LizzyHouse

So I had a birthday

On Sunday I turned 27. The whole weekend was great. Here is the run down:

On Friday I decided to make myself a birthday dress. I wanted to look like the cutest best popsicle you could ever turn into a dress. I think it worked. 

Friday evening I was taken to one of my favorite restaurants in town, and then taken on a secret late night drive to see a secret thing, that ended up being a zebra in someones back yard in Draper. It was all wonderful. 

thank goodness for head lamps. 

Saturday morning we had a breakfast with the girls from church, which was a success!

Saturday afternoon was spent gardening and sleeping, and dress finishing

Saturday night there was a house show at my friends house. It was a really great show, and there were so many people I love there. I sang Moon River, and my friend Nathan played the guitar. I think it was beautiful. And I didn't even cry. If someone recorded it, I will share it. 

Sunday was filled with calls and texts and tweets and facebook wall posts all wishing me a happy day. 

I wore my birthday popsicle dress to church, where it was a big hit. My favorite part was demurely putting my chin on my shoulder and turning around to show the buttons down the back. There was a lot of showing off.

That's birthday behavior that you can't always get away with, even though I try. 

After church, I heated my kitchen to 110 degrees and made treats for a little get together I held. I don't know why but I wasn't expecting anyone to really show up, and then they all did. I had almost 20 people in my little space. Almost everyone I spoke to came! The treats were great, the company was great, my dress was still great... the whole thing was great. 

I ended the day watering the garden with Kenneth, and I couldn't have asked for anything better. It was a perfect birthday for a 27 year old Lizzy. 

Do you remember when I started this blog, and I was 21? My goodness a lot has happened, and I have literally grown up and faced serious life challenges, and released lots of fabric, and moved a bunch of times, and taken more trips than any of us can count, all right in front of you. I'll probably always be that short hair, big bow wearing girl though. No matter how long my hair gets. 

Thanks for sticking with me all this time. Here's to another year of goodness and growing. 

love dove, 

lizzy

*as I proofread this for any obscene errors (which there were), I realized that I really have made a home here in SLC for myself, and I think that I'm really happier than I have ever been. That is a good birthday realization. I hope everyone can find and keep this much love and happiness in their lives. 

I have no words.

Today I was looking through my Lizzy House fabric flickr group. I'm always so impressed by the goods, and beautiful photography that gets added to the group, and it's just an altogether great way to see how people are liking/ responding/ using the fabric.

There are a couple really impressive things that have been added in the past couple of days, including an already finished Outfoxed Quilt!!! But I literally fell out of my chair laughing when I saw this.

I'm just dying. Like I have X's for eyes now. And if this were actually cross sticthed, I would have x's for eyes.

Thank you, Rebecca. You made my month! I have the best peeps in the whole world.

 

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!

Canada feelings.

First I want to start by saying that I, no surprise, did not bring a camera with me. I knew that I would be with Karyn who is a brilliant photographer, and that our time would be well documented. And I wanted to focus on teaching. So I did. And she did take beautiful pictures. 

So my posts will probably be backwards chronologically speaking, because I'm taking them from her flickr stream as she posts them.

So this first post isn't about any of the classes, it's just about my feelings.

I loved Toronto. I loved everyone I met. I loved the food that we ate. I loved having pie for breakfast. I loved my Mini Quilt class peeps. I loved my block printing peeps. I loved my Champion Ribbon peeps.

I love the workroom. I love the workroom girls. I love Nani Iro. I love Fresh. I love Mokuba (sigh). I love Katherine. I love Karyn. I love Maisy.

I loved everything about last week.

I found that I really love sewing things for myself! I'm always making quilts and things for patterns, so they always feel like samples even when I keep them... but this past week I sewed two Enchanted Bow skirts, a 241 Noodlehead bag, and a dress from Stylish Dress book. We were a regular factory. One of my favorite things to be. All this says to me is that a. I need a better sewing machine (duh), and b. I need to make more time and things for myself. 

It feels like a dream now. I was on such a tired/ loving/ pie/ high all week. I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the kindness and love that was shown to me, and I really feel like one of the luckiest peeps in the world.

Toronto was just what I needed. So much so, I know I'm gonna need it next year...

We're having a great time!!!

I'm still alive in Canada with a whole slew of new bff's. Champion Ribbons were awesome today, and Andrea of Liligo Designs made me a fantastic cake with these sweet flags on it. More pictures to follow, to be sure.

sweet picture of Karyn and me from my new friend, Jacqueline.

Workshops at Juniper Moon Farms

I swear. I'm starting a Squam family tree.

