictures...

A close up of the Yo-Yo Lamps at our booth...

Sometimes out of desperation comes inspiration...Oh, and that's Sweet Brenda's fabulous quilt in the back right of this photo...

About me and Yo-Yo's...some people collect shoes...think Imelda, some people collect belly button lint...eeeww - think Joey Butafucco, I collect a lot of flea market stuff...ceramics, old metal stuff, old wooden stuff, old graphics...(I love old typography!)...lots of old fabrics, ric rac, buttons, quilts and quilt scraps, and bingo you guessed it...Yo-Yo's!

M2 sent me a link to Heather's Yo-Yo blog a few months back (I must confess that until then I had never even heard of Heather)...it reminded me of how much I love Yo-Yo's and how fun they could be in our booth at SLC.  I started fantasizing about how we could use them... Shortly after that I was introduced to Eva Gines (isn't she gorgeous? see photo below) at Clover Needlecraft. It turns out that they had a new tool that made Yo-Yo's easy and much faster to make.  We quickly made plans to have a small fund raiser with our local Warwick Valley Quilters Guild to give the tool a test run (verdict:  they loved it!) and also make a lot of Yo-Yo's for our SLC booth displays...

Eva & Jasmine Rios from Clover...who knew that we had Hawaiian Tropic Girls working in the quilt industry?

I have to admit, turning Yo-Yo's into lamp-fill was NOT my first inclination...
Just about every other idea I came up with a) took way more Yo-Yo's than we had time to make, and b) was so sourcing & labor intensive that I doubted I could pull the whole thing off in time for May market.  Paton was just recovering from his broken leg (& related DVT blood clot scare), so I would have had to jury-rig the whole thing on my own. (He's a whiz with power tools, while I seem to be only good at getting injured...)  I won't list my other Yo-Yo ideas...as I may still use them for another show...why ruin the surprise, right?

So here's the scoop on our Yo-Yo Lamps: 
1  Two "On Sale" Pottery Barn lamps purchased a couple of years ago for my old office in Manhattan...These hand-blown lamps had no base, so filling them with Yo-Yo's was pretty easy.  If memory serves, Target currently carries something similar to this.
2  Two Large Eight-Sided Shades from Target purchased just before the May show.
3  Two "Shade Slipcovers" in LakeHouse's new La Belle Rose Collection fabrics made by M2...the faceted sides of the shades made this really easy to do...Hint: the seams are straight, because fabric is so forgiving!
4  Twenty Four Yo-Yo's for each shade, hand tacked onto the slipcovers at market by our "Queen of Tote Bags"  Penny Sturges, and "Patchwork Maven" Martha Hall.  Tack one at each seam first, then center two in each facet after that.
5  Approx 400 Yo-Yo's to fill the lamps...Note:  those lamps are bigger than most...probably why they were on sale!

So this brings us to a natural conclusion for today...There are still lots of great people, their stories and many more fun things to show and tell about from the SLC show...I hosted several dinners with (IMHO) some of the industry's most fascinating personalities.  Can't wait to tell you more.

Back in two shakes...H2

My Favorite Things...2

"The Boulders"...aka LakeHouse HQ

I thought I'd give you a quick peek of the "LakeHouse" so that you have some context...for how we are situated here.

The Boulders, aka the "LakeHouse" is actually quite a saga, (as are so many of the projects that I have blithely taken on in my adult life).  Rather than attempt to tell you all about it in one or two big gulps, I'll parse out bits of about the LH intermixed with several topical story lines so that I am not still promising to to tell you about the Salt Lake City booth & show three months from now.

A view from the front gate...circa 1936

My studio (far left window on the first floor in the photo above) is currently located in the main house, since none of the charming little wooden cottages on the property are winterized.  This house was designed by noted architect Grosvenor Atterbury and was commissioned by J P Morgan as a gift to the organist of his church. Naturally, with this sort of pedigree, the house is on the National Register of Historic Places ...but before you think gold plated faucets and crystal chandeliers, bear in mind that this house does not have the grandeur of what one of JP's personal residences would have had back in 1912...remember this house was a gift.

