LizzyHouse

Help a Peep out!

Hey Peeps, it's your Peep, Lizzy.

My good friend (peep) Alexia is doing a kickstarter project to kick off her pattern company, Green Bee Pattern Co. and she could use your help!

There are just 4 days left, and if donate you are essentially just preordering a pattern for the cost that you putting up to help a sister out. I love kickstarter, and I love Alexia, and I would love love love to see her project get funded so she can get to being so awesome on bigger scale!

thanks, peeps.

check out her kickstarter page here!

you might be feeling neglected.

This has been a rough summer! I totally totally totally bit off way more than I could chew...

and I'm feeling a bit depleted.

I still have Diamond Mountain Quilt Along stuff for you, and I'd love to know if you are making progress. I have a substition chart for the purple illuminate if you've come up short, and I might possibly do another video... just to say, hey peeps...

but I've also been working on new things, and since I've been mostly absent, I thought I would give you a little sneak peep. Again, my friend Carolee shot my quilts for me, and Joanna Peterson of Designs by Laura Jo quilted them. There will be just two new patterns this fall... and some surprise Christmas things, but we won't even go there yet.

 

This is The Colorist, and it is going to blow your mind. The pattern will be available, fingers crossed, second week in October.

*Also. I have been doing a bit of cleaning, and I have some fabric to get rid of. I will keep you posted.

Workshop/ Retreat.

I've got some really great peeps in New York, really some of my besties/ teaching colleagues... and I love being in New York, and I really like New York in the fall.... so I might have a mini retreat in the city. It would be a sewing/ knitting/ embroidering/ bakery finding vacay for probably about 15-20 people. I would like for this to happen before the end of the year. It really just hit me during my bakery talk on twitter tonight.

Also, if you weren't in on the convo, I want to start a bakery. I just don't know where yet.

Not New York, that is for sure.

If it doesn't happen by the end of the year, then early next year. I know it will be cold, but it will be worth it. Or in the middle of June for my birthday. Fine. but that seems too far for my every changing Gemini nature...

You'll get to work with me, Laura Nelkin, Cal Patch, and I am going to see if I can talk Rebecca Ringquist into playing with us too. We're talking fine art craft people.

I'll have to talk to these ladies, but I have a fantastic idea that will blow you all away, and needless to say, you will be glad that you came.

like cry your eyes out glad.

 

The Creative Connection, ya'll.

So I think on Wednesday I'll get on a plane, and then I'll fly to Texas, maybe stay at my Mom's house, pet Finn, tell some funny jokes with Melysses, and then I will get on another plane and fly to Minneapolis/ St. Paul for the Creative Connection.

You never really know what you are getting yourself into with events that you've never been to or taught at before, and I am really excited to teach illustrated travel journals. I'm also excited to gleen what I can just from the weekend in general. I think I am most excited to get to spend some time with some of my favorite twitter-verse/ market peeps. But more excited than most excited about, I am SUPER over the top excited to room with Jana of Izzy and Ivy fame. That lady is the bomb dot com.

So, I won't have a table at the Market, but I think there is a designer booth that I might park a few things in, otherwise I'll just be wearing a trench coat (over my clothes) that will open when you say the password, and lining the sides will be Outfoxed fat quarter sets and 1001 Peeps books. Or I'll have stuff in my classes.

I don't own a trench coat, people.

see you this weekend? I think this is my last teaching gig this year, which is exciting to me. To be done-ish.

ALSO! I was up Quilt Creek, and Joanna of @bustylarue, or Designs by Laura Jo has saved my vegetarian bacon, and my new quilts got to her today and hopefully they will be waiting for me when I get back from Minnesota! Woo!

I need a trip to Disney World, or France, or maybe just a haircut.

Are you reading the state I am in???

 

 

Canadian Fabric Designers???

since I wrote my ebook: How to Enter the World of Textile Design: For the Quilting Industry, I have been truly pleased by just how many peeps have a. purchased the book, and b. done something about it, and really put themselves out there.

There have been many successes and many new designers to the industry, and I'm just pleased to have any part in peeps following their hearts, and their dreams... and so on...

What I can't figure out, is where are our Canadian designers? I'm not Canadian (you know that.), but I have quite a bit of love for my Peeps up north, and I just want to know what is the hold up dearies? You have a wild and majestic land full of black squirrels and what not, a rich textile history, and mad skills, so what's up?

