Portabellopixie

Bear-y Busy

Right on the heals of this post, almost as if I asked for it, I present to you:  "What happened Last Night."

This is our drain pipe.  Isn't it pretty?  As far as drain pipes go you know..  I love to glance at it as I'm passing.  OK, not really, maybe it's the apple tree behind it I am so fond of?  Notice how close the apple tree is in relation to the drain pipe, which happens to be connected to our home.

The one we live in, you know?

Let's take a closer look at the lovely tree.  I don't know what kind it is. (and actually it belongs to our lovely neighbors, but they've made it clear that their apples are our apples so I'm just running with it..)  But we have so enjoyed watching those little nuggets of fruit grown and turn colors.  Now they are the perfect shade of ruby red and peach and quite remind me of the colors in the my new fabrics.

Ahh, so pretty!  Here, take a closer look:

Now, last night we were sitting in the living room, enjoy one of our favorite shows while working on some quilt market projects.  It was 11:00 and a nice cool breeze was blowing through the large window that looks out into the front yard.  A knock on the door..

We stopped and glanced at each other with quizzical faces.

"Who is at the door at this time of night?"

Dustin went to answer it and what I heard made my heart beat a wee bit faster.

"I was walking by and just wanted to let you know (he said this like it was an exciting, good thing) that you have a bear in your tree!"

Now let me stop here for a moment.  I mentioned before how I have been fearing this, right?  Would you be excited to hear that there is a BEAR 20 feet from your front door?  Would you run to your room and hide under the covers?

Not if your name is Dustin.

He ran to get a flashlight and bounded outside with our happy-go-lucky neighbor and shined the light in the tree.  Yes, I married a brainiac.  (I fully warned him that I was going to share my view of his intelligence on this chapter of our adventure in living in the wild.  He knows he will be mocked but is holding his ground that he was a safe distance away and the bear was not going to charge him.)

Whateva'.  I stayed at the door.

The thing had to be at least 5 feet long and have a head the size of a basketball.  Munch munch, rustle rustle.  For about an hour.

This morning, I went outside to view the leftovers.

Every rustle I heard had me whipping around like there might be a mass murderer behind me.  Dustin finds this quite hilarious and tells me that they are much more afraid of us then we are of them.  But I didn't see the bear staying close to his house.  Do I go to his front door and munch on the pretty apples in his yard?  NO  Because I am much more afraid of him than he is of me.

All right, moving on.  :)

This week I am turning in the manuscript for my book!  Hooray!  If you look around the sidebars, you can find the title.  I spent the morning going over design concepts for the book and I love what's churning out.  Can't wait to share more with you guys.  More on it soon, promise.

We are shipping off our crate for quilt market on Friday.  Speaking of market, I'm going to be teaching a schoolhouse on Friday the 9th.  I am teaching it with Miss Paula and we're going to be covering some easy projects that will help your shop display shine!  Here is the date, time and room info for our schoolhouse as well as a sneak of the projects I'll be sharing.

Please consider it your personal invitation.  :)

OH, and I will offer these up as free project downloads when I return from market for those of you that won't be able to come.

Michael Miller has a slot of classes before and after in the same classroom I believe, and they always have great giveaways, so try and plan to just come and get comfy.  I'll be giving away a few samples, so do try and come if you can!

That's all for now, I'm going to go for a walk down my bear-less (hopefully) street and then get back to work!

xo-

Sandi

Validation

Do you have 15 minutes to spare?  I just found this video on my friend's blog.  I love this guy, he is one of my favorite actors and if you don't smile through this video, your face is on too tight!  ;)

OH-and thank you so much for all the kind compliments on the last post.  You guys certainly made me smile.  

xo

Sandi

New Dress, New Hair, New Winners

Fluttering Butterflies, hello.

I wanted to create fabrics that could easily be used for adult and children apparel with Meadowsweet. Are butterflies for adults? I say yes. ;) 

Actually.. When I tried the dress on the first time I was a little skeptical. 

I mean.. 

LOOK-

They're not exactly, uh, subtle if you catch my drift.  When I was picking out the fabrics, I kept thinking "do I really want those there?"  And I finally just kinda tossed my hands in the air and said "does it really matter?" I want to have fun!  Life is too short to worry about dresses that have butterflies in the "wrong" spot and I'm going to put as many butterflies in my wardrobe as I can.  Hmph.

NOW-

This series of pictures below?

Dustin told me there was a bear behind me.  We've been told to expect them in our new neighborhood and I've been completely dreading it.  WHAT do you do when you are walking down the street to pick up your kid from the bus stop and there is a BEAR across the street?  I'll let you know when I find out.

Of course, there wasn't actually one there.  That was his method of photographic direction.  Hmm..if he hadn't just scored the best grade in the class on his first test, I might have to spank him.

So, how many of you will be making dresses with butterflies on it?  I can help you out with the pattern-this one will be released in January.  With two sleeve options and a top that goes with it.  Was going to release it for fall, but I'm going to wait until the cotton lawn is ready.  Ohhh just wait-cotton lawn...  Anywho, this is such a flattering shape for just about all the body types.  I love how this dress fits!

