Birds & Berries

As with most things, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And that has been the fate of my "I'm going to start blogging" declaration that I made a few months back.

We just got our strikeoffs in the mail for our NEXT fabric line, and I still have yet to put up a post about our current line, Birds & Berries. I've mentioned it in some of my other posts, but as many of you know... I'm long winded and I like to have at least one post that goes over our inspiration... and the little hidden secrets that reside within the prints. So I'm doing that now.

(I actually have a whole list of posts that have never seen the light of day. Carrie's wedding being one of them. Her wedding came and went, and as usual, I was not on the ball... and when I was finally ready to put it up... she'd been married 6 months. So I vowed to do it on her 1st wedding anniversary. And then her 2nd anniversary. The 3rd time is typically the charm though, and I'm dead serious when I say, on her 3rd anniversary, her wedding post will go live.)

The Birds & Berries line originally started out as the Birds & the Bees. Then I googled that name and was surprised to find that it is still a somewhat risqué term alluding to grownup activities. Then Tula Pink actually came out with a line called the Birds & the Bees that very same Market. So we were glad that we went with our backup name. (She's a little edgier than us and pulled the name off nicely. :) So kudos to her for being cool!)

Anyway... we have three (sorta four) colorways. Blue, Berry, Green (with a little Yellow). See below.

As we usually do, we went with a garden/nature theme. This one has some slight ethnic influences though. Which was fun. I'm dating an Indian guy who I'm crazy about... and when we first started dating he brought me back some clothes from his trip to India. The fabrics were incredible. And so some of those served as inspiration for our newest line.

The main print has 10 different species of birds in it! Which is impressive, if I do say so myself. There are also snails, bees, inch worms, and spider webs... plus a variety of berries and flowers. The whole thing took FOREVER to draw... AND it was the very last print to be added to this series. I was working on it right up until the deadline (as usual)... and when I finally got to it, Hurricane Irene hit (last year), and our power went out, and I was forced to work on it in my car with my computer plugged into the cigarette lighter. Not a fun time.

Here's our Blue Colorway.

And the Berry Colorway.

And the Green (with a little bit of Yellow) Colorway.

And that covers most of the high points. If anyone uses this line to make something super cool, please send me pictures!! We love to blog about that kinda stuff!

I Spy...

A bunny, a tree, two spider webs, and some bees...

When we were kids, my mom was always looking for ways to occupy our time during summer break. Crafting projects worked for a little while, but there comes a time when construction paper and glue are no longer entertaining.

And when we reached that point, Mom always seemed to have an "I Spy" book or two at the ready to stave off any potential boredom. And the tactic worked, my sister and I could spend countless hours scouring the pages of those books. It's like Where's Waldo on steroids...

While some of the "I Spy" pages were easier to get through than others, I think what we loved the most, was finding all the little surprises in the picture that weren't always obvious at first glance....a concept that has heavily influenced our design process now that we're older.

In each line, we like to include at least one fabric that's loaded with little, inconspicuous details. With some of our favorites being snails, little birds, atriums, berries, and bees.

And while some of these items come and go with each line, there's one thing you can count on seeing every time...spider webs!

Why spider webs, you ask? Well, we've got a whole host of reasons. Aside from the fact that they're just plain awesome...they're also believed to be good luck when hidden in crazy quilts and Christmas trees. AND...spiders eat bugs! And really, anything that's going to give my tomato plants and herbs a fighting chance of survival this year is OK in my book.

Little Carrie's Christmas Presents

Yes, I've been doing a horrendous job keeping up with the blog. I've been meaning to post this for a long time now, and I should seriously be ashamed of myself for blogging about Christmas presents in May… but you know how it goes… the road to hell is paved with good intentions. :)

Carrie sewed together presents this year for all of the women in our family… because she's sweet. And I have to say, they are quite nice.

Since childhood, Carrie has been the messy one.

But something has changed here in the last few years and she's gotten to be quite meticulous… sewing together intricate little bags, baby quilts, pot holders, purses.

We're very proud.

(I'd be a little more proud if she'd make me the skirt that I've been asking for for the last year…)

The Third Line

Flora is finished and will be coming out at Spring Market this May!

The turnaround period for this line has been ridiculously quick... and I feel like I've been running on fumes since our final strikeoffs arrived. Usually, a line will be finalized a couple of months before Market, but this one had some issues with the screenprinting and it didn't make it our way until a couple of weeks ago. So we've been running around like crazy people trying to get everything finished up in time for Salt Lake City!

The final group is made up of 30 total fabrics (9 patterns in 4 different colorways).