Also, it seems like you are (I'm speaking to Canada as a whole now) always getting done in with middle men... for EVERYTHING! Food, JCrew, etc... why isn't there a Canadian Manufacturer? Producing Canadian designers? You would be producing at the same mills as the American and Japanese peeps! But it would make things more direct, and supportive!

photo by Karyn

I don't know... I've just been thinking about you [Canadians] since I got home.

cake drama.

I made the cake for the wedding reception that I went to this past weekend.

There was cake drama.

When I got to the Jimison's house, I knew that there would not be room in the refrigerator for the wedding cake, so I thought quickly and texted a friend whose parents live in town to see if I could keep the cake in their fridge. Yes! Within the next hour the cake was safely stowed in Griffin's fridge thanks to Ben and his dream Mom, Marilyn.

This was the day before the event, so my plan was to come back a few hours before the party and assemble and finish the cake. No big deal.

I woke up early at the Jimison's and made an extra batch of buttercream just to be on the safe side of things. I didn't want any single thing to possibly hold up the cake going together, drama free. I dyed the frosting a perfect shade of green to match the envelopes to the invites. It was great. Everything was great. I am a Swiss Buttercream pro.

it's about 2:30 so I walk home from the Temple where every body was taking pictures of every body taking pictures. Pack up all my tools, grab my extra butter cream, and walk over to the Griffin's. I take the cakes (the two tiers were already assembled with a crumb coat), the buttercream I had made in Salt Lake, and the batch of buttercream I had made that morning. I'm just hanging out for a second because the buttercream needs to thaw for a couple of minutes... because it really is mostly butter...

I start pushing around the slc buttercream, just to see if it's thawed enough to repair a little travel damage on the cakes before I decorate them with the Rexburg buttercream.... It started to break into chunks, and seperate.

that's weird.

Ok... Rexburg buttercream. I decided to put in the pastry bag, and warm it up a little with my hands to start working on the cake... now this one starts to separate. But since it's dyed green, it starts to look like something out of a science fiction movie as I am watching it curdle and separate while green liquid rises in the bowl.

I started to freak out.

WHAT IS HAPPENING. I have never had a buttercream separate before. EVER. And this reception starts in 2 hours, and I have to get this thing decorated. The crumb coat isn't going to cut it. Marylin got home to me fanatic and horrified. "I don't understand what's happening," I told her. "This has never happened to me before".

I start trying to figure out what it could be, but then I just decide that it isn't important. I will just make more buttercream, and get on with it. We gather up the ingredients and tools, and I start making another batch. I get all the way to the stage where you add the butter, and I am watching it start to resemble the others.

I'm sweating, I'm panicking, and then I prayed. WHAT DO I DO? THIS HAS TO WORK!

Calmly and quietly, this was the answer I got.

stop. put the bowl in the fridge. turn out the lights.

I did all of those things. I turned off the beaters, I stuck the bowl in the frige, and I turned off every light in the kitchen.

It then dawned on me that there was a low spot light directly over me, and all of my broken buttercream. I thanked HF, and took a minute to clean things up and collect myself. Marilyn came back into the kitchen and asked why all the lights were off, and I told her that I realized that they were the cause of the curdled frosting. She then told me that the counter felt cold, but she put things on it to thaw... hence the floating green liquid, ie. melted butter. It was getting zapped from both sides.

I waited about 15 minutes and pulled the buttercream out of the fridge, beat it as smooth as it would get for being nearly dead, frosted the cake, decorated the cake, and then worked with Marylin like we were on a Food Network Challenge to get the cake back to the Jimison's.

It amazing how having a two foot cake in your lap on a 10 inch cake stand will point out every bump, crack, and pebble in the road.

It was finished. It was where it was supposed to be. It looked pretty good, all things considering, but above all, it tasted really good, and I was able to make a very sweet cake topper because of the one that Andrea had made a week earlier in Toronto. It worked perfectly. Thank you Andrea for the brilliant idea!!!

so thanks to everyone who helped make the cake happen. Ashlee for ingredient shopping with me, James and Annie for cake transporting, Ben for helping find a home for the cake, Marylin for letting me use your kitchen, giving me ingredients for that last buttercream, and letting me use your beautiful cake stand, and Andrea for inventing such a wonderful cake topper!

so will there be more wedding cake making in my future? I hope not. But probably.

This is the only picture I have seen so far, if any others get posted I will add them.

another truth.