So, I know you all really just want to know who won the goods, right?

The bag of bits and pieces goes to:

The much in demand (oh my goodness) FQ Purse goes to:

So ladies, congratulations!  Please send me an email with your addresses and I'll get your goodies out the door to you.  We'll have to do some more giveaways soon..

PS-I've updated my playlist with my favorites for the moment.  Those of you that share my toonage flava, enjoy.

PPS-Thank you to Missouri Star Quilt Co for sending me over a custom coded search box!  How easy was that?  Now if you're looking for something, just pop on over to the search box.  If you uncheck the "Search Portabellopixie" it will search the whole web.

Have a great weekend, I think I'm taking my butterflies out for a spin with my smarty pants husband..

xo

Sandi

*more* Meadowsweet (to win!!)

Thank you kindly for all the comments yesterday about Meadowsweet.  I'm thrilled that you guys seem to like it as much as I do.  :)

Yesterday, I got a call from Kathy who offered to send me a bag stuffed full of Meadowsweet fat quarters to give away here.  Hooray for fat quarters!  So enter your name, you know..  

You can still enter into yesterday's drawing for the baggie of my little bits.  I'll announce both winners on Friday.  Great way to start the weekend, yes?

These bags are really cool, they are lined in my Vintage Dot print from Ginger Blossom and will pull closed with a drawstring at the top.  They put together a limited number of them to sell as samples at market so you may be able to snag one in a few weeks before the yardage even starts shipping.  Tell your local shop to run and grab one at sample spree!  They sold out quickly when they made them up with my first collection if I am remembering correctly.  They will retail for $80, so thank you to Michael Miller for the sweet prize for the blog.

To answer the question, Meadowsweet will start shipping the end of November.

Also - Gracie (finally!) is back in stock on the website.  Hooray!  The new printed patterns will be available in November and I will aim to have the first two Printables up for sale next week.

Thank you again for the warm welcome to my new collection, it really makes it all the better!

PS - does anyone know of a good search widget that allows one to search a single website and not the entire web?  I've been looking, but not coming up with much.  Thanks!

Meadowsweet

Introducing my newest:

New, new, new! I love new. Fresh, crisp, bright. My new fabrics are here! Meadowsweet, inspired by the sweet things you would find, well - in a meadow.

A light and lively collection easily manageable in 30 pieces.  We've been getting the word that smaller collections are being sought after because shops don't have to pick and choose.  I pitched three color palettes, expecting to cut one, but they all turned out great.  So we picked the two that played off each other the best to release right now and the last color collection will come out in a few months after the first two groups have their time to shine.  All the prints will appear in the lovely cotton Michael Miller is so well known for as well as a few select prints on corduroy and the new, fabulous cotton lawn.  I'm so excited about the cotton lawn!  I played with it last week and it is just lovely, perfect for dresses and flowing tops.

SO, here you are - the new bits of color to join fray around here.  I hope you enjoy them!

I had so much fun with this collection, just imagining a sweet picnic in the mountains by a stream in a flowering meadow.  Grab a few loved ones and take off.  Easy and, dare I say it again?  Sweet.

Friendly daisies..

Fluttering Butterflies..  (I've got a dress in the works for myself out of this combo below and I can NOT wait to try it on.. butterflies are so not just for little girls.)

Sweet Strawberries..

A few words about this skirt- these are not my cute legs, but my sisters.  However, I am proud to say that I made this skirt for ME and it's actually a bit too big.  Ah, again - sweet.  Catch it at market if you're coming!

Also, I've had several requests for downloadable patterns, so we're going to give it a try and this skirt will be the first. We're naming the patterns "Printables" and plan on having this one up for sale soon with more to come.  What do you guys think of the idea?  The request has been geared more towards wanting our current patterns to be printable, which just isn't really feasible with the size of pattern pieces.  I think this will be a good alternative.  The Portabellopixie Printables will only be available on my website to download, they will not be printed on paper by us ever.  More details soon..

But speaking of printed patterns, here is a quick sneak of some of the ones we're about to send to the printer..

There are more, but I thought I thought this would help with seeing the scale of the new fabric and to whet your appetite for new patterns just a bit.

Also, this is usually where I would give away a few sets of fat quarters, but I have flown through my sample yardage like it was in short supply or something.  So, the best I can do right now is a bag of bits and pieces.  So let me know what you think, and a nice baggy of my Meadowsweet could be on it's way to you.

