design

  • Run for Travis

    ByHeather Bailey

    You know you want it…and you can have it too. Remember to vote EVERY DAY in the Bernina USA Faceplate Face-Off to increase your chance of winning this luxury machine. Voting ends 4-14-14, so set a reminder.

    RunforTravis300bAlso, if you are in Arizona this weekend, please consider joining me at the Run for Travis fundraiser in Gilbert. Travis Williams, the father of one of Charlotte’s very best friends, passed away this week from a battle with cancer. Travis leaves behind a wife and four young children. He was only age 40. Proceeds go toward helping the family with medical expenses. There will be a 5k walk/run, a silent auction, food trucks. I’m excited to go help in this way.

    Becky Higgins, who I worked with on a Heather Bailey Project Life kit last year, is good friends with the Williams family. She wrote a beautiful post about their longstanding relationship earlier this month, if you’d like to take a look.

    Also, if you would like to help, but you’re not in Gilbert, there is info on the Run for Travis facebook page on how to donate.

    What a week for our community, for our family, for our Charlotte—though nothing compared with what these incredible families are facing. She and I leave for Travis’ funeral after this post goes live.

  • Virginia. Is this place for Real?

    ByHeather Bailey

    It's great to be back home, but a bit of my heart and a large portion of my imagination
    are lingering behind in Virginia. For the middle-part of our big summer
    vacation, we drove south from D.C. to Colonial Williamsburg, with a stop
    at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello on the way.

    GovernorsMansionT

    If I could live my dream life, I would garden and keep animals on a
    lush green farm at the edge of a big city. I would spin yarn and churn
    butter, cultivate the perfect cabbage, and make cheese. However, I would
    also wear glamorous dresses to the theater, learn portraiture at an art
    atelier in the city, take the light rail to business meetings, and type
    away on my top-of-the-line computer. All with my kids in tow.

    WilliamsburgGarden

    My life isn't too far off of this dream in spirit. I grow fruit trees
    and make art. And my kids are here with me. But the lush trees and
    rolling hills are missing.

    This is where Virginia comes in. My. Freakin'. Word. Pardon the language. Virginia is gorgeous.
    I almost had to close my eyes on the way to Monticello in order to
    survive the view: white fences, electric green grass, trees as big as
    buildings.

    Williamsburg

    Perhaps Providence will plop the perfect excuse in my lap to move somewhere lush and lovely and near a fun city. How about a Kickstarter
    campaign to build a blogger's getaway paradise with fully-teched-out
    guest cabins. Or a reality tv show about trying to make such a
    disjointed reality work. Have it all. Be it all.

    WilliamsburgGarden2

    But I need a town to pin this fantasy to. What are the best little
    beautiful places to raise children, with great schools, strong, moral
    families and exciting things an arm's length away. And don't forget the
    large plots of land, big trees and cute houses. Give my dream new
    breath.

    If you relate, then you'd love Colonial Williamsburg.
    They run the town like it never left the 1700s, wigmakers, shoemakers,
    blacksmiths, cabinet-makers and all. I can't say enough about the place.
    There's' nothing like it out west, that's for sure.

    Grid_Williamsburg470

    The gardens are immaculate and the buildings are charming—and I'm all
    about the workshops. I don't blog about them much, but I have a
    spinning wheel and a jeweler's bench of my own. I've built shoes,
    churned butter, made yogurt, turned pottery, made lampwork glass beads,
    and worked on a horse ranch. My inner pilgrim.

    MossCovered

    I feel so disloyal to Arizona right now. Sorry, Arizona. I still love
    you—and your sun-bleached cow skulls and scorpions—but where are your
    towering trees and brick buildings? Where are your moss-covered walls
    and magnolias? Tell me it was a hallucination. Virginia is not real.

    Virginia is not real…

    Virginia is not real…

  • |

    “Car. Beep-Beep.”

    ByHeather Bailey

    OldDeliveryTruck2_Hellomynameisheather
    It's
    Quilt Market season at the studio. We're in a bi-annual bustle to prep
    for the show. Today, I met with another local stitcher who will be
    helping out with samples. I'm skirting around that misleading 'sewer'
    word. I think we just need to come up with a new spelling. Same word,
    new spelling: sewwer, sewur, sew-er, sew-erer, sewurr, seweur
    (french-ish)…

    What a fun afternoon. Fun I have no business having. Fun I have no business without.

    I was up with the baby till 4am last night, nursing him through a
    105º fever. I finally climbed into the tub and poured water over his
    back while he slept against my shoulder. It was so sweet. But, man am I
    tired!

    It's 7pm now on Friday night and it feels like my day is just getting
    going. I don't think date night is gonna happen unless Isaac wants to
    help refine pattern covers, book flights, schedule meetings, or sew.

    ** I let the baby pick a photo and title this post for me. **

  • 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.

  • Le-Purrty Please?

    ByHeather Bailey

    110918_Painting_03a

    We’ve decided to dress up the turret. Even if it only serves as a temporary nursery for the baby, this playroom space will surely be improved with color, curtains, and a little bit of magic dust known as attention. Once bub starts sleeping through the night, we can address how to best fit his masculine self into the lavender girlapalooza that is Charlotte’s bedroom—or sort out some other solution.