I'm not really sure how we wound up going in this particular direction, stylistically... but the process of creating it felt very un-forced... almost organic.

Which is nice, because I generally find that with larger projects, such as this... I require a lot of coaxing and cajoling... to get my brain geared up for something so big. But with this line, ideas and inspiration just flowed freely.

Moda said that we should shoot for a more generic theme this time (unlike our last line that revolved around cuckoo clocks... a theme that is super specific), so we went with flowers... which is pretty much the go-to theme when it comes to fabric. Because, well heck... flowers are pretty... so that's what we did.

But just doing straight-up flowers seemed a little boring and cliché... so we beefed this idea up a little by going with more of a secret-garden theme... that has fun little surprises hidden throughout.

And as the drawings began to come alive... we noticed that a number of them... began to give off this sort of English Tea Room / Victorian Wallpaper sort of vibe... with a somewhat retro flair (though very subtle).

Which felt right to me. Our first line was wild and organic in terms of its subject matter, so we opted for an Art Nouveau inspired style of illustration... The second line contained Cuckoo Clock/Swiss Alps features... so we went with a Swiss/folky/Hex-Sign style of drawing.

So for a secret garden theme... Victorian wallpaper felt like a pretty natural jumping-off point. And from there, we expanded that system to create our final line... which in my opinion, rounded itself out rather nicely. It's structured yet organic... it's complex and intricate, and it has a very decorative sort of whimsy, that begins to show through after a bit. And with this line... I feel like the colors are spot on... they're rich and vibrant, and each of the fabrics dance together quite well when combined.

And that's about it... I'm pretty pumped to say the least, and I can't wait to see everything at Market...

Let's Talk Pillows!

Welcome to the Pillow Talk Blog Hop : Day 15. Thanks for stopping by!

If you are new to my blog, here is a little background on what has now become quite the family affair… My mom and I started this whole venture about two years ago, right after I had finished a grad program up in graphic design. I was unemployed for a depressing 5 months… and it was during this period that our ideas started hatching. I've since moved up to Pennsylvania and we're now doing the majority of our work over the phone. Luckily, we've found that most of our tasks can be divided up... And they are as follows.

Jessi: She's in charge of all of the initial concepts/sketches for our fabric lines, as well as all of our quilt pattern designs (which includes writing the instructions, sketching the diagrams, and testing each of the patterns). She also likes to yell at me over the phone. A lot. Prior to our pattern business, she was working with her best friend and neighbor, Connie Flora. They designed the quilt planner named Plan Bee for Prym Dritz as well as creating their own series of quilt patterns.

Lauren: I work in Cranbury NJ as web designer at a software company. I also do a lot of freelance web work as well as our own fabric site... I put the entire thing together myself... which was hard!! I'm learning how to do some basic website coding, thanks to the awesome group of guys that I work with. (Thank you Ambrose, Ed... and sometimes Devin and Brian! Even though Devin and Brian have on occasion, caused me to cry myself to sleep after claiming that some of my designs have made their eyes bleed... not exactly constructive criticism...) In addition to the website stuff, I format all of our quilt patterns and create the ridiculously meticulous illustrations that accompany each instruction.

Carrie: My younger sister, Carrie, was recently dragged out to Albuquerque, NM with her husband Jon who got a secret job for the government.

Carrie is very bored now.

If you live out in that area and you want to give her a job in marketing... she's super cool and very smart. Anyway, in the meantime... we've made her our Little Project Manager / Copywriter. I'll still be writing our blog entries because I like to be long winded... And I don't think Carrie has it in her to capture the subtle nuances of my extreme ADHD. But she'll be doing the copywriting for the website... She's under the impression that websites shouldn't sound like some "ridiculous stream of consciousness that no one bothered to proofread". This is based off of the stuff that she learned while getting her masters in marketing... so who am I to argue with that logic, right? (For the record... I do proofread... and my streams of consciousness are almost always grammatically correct.)

And well, my dad is sort of in on it too... he's in charge of anything that involves math.

Because we hate math.

Beau (my fiance), Peter (my BFF at work), Brianna, Jason, and Julie (plus the four guys mentioned a few paragraphs back): This group makes up my team of moral support. (The first two guys emailed today and told me that they were mad that there was no mention of them on my credits list. So there you go Beau and Peter. :) )

When tasked with the project of making a pillow that represented us, my mom and I went back and forth between entirely too many ideas that were…well… sub par. And that’s just not how we Jungs roll. Luckily though, with a little bit of patience we finally came to a pillow design that my mom and I are proud to offer our readers, thanks to our adorable dog Rudy. (See above)

Rudy is our dog, and we love him more than people should ever love their pets. (I say this because my mother mentioned once that she would jump in front of car to save him... Which, I don't know... sounds a bit unhealthy to me. But can you really blame her... Look at him!!) Anyway. Rudy thinks that he is our guard dog. (Yes I know... he's a very tough looking little Westie.) He sits up at the window seat in my parents living room and scans the front yard for any suspicious activity. He'll then bark and warn us if anyone is up to no good.