Four

My little guy went and turned four on me the other day.  His birthday was the first that I've had an emotional time with.  I think the combination of him being off at school (I haven't had a call from his teacher due to an emotional "I miss my mommy" breakdown yet - what's up with that?) and the actual dated reminder of him getting older got to me.  sniff sniff

It was a learning experience for me also.  Last week I mentioned feeling guilty for planning on shooting some book projects whilst the party was going.  Some of the projects in my book have a party feel and I thought shooting them with an actual party going on in the background was a pretty good idea.  It wasn't as good an idea as I thought it would be, but it did prove to be a good learning experience.  :)

I worked all morning to get things ready and as the time for the party drew nearer, I was stressing out too much.  So I looked at him and thought - "he's only going to turn 4 once."  I put down the book projects (I can write as many books as I want throughout the rest of my life, right?) and flopped down on the couch with my kiddos and just chilled for the last 45 minutes before his party started.

I lit a candle (go get one, you won't regret it)

and stacked his presents.

I bought these super snazzy wrapping papers to complement one of my projects and a snazzy cake (he wanted a shark and after last year, I ordered it) to use as a backdrop.

He ripped open those presents like his life depended on it and the paper of course got crinkled.  That night after we tucked the kids into bed, I looked at the paper and thought, you know-that's still really pretty.  So I crinkled it up some MORE and wrapped up different things to use for my photoshoot.  Juice boxes, older toys..  The resulting picture turned out better than my initial plan.   I still got the shot I needed, but allowing the situation to just flow and let go of MY plan for the day allowed me to enjoy Ethan's birthday and I'm grateful I had the foresight to put down what I was doing and let go.

With my family all off at school learning this year, I have a lot more time on my hands to get work done.  I've thought a lot about how much more I'm able to accomplish lately and it made me happy.  But not for the reason you may think.  I'm proud that I don't get much accomplished when I have my family around.  When both kids went off to school, it was the first moment for me to look back and say, "I wish I had spent more time with them when they were home all day" OR to say "I'm proud that I put my family first".  I'm really pleased with how I've tucked my business into my life where it could fit.  It may not be the best way to run a business, but it is the best way to run a family.  There is a time and a place for everything.  

This time is so short.

Thank you to those of you who don't get upset when I don't find the time to respond to all the questions in my inbox.  Thank you to my editors who are mothers themselves and just laugh when I miss a conference call because I end up staying at pre-school an hour longer than planned.  Thank you to my friends and family who help sew and test the projects that end up going out into the world.  Thank you to Michael Miller for being so easy going and not being upset when I promise new colors and they arrive 2 weeks late.

Ahhh...

I could feel like I'm doing everything wrong, but I think maybe I've actually got it right. 

xo 

Sandi

PS-The "right" time and place to view NEW fabrics will be here, Monday.

Onward, Ever Onward

We're getting established in our new abode.  

We had our first guests last night.  If you are into nature and animal art, please check this father/son duo out.  So incredibly talented.  We were left with two signed prints, ah thank you so much Dallen.  

The kids (all three) have gone back to school.  I'm not sure which one looks more proud?

This year, Eliza is majoring in kindergarten, Ethan is doing pre-studies in pre-school and Dustin is finishing up Radiography.  (which includes taking a class from his dad.  Wish him luck, my father in law is no easy "A")

Which means that he isn't coming to Fall Market with me this time.  He's, like, taking school seriously or something.  Has a test 2 days after we get back, so it's me and my mom this time.  With Dustin's bag of tools to set up our booth.  MmmHmm..  We don't have an actual booth number yet, but we'll be around the Michael Miller compound.  You may just want to look for the pile of rubble and two weeping women.  Nah, we'll get it done.  ;)  Snug right inbetwixt Miss Paula and Miss Patty.  Should be good times.  Good, colorful times.

We'll be debuting a new fabric collection, which if all goes as planned - I hope to unveil here early next week along with a bloggy makeover.  Six new patterns will join the fray (followed by a few more in January) and I'll be sharing some of the good stuff that will be found in my book.  I think this will be a great market - the last few have been a little slow (everyone is afraid of the big "E" word), but I believe this will definitely be a market to attend!

(quick note about the patterns.  They are being *officially* debuted at market which means they will be available for sale AFTER that.  You guys will probably get a peek at them here first, but they won't be for sale anywhere until at least the end of October.  OH-and Gracie should be back in stock *hopefully* any day now.)

Lots to get done around here so it's a good thing (albeit bittersweet) I have 3 days with 7 full hours completely to myself.  Everyone's off at school getting smart then..

Look: the obligatory first day of school picture.  Or in my case, one of 60.  These kids are growing up too fast!

This one here's about to turn 4.  Me oh my..  I will not wallow, but plan a celebration!  (Is it bad of me to work in a photoshoot for MY book during my son's birthday party?  I'm feeling a bit guilty 'bout it.  ??)

This one here starts ballet today.  Ah, nothing says "you're finally moved" like establishing a routine.  She's missed ballet so we're glad to have found a great studio where we are now.  I'm mostly excited about the squishy couches they have in the waiting area.  The last place had hard plastic chairs.  Ah, 30 minutes to completely sink away and read something of my very own choosing.  Am I the only one who LOVES taking their daughter to ballet?

I'm off everyone, I'll try and pop back in before the weekend!  Hope you are loving those leaves changing colors!

xo

Sandi