Holly Blog

My Favorite Things...202...The Honor Roll

Dolly Blog Post Script

Here's a quick list of the Dolly Blog Event...it's the fastest way to review the Dolly Dress Up quilt projects...

Day 1  Debbie Taylor  of the Fat Quarter Shop

Day 2  Jennifer Bosworth of Shabby Fabrics

Day 3  Lynda Milligan & Friends at the Great Amercian Quilt Shop

Day 4  Jere'e McDade  & "Gidget" of Quilted Quickies

Day 5  Taffy McLaughlin &  Sarch Phillips of Intown Quilters

Day 6  Gina Halladay  & Friends at The Quilted Pear

Day 7  Julie Herman* of Jaybird Quilts

Day 8  Monica Solorio Snow at The Happy Zombie

Day 9  Jenny McLean aka Tula Pink

Day 10  Rachel Griffith of PS I Quilt

Day 11  Sheri Bignell of Freckleberry Farm

Day 12  Tricia Cribbs of FriendFolks

Day 13  Elizabeth Scott at The Late Bloomer

Day 14  Penny Sturges  & Family at Quilts Illustrated

Day 15  Holly Holderman of LakeHouse Dry Goods

You can click on the Dolly Blog Icon in the left sidebar of my blog, to go to the first day of the Dolly Blog-A-Long, and then work your way through the event, project by project.  This also works for any of the other event icons that you see on the left sidebar as well.  X;)

Thanks to all who participated, and all of the visitors that came by to share in the holiday cheer...we do it all for you!

In the words of our little Jaybird*..."make life better with fabric"...in 2010.

Happy Holidays to all...

Peace.

H2

My Favorite Things...198...Late Bloomers!

Day 13 of 16

I'm happy to say that today's guest Elizabeth Scott is one of my favorite quilting buddies.  I am trying to remember how we met, since we haven't been across the aisle at quilt market...I think it was the blogging connection. It might have been through Pam Kitty, who as most of you know is her BFF.

Rumor has it that Elizabeth is doing something very special with her quilt...She is going to auction it off for Irish Flood Relief...SO YOU MUST go on over to see what's up at the The Late Bloomer, and bid on Elizabeth's adorable quilt!

Let's see if I can make a guinea pig face with a few quick key strokes...?

:x>

That's all I got...a guinea pig with a goatee?

H2

My Favorite Things...197...Me "FriendFolks"!

Day 12 of 16

Tricia Cribbs of FriendFolks was across the aisle from us at Fall Quilt Market in 2008...noticing a trend?  Since it was the slowest market that I'd ever experienced, (right after all the banks fell out of bed) we actually got a chance to chat...turns out she is the woman behind the best selling "Turning Twenty" books...Isn't that catchiest name?  Tricia's first love is applique' and boy is she good at it...Since we first met, she has made some amazing appliqued quilts with our Teatime Floral fabrics, too.

Here's a little looky-loo at what Tricia's done with the Dolly Dress Panel...

 

I can't wait to see what this project looks like...I'm guessing that Tricia has gone off the grid completely!

click here to see Tricia's latest masterpiece!

":ºO

H2

My Favorite Things...194...We're In the Pink!

Day 9 of 16

I met our next guest Miss Tula Pink at Spring Quilt Market in Pittsburgh.  It was a mutual admiration society...Tula was with her mom Kathy Runyan.  Kathy owns Country Expressions Quilt Shoppe in Stewartsville Missouri.  It didn't hurt that our conversation started with Kathy telling me how they "sell a ton of LakeHouse fabric" in her shop.  As you can imagine, nothing makes me happier!  In turn, I waas absolutely smitten with the tote bag that Tula was carrying made of the fabric that she designs for Moda.

So here's some close ups of Miss Tula's newest project...

Tula calls this her "Hogwarts" version of the Dolly Dress Ups...

It's such a fresh look, don't you think?

click here to see Tula's entire Dolly Dress Up Panel project...

Take it away Tula!

;ø}

H2

My Favorite Things...193...Oh Happy Day!

Day 8 of 16

Without a doubt, one of the most entertaining quilting bloggers is none other than Monica "the Happy Zombie" Solorio-Snow.  I've been asking her to join the party for a couple of years now.  So glad to have you with us finally dawl...

Rumor has it that Monica will be doing a project for one of her favorite magazines with the Dolly Dress Up Panels...

I'm sure that "HZ" as I like to call her, will have a lot to show and tell...Like what her graphic symbolizes...?

click here for the pagentry, the extravangaza, dahlink...

Do tell Miss Thing.

:O+

H2

My Favorite Things...191...Fresh Picked Frocks!

Day 6 of 16

Tuesday night, Gina Halladay (of Quilter's Buzz blog fame) called at 10:30 est (yikes!) to say that her server had gone down, and that she couldn't upload her blog, photos, etc.  So Gina sent sent me a rag-tag-bag of photos and something that she had written.

Since time is a wasting, and a picture is worth a thousand words...here's some close ups of the fabulously embellished blocks that made up The Fresh Picked Fabrics ladies* quilts:

1 & 2

3 & 4

5 & 6

 

7 & 8

9 & 10

11 & 12

As you can see, the Fresh Picked ladies share my love of ric rac & other embellishments.  I'm especially smitten with the tulle that they used to make a little tutu on the pink and green pinafore...Which block is your favorite?  I'd love to know.  Best comment on this wins a free dolly dress panel. 

Meantime, Gina is planning on kitting their quilt with the all of the ric rac, (out in April '10).  Click here to go to Gina's Threaded Pear online store for more info on this kits & their patterns. We'll let you know as soon as Gina's website will be back up & running, & the kitting info will be there.