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    The older kids were skipping to get involved. All in all, painting took only 3x longer than it would have had Isaac manned the roller the entire time. I reassured him that it was a worthy trade off for good memories and sweet feelings. Besides, who could resist this petitioning kitty cat?

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  • Couch-Plop, Flip-Flop, House-Mop, Non-Stop

    ByHeather Bailey

    CabinW This weekend, I relaxed at a cabin in Pinetop with six girlfriends and
    one agreeable little baby.  All
    we did was talk and eat sweets. My new quilt & I claimed the fat,
    fuzzy recliner. (Ugly never was so beautiful; I need a recliner now.) I
    also learned that I'm not the only one who isn't too cool for
    flip-flops-with-socks (Renee, you're awesome). It was
    wonderfully-freezing outside. 

    It's been a busy few weeks. I've been immersed in many great
    projects, and have been dealing with a few difficult things too —
    hence the blogging slow-down.

    After leaping from event to event
    this Fall, I am thrilled to stay in one place for a while. Carpools,
    family dinners, piano lessons, I'm loving them all.

    YarnFlowerCropT On the work front, I'm designing my debut stationery collection with Inviting Company, prepping for the release of my next fabric collection, and motoring-along on new sewing patterns and finished goods.

    At home, I'm getting my house put back together, including happy,
    new petunias and roses out front, and I'm enjoying time with my kids.
    (I like them.) Charlotte and I are playing with her new Knifty-Knitter Flower-Loom. We're considering crochet next. Is four too young for crochet?

    Elijah
    and I seek every opportunity for a bike ride. Even Isaac can be seen
    riding my new, pink bike around — usually when it's dark outside, for
    obvious reasons — it's that fun to ride. It's time to get that man a
    blue cruiser already.

  • Suture-Free Future

    ByHeather Bailey

    Here it is, my live interview on NBC's Studio 5 in Salt Lake City. Catch a glimpse of my next mini pattern. Try not to glimpse the ribbon dangling from my shirt sleeve though.

    Written instructions for the Pop Garden scrap flowers featured on the video can be found here. I had an incredible time in Utah this weekend. I met many fun entrepreneurs & was showered with some amazing presents — necklaces, notecards, homemade games, tee-shirts, chocolate. The Sweet Tooth Fairy's Double Fudge Cake Bites made my night on Thursday. Imagine oreo-cookie-flavored cake with a truffle-chocolate shell. Yeah. Holy happiness, Batman.

  • Babblejabber

    ByHeather Bailey

    I'm scattered like these buttons between a bevy of projects.  It
    looks like they will all be wrapped up around the same time.  I'm
    finishing up several new patterns, an assortment of kits, a contract
    for a new product line (!!!), and so on.  (More on these soon.) 

    ButtonBowlsHB

    Next
    week I'll be at Creative Escape getting raspy from eight-hour days in
    front of a large crowd of crafters.  I'm hoping my loud, floral apron
    will distract everyone from the dark circles under my eyes.  That, and
    under-eye concealer.  Anyone have a favorite brand of concealer to
    recommend?  I'm planning ahead.

    I still need to do my annual
    birthday giveaway.  I've decided to wait till I release some of the new
    goodies I've been developing.  That way the prize will be fresh &
    exciting.  Ya, just you wait.  I haven't forgotten.

    Also, I've
    posted a handful of blackbird necklace charms for purchase.  Since my
    Laura No Peeky post, a ton of you have asked where to get one.  I did
    my research.  It turns out it's a discontinued design, so I decided to
    get what was left & just post them.  They're $3.50 each.  And I
    only have 20 of them.  When they're gone, they're gone.

    Off to a
    ridiculous, private bead sale this evening with my sister.  I'll be
    shopping for doll eyeballs.  Very exciting.  I'm sure I'll be tempted by more glamorous things though.

    Update:  The blackbird pendants are all spoken for.  I do have a similar pendant I'll post soon.  It's floral.  I'll take a photo & let you know when they're up.

  • Bead It, Kid

    ByHeather Bailey

    Necklace1new3
    Beadingnew So, guess who made these necklaces?

    Four-year-old Charlotte did this all by herself.  I thought I was
    embracing disaster by allowing her free access to several bins of beads
    while I worked on the computer today.  I was entirely wrong.

    Not
    only did Miss C patiently string together all of these designs without
    my oversight, but she made them all symmetrical.  Even her most
    eclectic necklace doesn't miss a beat
    bead.  Hours and hours of necklace-making.  All I did was add the
    clasps.  And I bent a loop at the top of her one pendant.  That's it.

    Necklace3new2

    Necklace4new2
    When I was four years old, my bottom dresser drawer was stocked with
    white paper, a stapler and staples.  I made all sorts of wild
    inventions with white paper that year.  And here I thought I had been
    tricky-stuff at four, with my paper robots and elephants.  Looks like
    Charlotte has 4-year-old me mightily whooped.

    The moral: 
    Moms, Grandmas, Aunts and Alligators, let your kids have access to some
    of your precious supplies.  They may surprise you with tidiness and
    ingenuity!  I can only imagine what I would have done with real art
    supplies at that age.

    Of course, they may surprise you with a royal disaster instead.  I've been there too — many times.