It was Saturday night in the back end of the Deep Haven Dining Room during the Art Fair at the close of the very first Fiber based Squam Art Workshops. I was overwhelmed. I think we all were. I think for a lot of us this was the first time that we had ever connected to so many people with whom we knew we belonged.

I was selling my art work. And CRYING. All night long. It was out of control. I was a mess. Someone would come up to my table, someone who had either taken a class from me, or said something generous, or I had just felt a connection to and then they would ask about one of my works, and then I would start explaining it, and then I would start weeping trying to get through the explanation, and then they would start weeping. It's a good thing I wrap up all of my prints in cellophane... I just think that emotions were running really high, and I felt/ feel very deeply about that body of work. I was deeply dehydrated by the end of the whole thing.

Susan and Erin were running the Juniper Moon Farm table kitty-corner to me (we essentially shared the entrance to the bathroom), and they could not have been sweeter. I think at one point they had teared up too. It was catching. I loved them. I was loving everyone, but I really loved them. Susan is just one of those people that you want on your team. You know that she is good, and her integrity fills the space around her. Plus she is from Texas, and I think we have magnets in us that pull us together. I also really loved Erin. She to me seemed like one of those people who a person like me really needs in their life. I could be off base, but I think she has that God given stage manager gene. She gets things done. She also purchased two favorite pieces of mine.

I'm glad to know that they loved me too!

So much so, that Susan came and took a class from me the following year! At the beginning of each of my classes I ask, your name, where you are from, and why did you sign up for my class? And Susan said her name, where she was from, and her answer to why she signed for my class was pretty much something along the lines of, "I had the table across from you last year, and everyone you spoke to started crying, so I knew I wanted to take a class from you".

oh great! I was probably blushing. Blush and crying. Two of my best things.

Since then, my love has only grown for Susan, and for her wonderful Fiber Farm, and the good things that I instinctively knew about her, have all been confirmed. There probably aren't too many days that pass before I tell a new person about her farm, and what she is doing. Or pull up the blog to show said person pictures of the lambs or the new dairy goats. I even keep a picture on my desktop. I'm in love with this place, and a serious advocate for it, and yet I have never been.

Until now!

Next year in March for almost 2 weeks you can find me at Juniper Moon Farm, where I will be teaching a whole range of classes.

March 3rd and 4th (Saturday and Sunday) I will be teaching a Quilt Class. I can't show you the quilt just yet, but you will love it, and more than likely be able to finish your top while you are with me!

March 10th I'll be teaching block printing on fabric this is by far my most popular class. Why not come take it with little lambs all around us?!

March 11th I'll be doing a session of Mini Quilts. this is a favorite class of mine. The results are like presents to me, even though I don't keep them.

Lunch will be provided along with snacks! And if you are coming from out of town, I know that for an additional $50 you can stay at the farm, or there is a Best Western near by. Also, there are only 12 spots in each class. They will go quickly, so let it be you (ewe, ha), and come spend a couple of days in March with me on the best Fiber Farm in the world.

Make March magical!

all the pictures come from the JMF blog. Check it out!

more 1001 Peeps Summer Camp!

get your peep booties over to Heather, House of Alamode's blog today for a fantastic Arabian Nights inspired Kindle Cover. Her tutorial is incredibley detailed, to insure you loads of success!

Just 3 more weeks of projects. Hope you are having fun!

June 24: Alexia Abegg, Craftopia 

July 1: Beth, Lemon Cadet

July 8: The Fat Quarterly!

July 15: Susan Allen, of the Quilt Asylum

July 22: Amanda, MrsMcPorkchop

July 29: Anne Weil, Flax and Twine

August 5: Heather, House of A La Mode (THAT'S Today!!)
August 12: Karyn Valino, Make Something

August 19: Deborah Moebes, Whipstitch

August 26: Monica, Happy Zombie

also, just so you know, the winners of previous giveaways for 1001 Peeps summer camp have not been sent out, but will be shortly!

Have a great weekend!

wonderful town.

This past week, I found myself working in New York.

From all accounts, the weather had been pretty extreme, but as warm as it was when I was there, it actually just rained a lot. I was interested in the fact that it didn't seem to cool things off, just amplify the mugginess. But being from the gulf coast, taking on more humidity is just a challenge. Not a threat.

I was in New York to finish new work for next year. It's a real relief to have it done in one swoop, and I'm really proud of this next line that's coming out in the spring, and just delightfully excited about the spooky little Halloween line that came together before I went. We got it all knocked out so they can go out for engraving and get to fabric asap. Shops, ask your Reps to see Hello Pilgrim and Guising.

For you. All for you.

