HELLO my name is Heather

  • Any Guesses?

    ByHeather Bailey

    SneakyPeek_HeatherBailey

    I have been immersed in designing a fantastic new collection for a great company with a great product. The big announcement goes live on their website today. Once they spill the beans, I'll come back and add some salty photos and spicy details to the news.

    It's exciting to be able to share a project with you so soon after I completed the artwork. Usually, I have to wait a miserably long while—at least that's how it feels. But not this time! Just a few more hours. Till then, here's a teaser photo.

    Update: The word is out. Read more about the big announcement here & here.

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    Guidolfo

    ByHeather Bailey

    Guidolfo470Have you seen the documentary, Being Elmo? It's fantastic. Very inspirational. If you have a Netflix account, go watch it right now.

    In fact, it is so inspiring that….

    While I was cooking dinner tonight, Isaac began to enumerate the many reasons why he would have made a great puppeteer. When I insisted it was not too late to become a puppeteer yet, he said, "Okay!" and headed into the other room.

    After five busy minutes, he came back to the kitchen with a new friend—meet Guidolfo.

  • Expanding

    ByHeather Bailey

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    It's time to expand our workspace again. This time we're connecting two of our three home offices for better workflow. It's going surprisingly quickly. Isaac is the Incredible Hulk in there, tearing through walls, grunting, chewing on nails.

    Remodel_1wWhat a dusty, snarly, gratifying mess. There's insulation, wood, nails and sheetrock everywhere. Raaargh-yaw!

    Isaac used to remodel homes back in college, so I'm in good hands. Of course, he did saw through some electrical wiring, leaving us without internet for a few days this week.

    Everything is connected back up now—see those two gray junction boxes on either side of the passageway, with the wiring strung above?

    The new sheetrock goes up today and then it's onto mud. We haven't decided what we're going to do with the wood floor yet, but we'll figure that out after we sweep up.

    I plan to make this space into a pattern workshop down the road: sewing machines, cutting tables, dress forms, fabric stacks, thread. What I really need to do is host a talent search and get more help. So You Think You've Got American Sewing Talent?

    Remodel_2

  • Remind Me

    ByHeather Bailey

    RemindMe470hOne tricky thing about having a teenage cook in the house is keeping track of your pans.

    I pinned this note on Elijah tonight before he headed out to a swim party with his friends. The note didn't make it out of the door, let alone out of the kitchen. Though I got a good laugh out of him, he had it unpinned in 5 seconds flat.

    It worked though. Elijah didn't forget. My springform pan is now safely tucked away in its cupboard, ready for Elijah's next fat-bomb concoction.

  • Working Girl

    ByHeather Bailey

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    I'm designing new aprons today for Peking Handicraft. It's the first time I've worked with my dress form in many months. Usually, she just stands in the corner observing my everyday life, patiently waiting for her turn. Today, she is proudly of service, helping me sort out patterns and proportions.

    SlipcoverDressFormwI gave her a brand new cover so I wouldn't run the risk of of tearing her brittle linen any further. True, I have three other dress forms in the workroom, but I'm partial to the old lady. The original, weathered linen is still there, under the new linen, preserved for her moonlighting job as a prop and a display.

    It was surprisingly easy work. I draped the form with muslin, following the seamlines of the original cover, to create pattern pieces for the new cover. I sewed the pieced front and back together at the shoulders only, then whip-stitched each side seam together once the cover was stretched taut on the form (photo below). I then replaced the metal caps at the arms and neck. Finally, I wrapped a piece of grosgrain ribbon tightly at the waist and secured it with a pin at center back.

    If you have a delicate old form, consider taking a couple of hours to clean her up so you can stop being shy about putting the ol' girl to work.

    WhipStitchDressForm

  • Baking in the Heat

    ByHeather Bailey

    PeanutButterChocolateCheesecake
    Elijah's friend, Clint, had shoulder surgery last week, a few days before his 16th birthday. He dove through a waterfall and the force of the water did the damage. Isn't that crazy?

    PeanutButterChocolateCheesecake2TElijah decided to bake him a cheesecake—yes, my teenage son—I must be doing SOMETHING right.

    My car was at the mechanic's, so I rode my bike to the store for his supplies. It took some clever stacking to fit everything into the basket, with the cold cream cheese packed neatly around the chocolate to keep it from melting in the intense Arizona heat.

    As the old saying goes, "If you're going to spend the day baking cheesecake, make two." So I doubled the shopping list.

    Okay. There's no old saying. But there should be.

    Elijah's first time baking cheesecake was tied to the bullying incident I posted about last April. He has since baked a lot of pies, but not many cheesecakes. In fact, I regret not designing a little Summer of Pie keepsake book for him, cataloging the various pies he baked last summer. Truth was, his pies were always finished in the evenings, then decimated by morning. Attack of the pie people. Not ideal for photography.

    This time he went for layered Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheesecakes with Oreo crusts. And he pulled them off perfectly. One cake went to Clint's birthday party and the other has been slowly disappearing from our fridge, one sliver at a time—it might be more fattening than bacon.

    DishesSq250flThen! Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, Elijah cleaned up the entire cheese-and-peanut-butter-coated kitchen. I had to snap a commemorative picture.

    Clint is one lucky kid—though perhaps not when it comes to waterfalls.

  • ‘Dem Apples

    ByHeather Bailey

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    We brought home 15 lbs of apples, half of which made their way into Father's Day breakfast. The remaining apples are still sitting on the counter in a basket, begging for attention. I'm trying to decide between apple pie, apple tart and apple muffins.

