Holly Blog

My Favorite Things...125...Coffee and Donuts!

I can't believe I am still reliving Quilt Market.  If I didn't have my hands in (just about) everything here at the office, I could have been finished a long time ago.  (And in this little saga, Penny and I haven't even left Portland yet, let alone crossed over the border into Canada.)

VooDoo Donuts is yet another must visit Portland place that I found on roadfood.com...they are without a doubt the best donuts I have had since leaving Sausalito, and they are only a few blocks away from the best coffee I have had in YEARS.  I learned about Stumptown Coffee from the waiter at Mother's (it's what they serve). It's smooth, not too acidic, and it's not over-roasted and burnt-tasting like some coffees we all know...(who shall remain nameless)  Bonus Points:  Stumptown has a mail order coffee business!

Lots more to show and tell my little quilties...

Back in two shakes...H2

My Favorite Things...124...Pretty Purses!

I'm interrupting my little SQM food-fest with some pictures just in from Elizabeth Scott of Late Bloomer fame, with she who we adore Pam Kitty Morning's  "A Little Purse"...made up in some of the fabrics from our new Little Lady collection...If I do say so myself, aren't they adorable?  I just LOVE them!

One of my favorites is "Party Dresses & Dancing Shoes"  shown here in Black below, check out the XOX  fabric used as a lining (kiss hug kiss, get it?)...

I 'm especially fond of the bags made with the focal point "Little Lady" fabric, the circles fit just inside a 1-1/2" square with just enough seam thickness room, so they are great to fussy cut.  I'll show you more about this later...

So much more to show and tell...it's a tough choice, food or fabrics?  Shall we take a vote?

Back in two shakes...H2

My Favorite Things...123...Tater Tots & What Nots

Gourmet, gourmand...tomato, tomahto, you decide!

I whole heartedly recommend a terrific site started by Jane and Michael Stern called roadfood.com...I used this site to find local eateries in Portland.  Whenever I go to a new city, I plan ahead, so that I can find out where the natives like to eat...

One of the places we really enjoyed was Jake's Famous Crawfish in the downtown historic area of Portland.  Penny and I shared the Macadamia Nut encrusted Halibut (which was in season when we were there)...it was de-lish.  They also had a desert that was really yummy...if a picture is worth a thousand words, drool along with me.

I'm thinking that this looks like a dessert I'd like to try to make at home...you can see that the chocolate "box" was made by pouring chocolate into a paper bag.  Inside was a white chocolate mousse and there were oodles of berries and a berry coulis too.  For me, this was a perfect dessert...the strong and rich taste of the dark chocolate, the creamy softness of the mousse, and the not too-sweet berries...Plus it was HUGE, so we all had our fill.

Here's a picture of a couple of the adjoining rooms at Jake's, you could tell that the restaurant had grown from one room to another over the years; the place was ginormous (and packed!). There were nostalgic landscape canvases painted on the upper walls of one room, and antique oyster platters displayed over the doors in the next...

There's lots more to show and tell of course...

Back in two shakes...H2

My Favorite Things...122..."Renee Wear"

Before I get to the tater tots...I must show you the cutest lady who waltzed into our booth on Friday, the morning we opened the show.  She's Renee Savage of Renee's House of Quilting in Williamsburg Michigan...

She had on a jacket made out of a bunch of our Fall 2007 intro'd fabrics...the most prominent was the Cherry Squares fabric that had all been cut up and patched into different places on the body of her garment.

Love the little pocket detail above, below is a close up of the beautiful quilting...

Thanks Renee for coming by and showing us your handiwork, it's absolutely fabrilicious!

After the show that day, the ladies in black and I got together for dinner with Nancy Singh from American Patchwork & Quilting...She's definitely one of the most interesting people I've ever had dinner with in a long time, she had us in stitches (sorry).  The actual food, not so much...

Here's the story...one of my friends who lives in the Portland area recommended McMenamins Kennedy School Restaurant.  After going in the opposite direction (thanks to the concierge at our hotel), we arrived a good half hour late at a most charming old elementary school building (I'm guessing it was built in the 1920's)...This is a really clever restaurant idea...gone tragically wrong.  The minute my nose caught the knock-you-over smell of cigars just inside the front door, I knew that things were not as I'd hoped.  Call me a food snob, but any restaurant who let's people smoke cigars anywhere (and seemingly everywhere), isn't really serious about their food.  Turns out my instincts were right...the old building oozed charm and a "sense of place", but in addition to the cigar smell that seemed to follow us everywhere, the private dining room we'd reserved smelled like a musty old wardrobe.  Things got even more comical when I asked our waiter "What food do people come here for?" and she said without missing a beat..."the tater tots".  We all burst out laughing!  She was right though...the tater tots were the best thing on the menu.

