LizzyHouse

My love for PNCA goes on and on

The last two years in a row I have taught Pattern Design + Printing at PNCA for the their Continuing Ed program. I love PNCA as you can read here, and here, and I love teaching people to print, and I have really come to love more and more teaching people to create repeating patterns. It removes the biggest hurdle on the road to becoming a textile/surface designer, and I like being that hurdle remover. 

So come join me! for my third year! If you've been putting it off, this is your chance. We will spend a fantastic 3 days together from March 29-31 (that's a Friday through Sunday), and I will share with you all the things I know about designing textiles, breaking into an industry, and my one true love, printing your work. You will learn to create repeating patterns, and you will learn how to use them by hand. 

Let this be the year you really do something about wanting to design fabric. 

xolizzy 

Register here! 

A year in review.

2012 was a curious year for me. 

At the end of 2011 when I was getting offers for workshop jobs, I felt compelled to pass. I didn't have specific reasons or explanations, other than that it didn't feel like the right thing, and you know me, I want to do the right thing. I took some considerable time thinking about why it wouldn't be the right thing, why I should be home and not wherever in the world I would be otherwise... I felt grounded. I had at the time, also, a strong desire to move to New York at the end of the year, to be so much closer to so many people I love. Again, it wasn't the right thing. Grounded. 

It's literally as if my security clearance was revoked. (I've been watching Alias)

So I stayed in Salt Lake. I hunkered down. I tried really really hard to make friends. I tried, for the first time in my life to plant some roots. My whole adult life (gross) I have been on the loose. I've been running and searching, and working, and seeing, all that was available to me. And when I look at it now, they were years well spent. They shaped and taught me lessons at a price that I could afford. 

But 2012 was the year I stayed.  

I took a few jobs that took me away, and every time I left, it was as if I had been given special permission to be where I was. But for the first time in my life, it felt like I had something to get home to. A life I had started in January, cultivated and kept, waiting for me. The year of the garden. That garden changed my life. It taught me lessons that I have needed, and have misunderstood for years, in a visual living breathing way that made sense to my better nature. I grew more in 2012 than I thought possible.

So here are some things that happened:

I got fit. I look fly. I didn't say super skinny, I said fit. I'm taking good care of myself, loving the Bar Method. 

I made friends. The kind of friends that you're all like, "this is really rude I didn't know you sooner, oh well, what are we doing for dinner," kind of friends. The kind of friends that when you say your prayers at night, or write a list of all that you are grateful for, your little eyes well up and you can't see straight for three minutes because your heart swells up and pushes all the tears out. Gross, but true. The kind of friends that you are always telling people about, because you think they are amazing and you think everyone should be so lucky as to know them. 

I killed it in the kitchen. This past year, I wanted to take my cooking/baking skills to the next next level. It worked. It's all about patience. 

I learned a real lesson about patience, that made me more patient than you ever thought I needed to be. 

I learned to be more trusting and not SOOOO guarded ALLLLLLLL the time. It's a work in progress. 

I tried to cut being offended out of my life.

I've chosen love and honesty with myself, so I can continue to change and progress, without being unkind or overly critical. I don't want to hurt myself anymore. I payed a lot of attention to this, as this has always been a one way ticket to a downward spiral for me. 

I really put into practice taking people from where they are, not where I am. Again choosing love and honesty, not criticism or judgement. 

I over all just stopped being so hard on myself. Which is real achievement, that actually solves a lot of problems for me. A clean sweep, truly.

I found out I am almost all the way Danish. (Not an accomplishment, just something that happened). 

I had cascading Princess Hair. 

I took time for myself. Like almost a whole year time. I knew that I might never get time to figure this kind of stuff out, figure myself out, and all that biz in such a concentrated way... so I read, took care of my garden, made a bunch of clothes, designed some fabric, visited with friends, rode my bike a lot, and made some plans. 

I got really good at making dresses. 

I had a serious epiphany in France. 

I made the biggest, and very best commitment of my lifetime in March.

I realized how grateful I am for my little sweet life. If somehow it were frozen right here just as it is, it would be wonderful, and I could always be happy. 

I became a life long gardener. 

I chose to be happy, and it worked. 

I'm just listing the positive outcome of these lessons... they were hard won. It got messy. But I didn't ruin a phone by crying into it this year... that's an accomplishment. It could, however, be that I was just on speaker phone most of the time instead of crying directly onto the device.

I think the biggest thing. Like the very biggest thing, is that I am getting better at remembering who I am all the time. We lose our way when we forget, but it's our job to remember, and I'm getting better at my job. 

