Holly Blog

My Favorite Things...242...Pretty Pictures taken in a Secret Garden

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I thought I'd show you all some pretty pictures taken by none-other than our fabulous "resident" blogging queen aka "Pam Kitty" (& photo-savant) Pam Vieira-McInnis, at a secret garden that I stumbled upon recently here in Marin County CA.

This is the new "Scrap Happy Basket Quilt" (designed by yours truly).  The New Applique' Pattern for it which BTW uses fabrics from my new Penelope 4 -- 5 -- 6 collection (that has just been delivered to independent quilt shops near you), has been written & published by our friend Jennifer Bosworth over at Shabby Fabrics.  Psst: if you haven't heard the good word...Jennifer writes a great pattern!

Here's a little close up of the quilt...

I just LOVE all of the fabrics in this quilt...the colors are OH SO HOME DEC!  IMHO, all of the prettiest colors for a warm & inviting home.  I think Jennifer might even have a few kits left, too...? Check her stock, by clicking here. 

On another note, on the home front today, things started off with a splash.  I was brushing my teeth when "El Bandito", my Milo rescue kitty (the only truly clumsy cat I have ever known) fell in to the toilet feet first while trying to jump up on the bathroom sink (trying to get a better look sniff at what he thought I was putting in my mouth (mint ice cream -- whatttt ?).  (This would also explain the times in recent months that I have sat down on a less-dry-toilet seat in that same bathroom...)

Here's more pictures taken by Auntie Pam, the day of our photoshoot last week of Bandito...

Is it just me or does that little black chin make you think of C Everett Koop...?

LOL

;oP

H2

PS, Pam Kitty will be making a table runner from blocks using the Scrap Happy Quilt pattern (in yet another bee-u-t-ful Penelope colorway...I'll announce the specifics of this VERY SOON!  OH & YES, you heard it here first:  there will be another FQ bundle giveaway too!

 

My Favorite Things...235...More with my Peeps

Here's me with the lovely Jennifer Bosworth at her beautiful new Shabby Fabrics booth at Salt Lake City.  She had some exquisite new quilts, and of course she pointed out her favorite "shimmer dot" that she used in the quilt behind us.  It's our LH 03035 Champagne -- one of our top 5 best sellers in the history of LakeHouse.

I also got to meet the irrepressible Pat Sloan for the first time...we have so many friends in common, and somehow we've not been introduced until SLC...

Last but not least for today are Pam & I trying to contain our glee (and our fatigue at the same time), at the end of our first day on Friday...it was a labor of love -- it was many months worth of work and we were toast!

still lots more to show & tell...

;o)

H2
 

My Favorite Things...207...Anything worth doing is worth doing to excess!

Here's  another "composition" from the new sales booklet, that I made to show how I envisioned the colors & images going together.

 

If I do say so myself, this is sort of yummy, don't you think?

back in two shakes...

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...192...A Little Jaybird Told Me!

Day 7 of 16

Our next guest is a fellow fabric lover, quilter, blogger and "bon vivant".  Julie Herman aka "JayBird" was introduced to me by the lovely Tula Pink at Fall Quilt Market...What she lacks in years (thought bubble) gray hairs (LOL), Julie makes up for in enthusiasm.  It's really nice to have some representation from the next generation of quilters in this event.

Here's a little look-see at the desk in her studio...it's looking like a "Dolly Dress rainbow", don'tcha think?

 

click here to see what Julie's doing to "make life better with fabric" 

Rock-it Julie! (that's me attempting hip-ness!)

>;)

H2

PS, some of you may have noticed that I have little faces or "critters" as part of my sign off. I just love how the different key strokes can add up to make a sideways face.  If you have a good one, please post it.  If we get any really great new ones, our judging committee will grant you a wish from our LakeHouse Library!

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...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...179...A Little Birdie Told Me

Without further ado, here are some close up shots of "me little birdies"...

Here's a shot of the tree, and the little goody basket we had the little bird-stickered-favors in...

I got all of the little German gold foil die cuts (even the crown on the back shelf) at a wonderful place in Berkeley, during my last trip to CA...More on this shop soon, when I get back over there.

Here's a little close up of the marvelous garlands that I bought in the flower district (28th & 7th Ave) in Manhattan...I also got the little eggs and many of the birds that I used in our booth at Bill's Flower Market which has been there as long as I have lived in New York. 

I'll be back again tomorrow for more show & tell.

X;º)   H2

My Favorite Things...178...When the Day is Done

I have had so many things to show & tell between my trip to California in early September and now.  But I have had to keep my nose to the grindstone in preparation for Fall Quilt Market.  We ran into a lot of snags along the way.  It was like a comedy of errors a lot of the time...(things just kept running amok!) Big thanks to Martha Hall for making the 3 new quilts shown below.

We featured our new Teatime Floral III grouping "front & center" in our booth at market.  A new panel fabric that I designed featuring North American Song Birds prompted our decorations...We had great fun with all of the little "do dahs" -- eggs, nests, lots of little birdies, some old fashioned feather trees...

 

The urns in the center are from the Clignancourt flea market in Paris.  I bought them almost twenty years ago for my own studio (w-ayyy before French General), when I was there working on an interior design project.  (So I really have to laugh when I hear back from sales reps that "this collection doesn't look like something Holly would do"--when in reality what I have done in the last year is actually inspired by some of my most treasured things). 

Believe it or not, the peeling paint and rust on these antique urns is practically the same color palette as the blues and browns in TTF 3...click here for a closer comparison!  The LOVE pillow is by pal Penny Sturges of Quilts Illustrated.  My new Whirlwind quilt in the background features the "Song Bird I" panel fabric LH 09024.  I'll be making inspiration sheets for this quilt available on line very soon.

Here's a close up of my peeling, rusty, iron garden urns...I know, I know, one person's trash is another's treasure!

 

Lots more soon after a little R&R. 

Back in two shakes...H2