Still more to tell, and the meals got LOTS better as the trip wore on, MKSR was our one and only "culinary bummer" (a nod to Top Chef fans out there)...  ;)

Back in two shakes...H2

 

My Favorite Things...121...More Quilt Market Pics

As promised, I've got lots more pics...

In addition to the "girl's in black"...Penny writing and Sandy (Penny's sister) on the right, the Ballet Slippers quilt on the top is by Cyndi Walker of Stitch Studios...The Mixing Bowl Beauty quilt on the bottom is from Gina & Stephanie at the Threaded Pear...

The cupcake quilt on the left called Holly's Bakery is by the laugh-a-minute Elizabeth Scott.

We mixed and matched some quilts made from our new Little Lady collection with the DayZ collections, to show how the past and present fabrics could merchandise together in a quilt shop.  I took great pains in crafting our Spring intros to make sure that all of the clean, intense pinks from our earlier bright collections went with our softer, peachy-pastel pinks that we have been working with lately...That's Diane Weber's bright and festive DayZ BloomZ on the left bench and on the right is Barbara Jone's (aka the Quilt Soup lady) Corner Flower Shop quilt that was on the cover of Quilts & More...

That's my Circle of Friends quilt (subtitled "Gypsy Rose") done in fabrics from La Belle Rose I,II & III...with some of Penny's (aka Madame Tote Bag) best selling totes.  My Pinwheels and Polka Dots is in the rear right, just peaking out from behind Michelle, an old friend of Penny's, who helped in the booth.

Still more pics and lots of laughs...the next chapter in our little Portland diary is called..."Tater Tots?"

Back in two shakes...H2

 

My Favorite Things...120...Puppy Love!

I promise to return to my "Quilt Market Tales" later this, week...but humor me dear reader, as I bring you a tail of a different sort...

Here she is in her new Maraschino Cherry bandanna I made for her this morning...Meet Sophia, the "puppy mill reject" aka LUCKY DOG, who was given up by her "captor" about a month ago at the age of three, because she couldn't produce enough puppies...She's the sweetest little thing on four paws!

Here's the back story: We were at our vet's office earlier this week, and she told us that she was the foster dog-mother for Sophia, who came to her as "Wendy the Westie" from puppymillrescue.com.  She said that it was Oprah's recent show on the atrocities at puppy mills, that got her energized.

I was so inspired by this that we here at LHDG are going to get involved too.  I started scheming up a plan today...I'll keep you posted.

More Portland "Pics & Quips", and stories of the "Great Northwest" coming soon...

 

Back in two shakes...H2

My Favorite Things...119...Cupcakes!

When it comes to cupcakes I think of grade school bake sales, girl scout get-togethers, and two very special bakeries in New York City.  A friend who lives in Greenwich Village took me to Magnolia Bakery at least ten years ago, and I have been a rabid fan of their powdered-sugary butter cream frosting ever since.  Many people think that it was Magnolia Bakery that started the "Cupcake Craze" back in the late nineties, but IMHO, the grandmother of this retro addiction is really the Cupcake Cafe.  They had a tiny bakery on Ninth Avenue near the Port Authority almost ten years before Magnolia opened their doors.  The decorations on the cupcakes at the Cupcake Cafe are so beautiful, I almost hate to eat them.  Ann Warren has made quite a name for herself with her handmade flower decorations.  Ann's frosting is totally different than Magnolia's (from what I can tell, it's made mostly of butter, so they don't last long out of the refrigerator, but more on this later)...BTW, see the flower shaped table topper?  It's an adorable new design called Daisy Dew from Gina Halladay of Quilter's Buzz fame, & aka the Threaded Pear.

You might have heard that we introduced our Little Cupcakes fabric at Spring Quilt Market...So what better way to celebrate this, than with some delicious cupcake giveaways at our booth...Or so you'd think!  It started months before, with me asking my "Girl-in-Portland" the little cheese sandwich herself, Monica Solorio-Snow about who she'd recommend for cupcakes in the Portland area...Monica gave me a list and we started a hunt for a-good-but-affordable-cupcake (it became a bit of an odyssey)...

We started with Saint Cupcake which sounded great: except for the price!  They wanted over $3.00 a piece with custom colored frosting, that's a little pricey even by my ridiculous New York standards.  After contacting several more bakeries, we found the Helen Bernhard Bakery:  real butter cream frosting, and a bargain at just under a dollar each...this seemed the perfect solution...Or so we thought.