If I can give you one piece of advice, just one little thing to put in your pocket or sew into all your quilts, or spin into the thread that you tie onto your finger: choose happiness. Choose it every time. Do whatever it takes for your decisions, thoughts and actions to be based in love and not fear, and you will be happy. It will change your life. You will love yourself more, and you will love others more.

Peeps are that they might have joy.

That's a not so direct quote. 

all my very best to you all in this New Year. I know it's going to be great. And BIG!!!

xolizzy

ps. beautiful photos by Carolee Beckham

This is no time for layers!

I decided the divulge on twitter this morning that I would not be wearing a bra today, because it's too crazy town hot outside, and the way things are looking to me is that a bra at this point is just another layer, and as April Rosenthal said so correctly, "this is not time for layers". 

but judging by the barrage of retweets and comments, we are all in agreement. Which is why I came up with a word for days like today. 

Braptional. It's pronounced, br ˈäp sh ənl in case you were wondering about the phonetics...

Braptional: adjective. A bra is available to be chose but not obligatory.

There are some situations where there are no braptions. I'm hoping these are obvious. I can, however, list them if the line between what is or is not braptional becomes hazy. 

And it's days like this that I am ever grateful for my tween sized chest, and moving the darts on all the patterns I make seems more like a blessing than a chore. 

I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY!!!!

I love quilting. I will always love quilting. I will always quilt.

It brought me out of a darkness. It gave me a new language of skills. I can actually write and think in pattern speak. I love design. I'm a pretty good designer, and designing quilts is fun, and interesting, and challenging, and can be a little magical to see a drawing or a print off of something that you worked up materialize itself on your wall and in your hands. With fabric you designed, no less!

I come from the best. 

But I at the same time, I have never really known where I fit. Its always been as if my stuff was too designed, or too different to really hit it. I think I've been focusing a lot on the subtext of things, I do that, and I don't know if that translates as well in a moderately mass produced pattern as it does a limited edition hand pulled piece of art. I take that back, I know it doesn't. 

So that made me question the validity of my producing fabric designs. You see I've been waging a bit of a war with myself. Is there a reason to keep producing this. Will people get it. Will people care. Is it too weird. Does it make sense that I keep doing this? Keep investing in this? Some people really seem to like it... 

Things have really grown, and I have really grown. And I love my peeps. LOVE. I love you here. I love you on instagram. I love you on twitter. I even love the handful of you Facebook. 

but I want to let you in a discovery I made. This is not a goodbye. This is not my signing off. This is something I have been working towards understanding for some time now.

My fabric makes sense to me when I make clothes. Fabric seems to make more sense to me when I make things that I wear, or sisters wear, or friends wear. It comes alive. And there are parts of me that I don't always get to use, like my secret engineering side, the side that can look at flat pattern pieces and assemble them in my mind, work out all the kinks, redraft the bust (obviously), and then assemble a beautiful thing. Making a new thing to wear is all of my favorite things about the creative process. I love the planning, I love the math, I love the problem solving (I especially love the problem solving), and I love the details. 

I also really love clothing, especially dresses. 

What's odd is this is something that I have wanted to do for years. I knew I could be good at it. I knew it was in me, but I just didn't do it. But it's my dear friends like Karyn, and Virginia, and Jana who cheered me on when I said... ok I'm gonna make this now. And then I did, and there was more cheering. Maybe I just had to work it out, or get to a place, or be in the care of people who could take down the road blocks that I had assembled as I had internalized the pros and cons of my ability for years. 

And now it's something that I have been doing, and gaining speed at for almost a year. 

So I will continue to design quilts, because I love them. I love designing them, and I love making them. But I'm also going to keep making clothes, and I am going to get really really good at that. And we are going to see where that takes me and my fabric designing.  

But above all what this discovery has led me to better understand, is that I am not putting limitations on myself anymore. I am not going to draw lines in proverbial sand about who I am and what I am allowed to create and for what purpose. That's done, and I am happier for it. So I'm going to do the things that make sense to me and call it good. 

Even Better!!!

My Fiber Farm Peeps are starting a magazine. It's called, By Hand. I am so excited for them, and to be a part of it, and that they are creating a publication that I so want to read. 

They have done a kickstarter, and well met there goal! But to create more content, have a better web presence, and get to print faster we'd all like to do just a little more! 

They have fantastic gifts for their backers, but I am going to sweeten the deal. There are 4 days left, and if you pledge more than $45, you will get everything that they are sending you, as well as a fancy gift from me. There will be a pattern, some fabric, a little stationery, and a couple of other things... when did I ever send someone a gift that wasn't the bomb dot com. 