I'm a bit of a house cat.

in several aspects. I love sleeping. I mostly want to be left alone until I don't anymore. I like being home, wherever I am. I am extremely inquisitive. And I like giving gifts. I really love sleeping.

I compare my gift giving more to that of a cat than any other mammal.

Why does a cat feel the need to bring down a bird, or a giant dragonfly, or a small rodent... not to eat it, not prove their strength (ok sometimes to eat it and prove their strength), but to show you how much you mean to them in the most random of ways. It's as if your cat sees that bird and says, "that bird belongs to [your name here] and I'm gonna bring her that bird."

I see things, and feel like if they don't already, they should belong to anybody that I have met. If I know you, there is a possibility that some random thing will come to you in the mail, or I will have it in my bag and hand it to you. Whether it is something that I make or see, or already own even, if I feel like it actually belongs with you, chances are, it will. There isn't much rhyme or reason to it other than I like matching/ arranging things. It's also just how I show that you matter to me, because I'm paying attention. Also, It has never been about getting people to like me.

A house cat is not interested in getting people to like them. They choose.

I look forward to being wealthy, beyond all reason, one day so I can employ people, and give more gifts.

And sleep more.

a truth.

My honesty and sincerity are often times alienating and embarrassing to others.

My sister told me that once, that my sincerity was embarrassing to her, and at first as I was really hurt by that. How could telling the truth be embarrassing? . . . . and then I thought of all the times that I embarrassed myself, or someone else by telling a truth.

I think it's a fine line between sharing your feelings and imposing on someone else's feelings. I walk the line. I've always been this way. I think it has something to do with being passionate, and feeling others are just as passionate about ribbon, or East of Eden, or Vince Guaraldi, or kombucha, or making good art, or glitter, or traveling, or food and water rights, or the Great Pumpkin, or Continental Airlines, or just about feelings in general... I tend to get carried away by pretty much everything.

I've been thinking about that a lot since this past weekend. I think I get worse when I'm exhausted. Just like I start to sound more Southern when I am tired or mad or trying to sell something to someone.

I've also been thinking about the idea of good traits that are also character flaws. I got stuck on this one though, so I haven't thought of any others yet.

juice fast, ya'll.

I'm officially starting my juice fast today.

I've got loads of reasons to do it, and no good reasons not to. I'm even thinking of bringing my juicer with me to TCC next week and juicing my meals. Not kidding around.

So. One month from today, I will let you know how it's going.

Here are a couple of things I know from juicing:

I read an ebook last year about juice fasting that made it seem really daunting. It was helpful, but daunting. Then I watched this documentary and it made me feel really good about jumping in.

You need a good juicer. Just because it's the most expensive does not always make it the best. I purchased a juicer in 2010 that was $100 more expenisive than the one I just got, and it was such a pain to use, I never lasted more than 5 days. I would have to strain the juice after juicing, and then it was obnoxious to clean AND it wouldn't juice anything leafy or green, it would just bruise it.

I just purchased the Breville Ikon, and it's a dream machine. I essentially just threw everything that I intend to juice at it, and it laughed at me. The sieve is really fine so it makes a nice quality juice. Plus the machine is beautiful. As far as kitchen appliances go, it's so good looking. It makes me interested in other Breville products...

find combinations of produce that you like. Drinking straight vegetable juice can be hard. So it's important to find stuff that goes together that you can rotate through the week and keep drinking!

I always prefer cucumber over celery as a base

I prefer green apples to red everyday of the week.

Red peppers taste like red sugar water

lemons start to taste sweet not sour

carrots become too sweet to drink straight

I like adding herbs. Basil makes everything better in a minty floral way.

do you see where I am going with this? Everything is really sweet...

if you are going to do a juice fast, you still need to just as much water as you are supposed to drink when you are eating normally. It's possibly even more important now, to help in flushing out your system.

drink fresh coconut water.

anyway. We shall see. I am hoping to sleep more regularly, and help my skin clear up. Also I have found that when I am juicing, I have absolutely no issues with my anemia, so I am looking forward to that. Bottoms up!

 

a ghostly weekend.

it's an interesting thing to visit a place that took up so much of your life and have it be a ghost town of your former self. It's also interesting to visit these same places with people you were with in earlier years and have it be just what you need. Ghosts are funny that way.

but I don't live in a ghost town, I was just visiting one.

congratulations to Allen and Jenny. I am so happy for you both, and glad that group texting can allow one to meddle at record levels...