A few things to look forward to:

More Pearl Bracelets.

New Red Letter Day stripes.

Berries and butterflies.

jack-o-lanterns and ghosts. (yes, ghosts, Amanda)

It was great to see my Andover peeps. Just like teaching or speaking, it's nice to be scooped up and taken care of for a few days. And for that I am grateful.

Aside from work, I had dinner with friends, went to a poetry reading, made plans for a video game that I still can't understand why it doesn't already exist, saw Oliver Platt on the street, saw Charlie Cox of Stardust and Downtown Abbey talking to him. Charlie Cox has a very round haircut right now. Went to a fancy dinner in Bryant park, got some really great advice and made some new plans, went to my first baseball game, went to Coney Island for the first time, made new friends, and so on. I was literally happier in this past week than I feel I have been in a while.

I was continually amazed by the subway. Not that it is particularly amazing, and not that standing on some of those platforms was like unto standing in the 6th circle of Hell near the Phlegethon river, but I've always had someone else navigating. This time I was alone so google maps would tell me where to get on, how many minutes, how many stops, where to switch, the number of minutes it would take me to walk to the next platform, and then I would be where I was going. Just like it said. It amused and amazed.

I made the very most of my time, and it was the very best trip to New York I've ever had. The dust of living there has been stirred once more. And it's at the top of my list as I start to apply for grad school.

That was of course until I had to pay FIVE DOLLARS for a kombucha.

I would like to note once again that I did not bring a camera with me. World's worst butterfly.

And in closing, I am saddened to report, that my best most traveled and beloved shoes bit the dust near 11:00 PM Eastern Standard time, on the beach of Coney Island. I wanted to get my feet wet, and stand in the Atlantic, and that's all well and good. But there were no towels, there were no arrangements. So I thought that I would trick the sand off of my feet, because there is almost nothing that bugs me more than wet sandy feet in shoes, and placed my shoes where the tide had not gone, but where the sand was wet enough that I would not pick up new sand. I set down my shoes, got my feet in the water, hopped back to the shoes, and in that moment the water had risen and come in over my ankles.

you can not trick sand.

These shoes had seen action before, but not to these depths. I got back to my hotel and they kind of disintegrated off my feet.

It's time to hunt for a new pair of red shoes, and figure out a way to move my bike to New York without riding it there.

 

being better together

I've read your comments and emails, and I think that we can really help each other. I have been giving a lot of thought to some of the problems we seem to be collectively facing, and how we can collectively kick the habit this year.

We are too hard on ourselves. I was in Salt Lake the other day, throwing my little Asher in the Rye a birthday party. On one of the days I was there, I met this lady, and we were talking about art and what not and she started talking about how hard she is on herself, and the expectations she puts on herself, and then she said, what I feel is the common thread with all of us, "No one expects it of me but I figure if I don't do it, it's not going to get done right". So, I think this is one of our issues. We are taking on so much, and when we don't accomplish everything we get so down on ourselves... when we were the ones!

I taught myself a lesson in this. You have to be realistic. Simplify. Remind yourself how many hours there are in a day, remind yourself who shares your time, remind yourself of your resources; financial/mental. When we were planning Ashlee's party, we knew that we didn't have much money to put into it, and we only had the day hours to prep everything for the night. I went from having a menu with a cake, and 3 different appetizer things, to no cake but six kinds of profiteroles; 3 savory and 3 sweet, to finally, cream puffs. We just had cream puffs, and everyone loved them. I just made up four batches, whipped some cream, dipped the tops in chocolate. No one complained about there not being a cake... or more stuff, we just had cream puffs, and everyone danced.

I could have done it. I could have baked the cake, and made the appetizers. I am more than capable of making everything I want to have happen, happen. I would have spent more money then I had and driven myself nuts...But I wanted to spend that time with Ashlee, on her 23rd birthday. I didn't lower my expectations of myself, I was just more realistic.

I started on this path to simplification my senior year in college, when I was finishing up. I had all these crazy expectations of myself, because I felt like it was what other people expected of me, what I came to expect of myself... but one day, I was too tired, and too worn out, and not everything I had had planned worked out... and amazingly enough, the world didn't end. It's like in A Boy Named Charlie Brown when Charlie Brown looses the Spelling Bee, and Linus comes to visit him when he doesn't come to school the next day, and he says... oh just watch the video

the other thing. Times are hard right now. I know that sometimes it seems like you have been sold up the river without a paddle, and that you have been left alone. Forsaken by friends or family, or worse, forsaken by God. This is an imperfect world we live in, made to shape and change us. I've known financial troubles, and family troubles, heart ache, and disappointment. But you can't loose hope. You can't loose hope that there is something better and brighter. We are innovative people. We have an oppurtunity everyday to better our situations. 