    Isaac is still teasing me over our apple-picking adventure. He gets a kick out of the fact that we went apple-picking down the road eventhough we have a tree loaded with these same apples in our own backyard.

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    With my own tree to harvest as well, it looks I'm going to need more apple recipes. Send me your favorites or post a link. These are all Anna apples which can best be described as a mix between Granny Smith and Golden Delicious. They are great for baking. Help!

  • U-Pick-a-We-Bop

    ByHeather Bailey

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    There is a housing community nearby that is centered around a working farm, with a restaurant and a coffee shop on the premises as well. It's rather cool. Well, super cool. Even the people who work there are cool. If you ever visit the restaurant, Joe's Farm Grill, make sure to visit the restroom. I can't bring myself to dispel its mysteries, but I'll just say it is the coolest restroom I've ever seen. And bizarre. Think 60s saturday-morning space-adventure.

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    UpickApples3_470HBThe community was built on the family farm of a local restaurant developer—the Joe of Joe's Farm Grill. When this Joe sent word out on twitter last Saturday that they were opening their groves for u-pick apples, Charlotte and I concocted an apple-centric plan for Father's Day breakfast.

    I clearly had apple-picking good times on my mind when I got dressed. Charlotte intuited my intentions and picked out clothes to match. When Isaac woke up and staggered into the room to find us in technicolor peasant clothes, he teased, "What's up with you and the russian doll clothing? The two of you look like rainbow refugees."

    I said, "Hey now. We're going apple picking. What better to wear?"

    He must have agreed because no sooner had I finished tying my scarf than Isaac trotted out of the closet in a floral shirt, a fedora, and aviator glasses, all fancied up and ready to join us.

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    Here's the best part. When we pulled up to the grove, the man working the scales wore an outfit identitcal to Isaac's: folky shirt, fedora, and aviator glasses to boot. He was entirely too cool to be working a farm. Isaac and I could barely keep a straight face as we greeted him and got directions. I meant to sneak a picture of the two of them, but our camera only had a dribble of juice left in it. It died too soon.

    UpickApples5_470HBCharlotte and I hadn't planned to take pictures of our excursion—that was a bonus that came along with Isaac.

    It was bright out. And hot. But with the farm being only a mile from our home and apple-picking consuming only a few minutes of our day, I'm sure we'll be doing this more often. They grow everything from peaches, citrus, grapes and apricots to squash, carrots, tomatoes and cucumbers.

    One day I'm going to track that Joe down and shake his hand. It's inspiring to have such a visionary neighbor, bringing style and humor together with panache. If you ever visit Gilbert, AZ, stop by Joe's Farm Grill or one of his other restaurants, Liberty Market or Joe's Real BBQ. They are hands-down the coolest places in town.

    If you're interested in coffee, stop by Joe's Roaster Project blog. It looks like he's developing a new commercial machine for coffee roasting. Restaurants, inventions, a community farm. His ideas are big—and all over the place.

    I can relate.

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    Good as New

    ByHeather Bailey

    GardenDistrictChairT

    Getting back to project eye-candy, here's my finished chair. I went with St. Charles Bouquet in blue—which is perfect with my living room decor—and a distressed green finish to pay homage to the original condition of the chair. The contrast between the crisp new fabric and the lightly-weathered frame makes for a bold, yet elegant statement—in my smug and humble opinion.

    Upholstery470wThis is my Garden District™ fabric collection which came out right around when little bub came out to meet the world. I announced the collection to my newsletter subscribers but never managed to post any reveals here on the blog. Having a baby can be disorienting, to put it lightly.

    St. Charles Bouquet is a modification of Rose Bouquet from my Pop Garden™ quilting-weight collection. Those of you who have collected my designs will note that the focal bouquets of the print are much closer together and the scale of the design is much larger. The artwork was re-created and re-colored with home decor specifically in mind.

    The other prints in the Garden District™ collection are all new. Mockingbird is a print I put together at first for my Nicey Jane™ quilting-cotton collection, but it was swapped for Picnic Bouquet at the last moment, favoring the scale and mood of Mockingbird for home dec projects. Plus, Picnic Bouquet was too perfect for Nicey. It is one of my favorite prints in that collection.

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    I have received many pleas to release these home dec prints on quilting-weight cotton and laminated cotton as well. It would be helpful to know just which prints you're most interested in seeing in these other formats. They would need to be rescaled, paired with the perfect companion prints and recolored perhaps. There is a lot of thought that goes into balancing a cotton collection so the variety of prints can be mixed into the same quilt or craft project. It's complicated. But it can certainly be done.

    This collection was inspired by the urban gardens and vintage architecture of historic New Orleans. The prints are distinctly romantic with an urban influence. A portion of the collection is printed on a luscious cotton sateen, and others are printed on a sturdy cotton canvas. (In my opinion, a well-designed and inviting room offers a variety of textures.) The sateen prints are 55"/56" wide and the canvas prints are 58"/59" wide. Think bedding, curtains, pillows, purses, jackets, skirts, nursery decor, and more. At $17 to $19/yard, they are considerably more affordable than most designer decorating fabrics.

    That stack of chairs I just posted about… Garden District is the whole reason there IS a stack of chairs. My furniture-collecting habit reached new heights once this fabric collection was put into production.

    Finally, great color for the home! I got tired of searching for the perfect fabrics for my own home and decided to give up already and design them myself. I am genuinely, personally relieved.