Tula Pink

I am having one of those rare and wonderful moments where I don’t actually have anything to do.  I have a special closet for just such an occasion. In this closet there is a wonderland of project ideas that have yet to be realized. This was one of them. I bought a set of blank nesting dolls at a weird little country store about a year ago. Then I painted them… I really thought there would be more to this story but apparently there is not. I am open to name ideas for each of the ladies if you have any.

There comes a time in every young designer’s life when the pin board needs to be revisited. Old things need to be replaced with new things so the trail of inspiration doesn’t go cold or get stale. This is one of my favorite board arrangements and I thought it deserved to be memorialized before I took it all down. I tend to curate my bulletin board. I don’t just throw any old thing up there. It can be as simple as a postcard or a tear sheet from a paint catalog (much like the one on the mid right). These particular pages were liberated from a magazine in the waiting lounge where I get my hair cut.There was a fair amount of coughing and throat clearing that occurred while tearing. They probably thought I had Tuberculosis or something, it went on for ever, I suck at petty crime.

The real gems here are the fabric swatches.  It’s a brief history of fallen soldiers from various fabric lines. On the left you will find the rejected color groupings from Neptune. If I could have made that line 100 pieces I totally would have. There was some really good stuff in there that never got it’s 15 minutes (actually I made a quilt out of them which I will share with y’all as soon as I find my camera again). There is also a little bit of Nest rejects at the top and bottom but my favorite part is in the middle-ish.

These little guys were the original colors for Flutterby. After getting the sample swatches back we decided they were too soft for this line and went completely in the opposite direction. I saved them and they reemerged a couple of years later as Hushabye. So there you have it. Every bulletin board tells a story. I guess I fill mine with the ghosts of lost ideas. What’s on yours?

A while back I showed y’all the process for the feather print in Plume. That was my way of leaking what I was working on. There are rules you know. You can’t sell the cow before it’s been milked… wait that’s not the metaphor. Anywhoo, it’s out now so all secrecy is behind me and I can starting crafting new secrets.

Drawing drawing drawing, la la lala. After I scan the drawing into Adobe Illustrator I start redrawing the “skeleton” of what the final product will look like. Illustrator is the only program I use. I know that there are a lot of programs that structure your repeats for you and have a lot of fancy tools. I guess I am just an elitist or possibly just stubborn or maybe I can’t move past what I know but this is how I like it. I like to draw every line, every step, do all of the math, much like a psychotic control freak (not that I am one, I have documentation on this).

Filling in the skeleton is the first real glimpse of how the fabric will look. At this point I can determine if one section is beginning to look too heavy or if the spacing is weird (in a bad way as opposed to that quirky awkwardness that is so popular these days). By the time I get to color I’m pretty much sitting on the edge of my seat, now I have to start thinking again but it’s still the home stretch. Hmmmm I’ll put green there and blue there, wait, that’s too heavy and I don’t have any lights in this area blah blah blah… That was a sample of my internal dialog.

Once the pinks are dropped in and the background color is established I can take a little break. Then I come back and realize that it all needs to be tweaked.

This is the original color way. In the end I added some golds and turned up the volume a bit on the whole thing. And this is what you get…

Plume is finally in stores! YaY! I have been making tons of stuff. My quilter is pretty much either totally loving me or cursing my name. I’m not sure which. I have a bunch of stuff in the oven and am going to be traveling a bit so if you don’t hear from me as often just know that I am busy making stuff for your benefit. I might also being painting my living room which I have just about had it with.

Once a fabric line ships to stores I feel like I have just released a breath I have been holding for months. I finally have all of my samples made and am now settling into the calm before the creative storm when it all starts up again. I have a bunch of new stuff to show y’all. If only the sun would come out long enough to take a picture. Boo. Who ever thought winter was a good idea anyway? I know I didn’t vote for it.

I am getting tons of emails about guild stuff. Hooray! If you want to know more about it, like the whens the wheres and the what-have yous then go HERE… Join our little network and you will be given magical access to more information than you ever dreamed possible.

I just got wind of this a minute ago. Over at Jolly Jabber they are auctioning off quilts and stuff to raise some $$$ to help out the Haitians. Lissa Alexander over at Moda Fabrics made this Neptune quilt that she has donated to the auction. It’s super cute and you should totally have it so go bid on it. After she made this quilt I liked it so much that I made one too. So if you get it then we can be like sisters, unless you’re weird, then we’ll just be cousins or something.

Bottom line is this- you get something cool, some people you don’t know get stuff they need, I think you’re awesome and the Karma gods owe you one which is always good. I am not really seeing a down side here.

Project Runway started last week so naturally I lost all track of time and reality. It’s a very severe side effect of the show. I spent the next few days draping fabric over my lamp desperately trying to make it work. This is the sort of thing that happens when your office is in your house, but I digress.

After a couple of days of make believe I decided to venture outside and was totally overwhelmed by this mist that had settled over the whole farm. I half expected some magical monkey fairy to spring from a bush in a trail of sparkle and punch me in the face. I don’t know if they actually do that but I am beyond that age where I think that all magical creatures are my friend. Mostly I just thought it was funny so I made a picture of it.

On a more serious note… It’s magical right?

Monkeys are courtesy of Theo Delphinian and the Love Bandits circa 2006.

We all need a place to go where we have something in common. I know that I do. Instead of waiting around for someone to start a group a couple of us decided to do it ourselves. Well, okay, I just showed up and have yet to do much of anything useful but that’s not the point now is it? Our very very first meeting ever is coming up. The guild is for people who love to make stuff or just like being around other people who like to make stuff. It doesn’t matter what you do or how you do it just come. Our first meeting will be an organizational meeting that will get the ball rolling and get this thing started. It’s going to be fun and amazing and you will leave with a sense of optimistic euphoria that can’t be rivaled by any chemical substance on earth. Maybe you’ll just have a good time and want to come back again next month and that’s okay too.

So here’s the nitty gritty:

When:

Saturday, January 23rd

10:00 am to 12:oo pm

Where:

Urban Arts & Crafts

4157 North Mulberry Drive

Kansas City, Missouri 64116

See you there!!

Exhibit A

Welcome to the future. 2010 sounds so sci-fi. Where are the killer robots? When is my hover house on the moon gonna be finished? Excuse me, time travel? Come on, it’s 2000 freakin’ 10!In 1985 this is what the future looked like, Astronaut Barbie. She charts inter galactic maps, travels with a jet pack and armed with thigh high plastic boots she dances on stardust, at least that’s what the box says. Apparently the future also involved a lot of sparkle and puffy sleeves. I just thought it was funny.Anywhoo, in the last year I have moved from a loft in the city to a house in the country. I have accumulated a lot of stuff in that time. I am like a gold fish, I will grow to the size of my bowl. I now have three bedrooms full of stuff when 12 months ago I could fit just about everything I owned in my car. My resolution is to “cut back” on buying weird things (see exhibit A above). I can’t stop completely because there is just too much weird stuff out there and if I don’t pick it up someone else will. I like to think of it as charity work. I help relieve the burden of others.So, any good resolutions out there???

It’s that time. Finally! I heart Christmas, good food, presents and those wacky family members that only seem to come out for special occasions. We appear to be iced in this year but I predict that the twins will provide more entertainment than any of my egg nog saturated relatives anyway. Have a good one all y’all out there in blogland!