Till next time...

X;Q

H2

PS *Gina's quilting posse at Fresh Picked Fabrics:  Kay "the Fairy Godmother" Wickman, Sammie "the Bedazzler Queen" Belanger,  Carrie "the Piece Maker" Wright & Ginger "the long arm guru" Grimes

My Favorite Things...189...A Little Doggie...Told Me

Day 4 of 16

We had our first snow storm near the office yesterday, so here I am all "geared up" today when we took a break from work to get some lunch. Thought I'd wear my Elmer Fudd...aka my "Dog Ear Hat" in honor of our next guest.

Our little bloggie group has nothing if not a lot of personalities, wouldn't you say?...Some with a bigger "bone to pick" than others...LOL!

This little doll is none other than Gidget, Jere'e McDade's (the Quilted Quickies lady) little sidekick and office mascot...I hear that we are all in for quite the show today.

There are two blog sites listed below, one of them will be compatible with your browser, we hope.

Hit-it Gidge #1

Hit-it Gidge #2

Back in two wags, of a you-know-what...

>;ºV

H2

PS  Monday am--Since our guest presentations are as much of a surprise to me as they are to you, I had to comment on Jer'e's post:  SIMPLY ADORABLE--A MUST SEE!

My Favorite Things...186...A "Little Deb" will do Ya!

Day 1 of 16

It all started with the idea for the "Dolly Dress Up" panels, at the end of last year.  It took a lot of patience, doing 12 different dresses that went together and yet different enough...(thought bubble)...frankly, it was not as easy as I thought it would be!

So after several weeks of working on this, and many strike-offs later...

We are READY TO RUMBLE ladies!

Without further ado, I give you the adorable...drum roll please...Debbie Taylor...she's "the retro recipe lady" (and quilter extraordinaire) at Fat Quarter Shop.

Here's a sneak peek at one of the blocks on her delicious new quilt...

Rumor has it that Debbie is going to do a tutorial for y'all on the Jolly Jabber blog, to help us all celebrate the beginning of "the Season of Giving"...Click here for more with Debbie.

See you bright & shiny tomorrow...

;º)

H2

My Favorite Things...184...More Dress Up

With references like this so easy to download off the internet, it wasn't difficult to be inspired...

We started with Ric's version of Le Roi de Soleil (the Sun King). He came up with this fabulous wig based on pictures of hairstyles from that era.  There are over sized disposable plastic beer cups taped to the skull cap part of his wig under all of the paper curls...

Ric's daughter Erica is responsible for all of the make up. The "neck injury" is a reference to the guillotine's effect during the French Revolution...Ric's cape is a combination of a scalloped collar cut with piking shears, and dozens of ruched paper strips on the front of the cape. The little epaulets on the shoulder area of the cape were placed there to make his movement easier.

Next is Patrick, vogueing for the camera just after his make up was applied.

We made his breasts the same way as the skull cap for the wigs..."a la Martha".  Then we taped them to his Haz Mat suit.  You can see that his cumberbund is missing, but this gives you a good idea of how his garment was draped.  Believe it or not, this would have been much more difficult to pull off in fabric.  Newsprint has so much more body than most fabrics...we "pre-scrunched" the paper so that it was more pliable to work with as we did the draping.

Here's me just before the party, getting cinched into my party dress, by now you all know how much I love scalloped edges...

There are only a few pieces to my dress--the skirt with left & right over drapes in the front, the waistband that hid most of the unsightly details, the shawl collar & two paper rosettes to adorn the bottom of the shawl where it is taped together.  We scalloped the edges of my Haz Mat sleeves and created a cute little fold back cuff with rubber bands.

I'm so glad that Ric insisted that we all get into the spirit of Halloween this year and go "all out" with our costumes.  While I love Halloween, I have never been really big on actually participating in the spectacle of it all...It was a laugh riot from beginning to end.

Hope you all were as inspired by all of this as much as I was.

Back in two shakes...

;º)  H2

PS A new blog-a-thon is coming soon!

My Favorite Things...183...Playing Dress Up

It all started a couple of weeks ago with Ric telling me about a segment on Martha Stewart, where she showed an easy way to make a Halloween wig with a plastic bag, some tape and some paper.  Ric's a clever one, and before I knew it he was making the base for a wig.  As luck would have it, the wig looked very French...very Louis "something"...very Marie Antoinette.

That conversation lead to a discussion of the amazing paper dress competition that they have on Project Runway...(and the uber-amazing dresses that they made a few weeks ago).  You can replay the entire paper dress episode by going to myLifetime.com/ProjectRunway

We then started prowling the internet for pictures of Marie Antoinette-era costumes to have a better idea of what men and women actually wore back then.  We discussed doing flat paper-doll-like dresses, full dresses, and then we settled on dresses that would be a "facade", for comedic effect...We did not finish the back of our outfits.  Instead we let our "undergarments" show.  In this case, the undergarments that we used were Tyvek Has-Mat Suits, that Ric picked up a the local hardware store. These adult-sized "one-sies" were what we taped the paper parts of the costume pieces to. 

The whole process was a lot of trial and error, but we had a lot of laughs the whole way through.

I'll have more snapshots from our Halloween eve in my next few blog...Fromthe  ghoulish make up applied to our faces & necks by Ric's daughter Erica, close ups of our outfits, last-minute fans to complete "the look", etc...

So y'all come back now, y'hear?  There's lots more to show & tell.

Back in two shakes...

;º)  H2