I look at my different issues like a design problem. And often times I find myself running into the same problems. I keep hitting the same brick wall. Why? How? I need to step back. I need to assess the situation, and see if there is anything that I can change. 

If we are approaching things, like we always do how would things ever be different if we are staying the same? If you look at it in an equation, you are the control in your life, and everything else is the variable. So, you always have the oppurtunity to change, and better still have some say over your situation.

That's something else too. You can't wait for other people to change. You have to be the one. Things get better when you decide to make them better. And the beauty of the whole thing is, the better you take care and love yourself, the better you are, the better you can love other people. It's amazing how the whole thing works. And to add to the beauty, we have each other. We're in this together.

So, those are just some thoughts I've been having. I want to hear how you feel about it. What are some of your ideas to simplify, and be better to yourself or better your situation this year? 

Embarkation (2003) by Gordon Senior from the private collection of the Crocker Museum in Sacramento California

my dessert.

like I said, my Thanksgiving job was a vegetable, and a dessert. So, when it came time to decide on a dessert, I went to an old standard. It's my sisters favorite thing that I make; they always ask for it whenever we are in town together, and they would request me to bring it to dinner parties to dazzle our friends. Well it is a dazzler.

It's my Champion Chocolate Orange Cheesecake! If you enjoy the chocolate orange combination, then this is cheesecake for you. 

A quick note before I give you the recipe. Make this the day before you have to go somewhere. It takes about five hours in the fridge after baking for an hour, and sitting out for half an hour. You don't want to rush any of this. 

Champion Chocolate Orange Cheesecake:

• 1.5 cups chocolate graham crumbs (I use annie's chocolate bunnies)
• 1/4 cup melted butter
• 4 boxes Philadelphia cream cheese at room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 16 oz. container sour cream
• 4 eggs
• zest of 4 large oranges (separated 3 to 1)
• 1.5 cups dark chocolate chunks or chips

Using the bottom of a 9 inch spring form pan as a template, trace the circle onto a piece of parchment paper, and cut it out. I fit strips of parchment paper around the sides of the pan that extend past the top of the pan, for none stick protection, and! your cheescake will rise, and this will protect it! Place circle in the bottom of the pan and close it.

In a small mixing bowl combine chocolate crumbs with melted butter. Once fully incorporated, put half of the mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan. With the bottom of a measuring cup, press the crumbs flat on the bottom of the pan. Add more if you need it to cover the bottom, and save the rest. Don't press the crumbs on the sides.

In a large mixing bowl beat cream cheese and sugar until fully combined. Add vanilla, mix again until fully incorporated (beat about two minutes). Now add the sour cream a little at a time, until completely blended. Then add each egg one at a time, making sure each one is mixed in before adding the next. Scrape down the sides of the bowl to make sure you haven't missed any rogue bits of cream cheese. Once everything is combined, add zest of 3 oranges, and beat for about 3 minutes. 

In a microwave safe bowl, microwave chocolate for 2 minutes. When it comes out, it might appear that it isn't all melted. Do not stick it back in the microwave. Just stir it up, and they will quickly all melt. Add remaining zest to the chocolate. Let it sit for a couple of minutes so that it can cool down. 

Add about a 1/4 of a cup of the cheesecake mixture to the chocolate. Stir quickly. This is to tempur the chocolate and the cheesecake, making their temperatures more even, so your eggs won't curdle. Add another 2 cups of cheesecake to the chocolate, stir until combined. 

This is the part where you get to choose. Do you make the whole cheesecake chocolate? or do you marble it? If you want the whole thing chocolate, then pour the chocolate mixture into the large mixing bowl with everything else and beat until combined. If you don't, however, then keep them separate and marble them before baking.

preheat your oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Put down 3 or 4 dollops of the chocolate mixture into the bottom of the spring form pan. Then pour some of the plain mixture over it. With a skewer, pull gently through the mixture for desired appearance. Repeat this process until the pan is 3/4 full. I usually put some foil around the bottom of the pan, just to protect it, in case it should leak.

put it in the oven, and bake for 45 -80 minutes depending on your altitude. After 45 minutes, check on it every 15 minutes. The top will be golden brown, and when you move the pan, most of the jiggle should be gone and the center set.

When it is down, pull it out and leave it alone! It will have risen mightily and will proceed to deflate. Just let it do its thing. After 30 minutes to an hour. You can carefully remove the outer ring, keeping the paper intact. Place in the fridge, for at least 5 hours or over night.

Dazzle and charm your friends!