We ordered cupcakes in advance, to be delivered each morning of the show.  We planned on putting the cupcakes in a little acetate bag (tied with our LakeHouse ribbon of course) so that the show management wouldn't jump all over us for handing out messy food.  Here's where things went tragically wrong...Let me state clearly: Helen's cupcakes were delicious...problem was that they were frosted with real butter cream alright, but they were the buttery gets soft & unmanageable in 10 minutes out of the fridge type (like Cupcake Cafe), not the travels well, (loaded with sugar) butter cream frosting that Magnolia makes.

Suffice it to say, we had a "pack-o-trouble" getting our little pink cupcakes into their little bags...as the frosting started to get soft and they became increasingly difficult to handle...

All I can say is that it was a bit of a "Lucy & Ethel moment"!

Still lots more to show and tell, so, I'll be...

Back in two shakes...H2

My Favorite Things...118...Display Design

I have many photos and stories from Spring Quilt market this year, so I'll try to intermix them with pictures from our booth, in my next few blogs...

Let me cop to this right upfront...I took a big risk and made the decision to try a new booth layout for this market.  There were some really neat things about what we did this time, but this was not my finest hour, design-wise...With all of the challenges that we've had in the past six months, I am just glad that the booth came out as good as it did.  You will be able to see for yourself...and I'll give you my self-critique, too.

Here's a view from our front aisle...I just loved the off white tables and benches we bought at IKEA ...they were really comfy, & were a great way to show extra quilts and tote bags...The chain quilt called Black Cherry on the middle bench was in McCall's Quilting May/June issue, the kit is being sold by Fat Quarter Shop...I just love it, (if I do say so myself). The pink bordered quilt on the left is made with our new Little Lady collection.  It's my Jill version of my new Jack & Jill Quilt due out at the end of July.  The cute-as-a-button Cherry Preserves quilt on the back right is by Elizabeth Scott.

My biggest design mistake overall, was the openings at the corners...

It was great that people could walk up from behind and see our fanciful tiered display tables...

But the exposed poles were an eyesore...

And because of these openings at the corners, the products in the other booths to the back and sides of us became part of our display...If I had thought to use something like scrim, that would have done a world of good to "tone down" the visual distractions from other exhibitors...But then again, people wouldn't have been able to enter our booth from the back corners...to grab a cupcake, or touch the samples...

I've still got lots more pictures, so I'll be...

Back in two shakes...H2

My Favorite Things...117...Exploring Portland

If the neighborhoods weren't so darned adorable in Portland, I might have a lot to whine about it, as I was the designated driver...It seemed like everywhere we went in the first three days, we got lost.  Fortunately, there were oodles charming Victorian, Bungalow and Craftsman style homes built from the late 1800's to the 1940's...lush gardens, arbors, rickety picket fences, "true light" windows (the ones with the real window panes)...it was like being transported into the pages of Cottage Living magazine.

I only wish I had more time to take more pictures...

Meanwhile, for years Penny & I had been hearing about a "Fabric Mecca" in Portland called Fabric Depot. With directions from Marc Hickok over at our distributor EE Schenck (thanks for everything, Marc!), we set out...Fair warning to you, dear reader:  NO matter what your google maps say, and however many miles a road seems to go on indefinitely under the same name on your map...don't believe your eyes!  Streets, avenues and roads will stop on a whim and you will be doubling back, joggling left and right (and many times!) before you reach your final destination in Portland, so allow extra time and bring your camera...there are a lot of inspiring things to see.

Our Fabric Depot "story" is a funny one.  Penny and I arrive, and boom the minute you walk in it's like "QUILT FABRIC NIRVANA".  It seemed like every collection from every company who show at quilt market was represented at this store, or so I thought...We walked up and down the aisles marveling at the amount of fabrics, but wait, no LakeHouse  ;(   "quel horreur"  It got almost comical as we walked up and down and down and up the aisles..."Wee Wo, NO LakeHouse" (mild anxiety)...Then, when we got almost to the middle of the store (which took us a good ten minutes of looking), near the cash registers...to our surprise and delight, A SPECIAL LAKEHOUSE DISPLAY...Just in time for all of the out-of-towners making their pilgrimage to Spring Quilt Market.  Wee hoo!

Here's me checking out patterns made with our fabric that I never even knew existed...

The Fabric Depot display gals even got the Copperplate font right for our name.  That gave us a chuckle when we saw it...What a treat!  So in case you haven't guessed already, Fabric Depot should be put on your "must see" list whenever you get to Portland.  Big Hint:  It's not far from the airport!

There's still lots more to show and tell...

I'm going to make it up to you for the last 5 months if it breaks me!   ;)

Back in two shakes...H2

PS Our NEW LakeHouse Spring 2008 fabric introductions are now live on our site!