So this pillow will at some point become Rudy's guard dog pillow. That he can lean on while he's keeping watch by the window... Perhaps a bit of a stretch, but that's our story and we're sticking to it.

We especially like this pattern because it helps to show off our hilltown pattern. This particular pattern is extra cool because it has a bunch of little secrets hidden within the landscape. If you look hard, you'll see a chimney sweep, a little fisherman catching a fish, a waterwheel, some deer, a little bridge with children playing nearby, a bum with a liquor bottle up in a balcony, Rudy (our dog) is in the town square, a quilt that is hanging up on a washline... and more. It's quite a lot of fun!

With that in mind, the window theme seemed like a natural choice. I mean how cool would it be to look out your window each day to see this awesome little town.

You can download the pattern for free here. It is one of 6 free patterns that we have available on our website! You can view all of them here.

Also in the spirit of free stuff, my mom and I are giving away full fat quarter sets of Hideaway to TWO lucky winners. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post. We will announce the two winners in a week!

If you don't know how to comment... Don't worry! Blogs are confusing sometimes. Up at the top of this entry, click on the title. This will take you to the area where you can comment. At the bottom of the page you will see a comment box where you will then be prompted to post your comment, your email address and your name. Then just click "Post Comment". And that's it!! You're done!

And finally, the much anticipated pillow talk questions…

What is a little known fact about you?

LAUREN / I CAN’T cook. In fact, I’ve been known to burn Ramen noodles (permanently adhering them to the bottom of the pot), turn quiche into quiche soup, and thoroughly botch the process of making a grilled cheese.

JESSI / I know sign language. I had to learn it for my first job at the South Carolina School for the Deaf and Blind.

How do you relax?

LAUREN / When I actually have free time… I LOVE to watch my retro detective shows: Magnum PI, Simon and Simon, Murder She Wrote, and Matlock.

JESSI / Solving the worlds problems with the company of my best friends and a cappuccino (and maybe a little bit of chocolate).

What do you sleep in - PJ's or NightGown?

LAUREN / I'm partial to black exercise pants and a wife-beater.

JESSI / Any flannel PJ pants and a t-shirt.

What kind of pillow do you like, Hard or soft, foam or feather? And why?

LAUREN / I can sleep on just about anything… a brick floor would be no problem for me. It's almost like a super power.

JESSI / I like hard pillows, and I am allergic to down, so that eliminates the feather option. Also, I love flannel pillowcases almost as much as flannel PJs.

When you were young did you sleep with a stuffed animal? If so what?

LAUREN / I used to sleep with a stuffed polar bear that I cleverly named “Bear”.

JESSI / I slept with my real miniature poodle, Martini. I’m not sure how much he liked the sleeping arrangement though.

Do you sew in bed? Read? Watch TV? eat?

LAUREN / On the weekends I don’t get out of bed…so all of the above... and then some.

JESSI / I stay in my studio until I can’t keep my eyes open.

How many nights have you or your spouse spent on the couch?

LAUREN / I don't have a husband... yet. So only time will tell.

JESSI / My husband, Chip, has a bad habit of falling asleep on the La-z-Boy most nights.

Nighttime toddy?

LAUREN / When I was younger, my dad used to put me to bed with a glass of water that he called “Super Water”. The term stuck, and I still REQUIRE a glass of “Super Water” before bed.

JESSI / I’m not much of a drinker, but I do love a little bit of chocolate at night.

Early to bed or all-nighter?

LAUREN / Most definitely a night owl. I think I'm nocturnal.

JESSI / Since I discovered fabric designing, I’ve been a night person.

Who would you most like to have a pillow fight with?

LAUREN / Brad Pit, Jake Jyllenhal, Johnny Dep...

JESSI / I would love to hit Lauren with a pillow when she doesn’t do what I say. Kidding! Sort of.

Thanks again for stopping by. Don't forget to enter our giveaway by leaving a comment on our post! And if you liked our blog, stop by our Facebook Fan Page and click LIKE up at the top of the screen (beside our names). The next stop on the Blog Hop is Sweetwater!

Oh, and... if you want to see the entire line... check out our fabrics page on our website!!