Lets be serious here. Never. I never sent a gift that didn't knock someones socks off. 

So. When you pledge, leave a comment saying that Lizzy Sent You. Like a speakeasy. 

*** update! you can leave a comment here if you pledge, and I will just verify with my Peeps, and get your info! Thank you, already! 

 

More Secrets, bigger reveal!

So, I have literally, and I mean literally been slaving away at the whole market thing. Luckily, I finally feel like I am starting to see/feel things come together. And since a good portion of you won't be at Market in SLC in a few weeks I wanted to give you a preview, and an opportunity to get in on some of the cuteness. 

I have put together some sweet action gift packs with some products that I have been working on. I am especially excited about my new line of Charmed Magnets. But I don't know if they can out shine the card set... or what a delight it has been to be drawing/ list writing, in a Royal City notebook.

The orange is definitely my favorite color way. Is it weird to baby a colorway?

All these gifties are available in my pattern shop, right now! The card set and the notebooks will be listed individually later today! Hope you enjoy these!

and are also available for Wholesale if you are a shop! Just contact me at lizzybeehouse (at) gmail (dot) com.

Off to just keep sewing!

 

On being UNSTOPPABLE.

This is for anyone who needs a pep talk today.

What is it that cats have in them that allows them to always land on their feet? I know there is a specific word for what they have in them, but I forget what it's called. But it is commonly referred to as a "righting reflex". It's the ability to correct or make right so they fall to safety.

Now we don't have their proverbial 9 lives, but I feel like we have that same righting reflex, if not in a physical way, a mental way. We have the ability to turn ourselves around before we ever hit the bottom.

I feel strongly that this is what allows us to keep going. To push through the hard times, to pull all nighters, to be able to sleep even when you know that you will only have 2 weeks to make 5-6 quilts before market when you've invested everything on a booth with nothing in it yet. It's our righting reflex (or hope) that keeps us on our feet through the darker days.

Also, I believe with all my little soul that everything has a way of working itself out, so if we give our hearts over to being good and trying to make a difference, again, no matter what, that righting reflex is going to help you safely land.

And it's with this knowledge that I am unstoppable. And all of this is not to say that I don't get discouraged, because I get low, you know I do, but I have been blessed with a drive that won't quit. Very little slows me down for long, and there isn't a thing in this world that is impossible. So take this with you today, and freak out if you need to, then drink a gallon of water and get on with your life. Give your energy to the things you can change and release the rest.

Bottom line, the only thing keeping you from being unstoppable is you. Get out of your way!

....or just listen to S Club 7's Change the World.

kidding?

Portland was perfect. I heart PNCA and Patty Mills. More on that tomorrow.

Pinecone is severely underrepresented on this blog.

Hold the Phone.

I have already had to be online for good lengths of time, just because of work stuff, these past two days... In fact I have so many things, events, and people to meet up with and talk to in March that it doesn't make sense to dissapear just yet. I am not going back on my cutting off technology, I am just realizing that I am not in the same place that I was last year. My career has grown and changed in a way that I did not fully realize until I started cutting my computer ties.YESTERDAY

Unfortunately, banning myself from the computer is not an option right now. With a fabric line coming out, new fabric getting worked on, new patterns, arrangements & promotions for events and market... plus I want to win this, obviously, March just will not do. Maybe I'll be able to cut myself off in July? or August? or in small spaces of time.

I don't see this as defeat, I see this as being realistic about my life right now. So don't think less of me, please. I just have too much work to get done to tip toe around here!

 

Help a sister out!

Ok, so I think posting about KickStarter is going to be a regular thing of mine. Not only do I think it's awesome, but I think it's an incredible opportunity to support our artist community fulfill their dreams, grow their businesses, and hopefully stay out of debt, simply by investing some dollars for a guaranteed return. I'm OK with that.

We helped P-Town get funded, now let's help Jen get funded!

Sophie and Lilli is run by the Awesome Jen Vallez! I met Jen through twitter, and we have been able to support, help and comfort each other through lots of things over the past 2 years. It's amazing that we haven't met in person!

