Welcome to Day 6 of our MODA Pillow Talk Party! Have you been to all the stops before today? If you haven't, you should pop on over and meet some great folks. I am finding out new things about some of my old friends and meeting some new designers for the first time!
• • • • • • • • • • • • • •
THE PILLOW
As I'm sure you've already figured out from the previous "hops" this week, we all designed a pillow for Houston Market 2010 that was meant to depict our journey as a designer. Now, I have to admit that I usually don't like these kinds of projects because I can't come up with a good answer on the spot. But I was so pleasantly surprised when I finally had to hunker down and make this pillow... I loved it! I enjoyed thinking about it, making it and sharing about it. Go figure!
I started with a plain hemstitched linen napkin that I bought on one of my wonderful little adventures in Paris in the last couple of years. Those trips have been such a sanctuary of inspiration for me, I thought it appropriate to use as the base of the pillow. Next, I found a a bunch of cream based prints from a variety of my collections. This formed the center line. All of our groups have some kind of a cream or ivory colorway so I thought putting them front and center would be the way to go.
Next I started making buttons. Dozens and dozens of buttons. Many of them didn't make it onto the pillow because there wasn't any more room. To be honest, we went a bit crazy with the buttons. To do this without having our hand fall off, you should use this amazing little tool that we were given at Market. Oh, what we would have done to have it BEFORE Market! I have to tell you that I LOVE THIS TOOL. It doesn't hurt that I love to make buttons, but I digress.
If you come back tomorrow we are going to do a tutorial and give one away in a GIVEAWAY! Also by tomorrow, we will have a limited amount of them in stock for sale.
Last but not least, I added a bit of my favorite butterscotchy colors for a scrappy binding and sewed on a tiny piece of my selvedge as a little decoration. Because as I shared with folks at Market, even after 20+ collections, it never gets old to see my name on that little selvedge. There is just something so satisfying about seeing your name rolled out on thousands and thousands of yards of fabric. I know, it sounds a bit silly to say. But its true.
FYI, we have had so many requests for this little guy since Market that we are working on a pattern of pillows to release with the next fabric collection in Spring 2011. We had grand plans to try to finish it by this blog hop, but it was not meant to be yet.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • •
THE QUESTIONS
We like to give Lissa a lot of grief for these various contests, tours and projects that she dreams up for us to be involved in but really, we all love her and we love all of her ideas.... well, okay, most of her ideas LOL! But she really is a wonderful marketing director and we all REALLY APPRECIATE everything she does for us and to us :-). Love you Lissa!
So here are the questions that Lissa thought might be interesting for us all to answer for your reading entertainment.... so here goes:
What is a little known fact about yourself?
My family emigrated from Poland when I was 7, leaving in the middle of the night without telling any of our family in case someone might try to stop us. The story gets crazier from there but I probably shouldn't write about it here in such a public place. You know that whole, I could tell you but then I would have to kill you line.... well, Poland was communist at the time we "left". Let's just leave it at that.
On a less life threatening note :-), I have a masters in theology but no degrees in art!
I know, my life has taken some circuitous paths. I was an art minor in college because my parents didn't really think that you could make a living doing "art". So I took as many art classes as I could without it becoming my "major" which was political science. I then went to seminary and got a master's degree in cross cultural theology and urban studies: basically working on domestic urban issues. My boyfriend at the time, my husband now, and I were living in East Los Angeles working with gangs and troubled youth. It was what I thought I was going to do for the rest of my life. Its a VERY LONG story on how I arrived at fabric designer, but there you go.
p.s. In case you're totally confused from things I have said in the past, I have more recently gone to school for surface & textile design but its not what I officially studied in college.
How do you relax?
I sit in the left corner of my large overstuffed couch... and I really do mean "in" in the corner because I shove myself up against the arm of the couch and pile all my favorite pillows [of which there are a lot] on the right hand side of me. I make myself my favorite cup of tea, either iced or hot depending on what season we're talking about. I take a pile of my favorite magazines or even mail that needs to be sorted or kids stuff that needs to be organized.... it doesn't really matter what it is so much, just that I am organizing something. And lastly, I turn on whatever old crime show marathon we have "tivoed" in the past month and have it on in the background. My favorites? Are you sure you want to know the cheesy shows I watch when sitting on that left side of the couch? Well, NCIS, Bones or Closer for the more up to date ones. Remington Steele, for the oldies but goodies.
I really am a hermit.
What do you sleep in - PJ’s or Nightgown?
Well, I usually sleep in my favorite oversized teeshirt and leggings. I used to wear pajamas but I don't like it when the pajama pants creep up at night- that was probably TMI, as my kids say, too much information, but I guess that's the price you pay for the theme Pillow Talk!
Recently I put on an old favorite night gown that apparently I wore a lot when I was pregnant with my youngest. As I walked to the bathroom to brush my teeth, my 9 year old son looked at me from across the hallway and asked, "Mom, are you pregnant? I haven't seen you wear that since you were having a baby last time!." Needless to say, that nightgown has now been bid farewell and I am back to my favorite Giants t-shirt and some old comfortable leggings.