Eight years ago, Paton (my significant other) found this place in one of those real estate magazines at the exit door of the local grocery store, and like the good Scottish Canadian (think "BraveHeart" with a hockey stick) that he is, fell in love with this rustic old stone house overlooking Greenwood Lake.  He bought the house before I had a chance to save him from himself...But I'll tell you more about the history of the house (like why the beds hung on chains) as well of some of the "house restoration stories" later on...

Back in two shakes...H2

My Favorite Things...

Brown paper packages tied up with string...

In addition to my duties as chief cook & bottle washer at LakeHouse Dry Goods, I am a habitual hunter / gatherer. A lover of good food, laughter, travel, design in it's many permutations...the company of furry friends and kindred spirits...For me, things well done and well said are life affirming and a sort of nourishment for the soul.

This blog will be about many things...my hope is that what makes me happy and inspired will resonate with you too.  While I love the "big picture stuff", like planning a line of fabrics, coordinating quilt patterns and the trade show booths that we display them in, I really thrive on the little details that make things unique.  Topics in coming months that I'll explore will be...Paris window shopping for fun and profit...ephemeral / ephemera...flea markets I love......paint, paper, fabric, scissors...5 kitties and a little deaf dog (named Kitty - go figure!)...more perspiration than inspiration...the devil's in the details...Life at the LakeHouse...

Here's a photo sampling of some of my favorite things...of course those of you who know me, know that Paris is at the top of the list.

What’s not to love about a place where there is a pastry shop on every corner?

Because it's all about the food, right?

Notice the lovely French limestone buildings in the window's reflection above...

The original La Duree' tea and patisserie on the Rue Royale is famous for their macarons (meringue & almond paste cookies) in beautiful pastel colors and a lush variety of divine French desserts.  Every day scores of women (and male companions, too) stop in to savor one of the quintessential Parisian experiences:  indulging one's sweet tooth.  The atmosphere is very "old school"...the ceiling in the first floor tea room is painted with clouds and cherubs...waitresses dressed in crisply pressed black uniforms with white half aprons and little white starched hair ornaments, breeze back and forth carrying silver trays...and the world slows down to a delightful pace, as you sip the richest hot chocolate on the planet...

Aren't the colors of the pastry beautiful and unusual?

Something about Paris makes everything more enticing to me....talk about a grand entrance.  Have you ever seen a more inviting button store?  I love the typically Parisian lacquered entry way...Located in the Marais, Paris Boutons sells Liberty fabrics, scads of ribbons, oodles of buttons, and lots of hip sewing and patchwork projects displayed throughout the store.  The shop girls are hip and helpful too.

While taking a few days off in Marin County with my old design school buddy Ric, after the recent Salt Lake City Quilt Market,  it turns out that pictures from our SLCQM booth ...(thanks Pam!) were already posted...So I guess there's a pretty high “been there, done that” hurdle to get over at this point...but I'll put up some of my photos anyway...I’ll also walk you through some of my design development, not only the booth, but the La Belle Rose Collection that we introduced at the show as well...

So why don’t I “start at the very beginning...a very good place to start”  (can you hear Julie Andrews singing in the background?) I digress...As mentioned in Gina's blog a couple weeks back, Paris is the best city I know of for rose garden inspiration...I always start with a story board in my office...of all the little things that remind me of the collection I am working on...Between the photos, a few knick knacks and the packaging (I absolutely L-O-V-E French packaging!) the shopping bags, ribbons, little hang tags, etc...I can re-create a trip to Paris very quickly back home.

FYI, If you can’t afford the time away, there are lots of atmospheric films set in Paris, and all good video rental services have catalogues to help you choose a film by title, topic, or even by a favorite actor.  I highly recommend this!

Since I am passionate about the gardens of Paris, I always knew that one day I would do a rose collection...but with so many good rose fabrics already available in our independent quilt shop community...it had to be unique.  Then one day two and a half years ago...(good things come to those who wait and have patience) I saw a really old scrap of rose fabric at a show in New York. 

It looked like a piece from an old French whole cloth quilt...

   
This pattern was one of the main catalysts for the La Belle Rose Collection...

If you look closely on the lower left side, you can see tears where the double row of diagonal hand quilting was removed from (what I think can safely be assumed) was the original quilt.

It was love at first sight...

Lots more soon about the La Belle Rose Collection, the details from our little booth at SLC Quilt Market and miscellaneous other related subjects...Zillions of other design observations, indulgences and eccentricities after that.

Back in two shakes...H2