She makes these incredibly sweet dolls, and she has been MAKING EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM BY HAND, but the incredible thing is that her sweet peeps have garnered some attention, and they've got to grow up a little so that they can be carried in department stores all over the country. With this opportunity, you have the chance to

A. Support Jen's independent business growth efforts

B. Support the Vallez family over all!

C. Support manufacturing in the USA!!!!!!!

D. Make some little girl really happy when you give them the doll you receive for being a backer.

E. You get to be awesome.

I meant what I said about this being a regular thing. I promise to post about projects I believe in and invest, not because I am Rich Lizzy Pennybags (not even close), but because I need support too, and I feel like I receive it from my friends, family, and you my sweet readers on a such a regular basis.

This way we can lift each other where we stand (stole that from Dreamy Elder Uchtdorf).

So let's go get em!

The perils of toothpaste...

You know me... I like to do health research.

I am always on a quest to better myself, and the more specific quest in this case is to be a smarter, healthier, better, wiser consumer. And if something in my life isn't working, I want to replace it.

I've felt for a while now that my teeth weren't getting as clean as they needed to. This makes me uncomfortable. Not just uncomfortable, it grosses me out. For a while I've been using Trader Joe's All Natural-No Fluoride Antiplaque Toothpaste (with Fennel, Propolis & Myrrh). I love it. But I don't think that I love it because it cleans my teeth so great. I think I've loved it because it's licorice flavored toothpaste... A couple years back (holy cow) when I was in Portland, I stocked up on it when my TJ's said they wouldn't be carrying it anymore. It was a mistake, they weren't going to carry to Peppermint anymore... any way.... I ended up with about 6 boxes of it, so I've been using that.

Last time I was at the dentist, he perscribed a perscription strength fluoride toothpaste. I didn't feel good about filling this, so I didn't. I'm an avid flosser so I thought this would suffice.

Well, months later, and my teeth are feeling not clean enough, sensitive, and weak. What to do?

I had decided to just walk across the street to Walgreen's and buy a tube of regular toothpaste, but then I decided I'd better just read about it first.

Current research shows fluoride, aside from being a neurotoxin, isn't nearly as "helpful" as we've all been lead to believe... but among other things, most tooth paste contains glycerin, which actually prevents your teeth from healing themselves, silica, which is SAND... a number of toothpastes actually contain artificial sweetners, carcinigenic sulfates, and the list goes on and on... I was actually horrified when I read the label of a brand name tube of toothpaste.

I would never eat the things that were in this toothpaste, so why I would I ever stick it in my mouth? ESPECIALLY when you have an ENTRY POINT to your blood stream under your tongue...

Thus began my quest for a solution!

I found out that teeth, like everything else in our bodies, want to fix themselves. I think that is not only a miracle, but it's awesome, and when we use something like glycerin, which is just a filler, and is even in my TJ All Natural Tootpaste, you would have to wash your teeth something like 20 times to get the glycerin off to let them do their thing. This seems a little counterproductive wouldn't you say?

Or how about the silica (sand), that is literally chipping away at your teeth, and depleting your gums? Say What? Counterproductive. Also in my natural toothpaste. Also in your natural toothpaste.

So my research lead me to something called Tooth Soap, or Tooth Chips.

Most of them are made from saponified olive oil & coconut oil (both known their cleaning, healing and antibacterial properties), and if I understand saponification, it is the process of turning oil into soap. It has two byproducts, soap and glycerin, but in this case, the oil is still present so it doesn't behave like your generic pesky glycerin. It also contains Xylitol which literally starves bacteria....

So the idea that I can clean and strengthen my teeth, moisturize my gums, and starve all the bacteria in my mouth without putting any harmful substances into my body sounds like what I was hoping my tooth paste was doing all along. Not a chance. So I started looking into tooth soap, I asked around on twitter, and did a little more research and a few people recommended Rose of Sharon Acres.  

My first tin of tooth soap with Xylitol came today. And can I just say, I loved opening the package it came in, not that is was a particularly special package, but it had a really strong smell of handmade soap. It made me want to order a lot more than tooth soap... The flavor I got is the Orange/Cinnamon since she was out of Citrus flavor. I immediately cleaned my teeth with a little tooth chip, and that was at about 1 today, it is 6:00 now, I've had something to eat, and drink, and somehow my teeth still feel really clean. Which to me is impressive since that is something that I am so sensitive to. So, needless to say, I will be interested to continue using it, and see how my teeth manage.

 

So, long story short: you might want to throw out your toothpaste. It's not doing you, your teeth, or your body good. So try out a tin of tooth soap. It's obviously a little different from what we are all used to, but I say if there is a chance that it will improve your dental hygiene, you get to support a family business, and big pharm isn't getting more of your dollars, I'm all in.

You can find Rose of Sharon Acres soaps here and here on Etsy!