What kind of pillow do you like, Hard or soft, foam or feather? And why?
I have an old feather, squishy pillow that I can "mush" up into a little ball of fluff. I make new pillowcases for it all the time. Better yet, I take it with me everywhere I travel and my husband mocks me mercilessly and calls me an old lady. That's okay though, I know where he sleeps!
When you were young did you sleep with a stuffed animal? If so what?
I don't remember having anything. But my husband still has the teddy bear he grew up with and it sits in the corner of our room. I've tried to pack it away many times since it doesn't really "go" with our decor but he won't have any of it. I hope none of his friends are reading this post.
Do you sew in bed? Read? Watch TV? eat?
Normally by the time I crawl into bed it is way too late to do much of anything and we have instituted a "no bringing electronics into bed" rule at our house so no twittering in bed for me! I love to read a good mystery if I can keep my eyes open. I do currently have a stack of 17 books by my bedside. Just in case. I love books. Used to read many more of them B.K and B.F. [before kids and before Fig Tree]. I think I will do nothing but read when I retire!
How many nights have you or your spouse spent on the couch?
My husband has spent MANY nights on the couch. Me, my fair share. But its not as bad as it sounds. Sleeping on the couch is what happens at our house when: there is a sick toddler, a boy who is having nightmares, a sick spouse whose illness you don't want to catch, a nursing infant who needs to be in a room that is not with his/her mom or otherwise they will wake up said mother every 33 1/2 minutes and want to nurse, a 5 year old girl who still wants to cuddle in the middle of the night and a parent who has to get some sleep before work the next day... and on and on and on. But don't worry about us, our couch is very soft, very comfortable and whoever sleeps out there gets to use the Whimsy Fresh quilts that are all backed in the MODA snuggle fabric. Its all good, I promise.
Nighttime toddy?
Wasn't even sure what a toddy was when Camille emailed to ask the same question!! So I had to look it up. Since I didn't even know what it was, I guess I have never had one.
However, my hub and I have recently joined a quarterly wine club in Sonoma Valley near where we live and are learning to appreciate red wine [I've never been much of a fan until now]. It is slowly becoming a tradition at our house to have a glass of red wine with dinner whenever the 5 of us are sitting down to a real meal. Eating a "real meal" with the whole family is easily one of my favorite parts of the day. To this end, I am trying to cook more at home. You, my dear friends, can keep me accountable to actually doing that this year. It is one of my goals!
Early to bed or all-nighter?
Most definitely a late-nighter kind of gal. That is my preferred state of being, actually! I was always that way ever since my first all-nighter my freshman year in college. I always studied at the last minute- good under pressure, up to the deadline. Now I design and write up to the last deadline too! As a stay-at-home mom who decided to run a business based largely from home, my late nights became a necessity as they were the only time that the house was quite and I could work. A lot of my emails and uploads happen late at night and often people email me back the next day asking what on earth I was doing up at 2:50 am.! Now that our business is a full time job for several people, the rest of the folks work primarily during "normal hours". I work mostly when everyone else is gone or asleep. That still makes nights my best work time. I wonder what will happen when my kids get to be teenagers and stay up with me? Uh-oh, maybe then I will have to become a morning person!?
Who would you most like to have a pillow fight with?
My kids, all 3 of them, are awesome pillow fighters. In fact one of my favorite Saturday morning activities is an impromptu family pillow fight. The result is usually that I get hurt [I bruise really, really easily], my oldest gets in some kind of trouble for getting too rough and the other two hide under the covers and create all kinds of covert operations. My husband, who can usually win hands down, just gives the rest of us a chance to think we are gaining on him. And then, he holds all 4 of us down with one arm. He's kind of a big guy. If you asked him his side, he would say that we don't play fair. I would say that we just use what we have available to us. Its an on going discussion at our house LOL!
GIVEAWAY.... GIVEAWAY... GIVEAWAY
Are you still here? Wow, you're awesome. That took too long to write and probably too long to read. So as your reward for sticking with it....
1. Leave a comment telling us what is your favorite Fig Tree color and be entered to win one of these goodies- one bundle, one mini bundle and one jelly roll will be given away! Thank you MODA for the generous donations!!
2. I don't usually pay much attention to these kinds of things but I've been told that I should. So sign up to follow our blog in your reader or by email [buttons on top right sidebar of the blog]. If you do that, come back and tell me and your second comment will give you a second chance to win the above goodies [if you already do, you can come back & tell us that too].
3. This is for you die hard Fig fans out there: there will be an additional 40 winners for those who can identify all the collections used on either row of buttons or the creams in the middle of the pillow. Correct guesses will be entered to win a Layer Cake plus 40 will be chosen to receive a little mini 2" x 2" charm pack of Buttercup or Breakfast at Tiffany's. Go ahead and try for it, if you don't get it right, your guess will count toward the main giveaway anyhow!
4. Lastly, remember the I-TOP giveaway starting tomorrow!
Don't forget to continue with tomorrow's pillow talk at Kansas Troubles.
We will draw winners for today's giveaways on Friday!
Thanks for pillow talking with me.