Daisy Janie

color inspiration: dandelion

It's cloudy today and will be for the next five...that's a total spirit-dampener for me. Little Miss Dandelion here will have to suffice as my faux sunshine in the meantime. She's a cutie - can't you just feel her warm, soft, padded top on your cheek?

While I was crawling around on the ground, I took some pics of lady dandelion's friends (I'm temporarily sparing you from all the pics I took of rocks and pond toads making more pond toads - tis the season!):

Anyone know what this is called? My allotted google search time expired...can't find them!

Spring Beauty  ~ Claytonia Virginica 

Common Blue Violet ~ Viola Sororia

pillow cover giveaway - the bright side project

pillow front | boxwood in parkside & linen/rayon

I made this 16" x 16" two-sided pillow cover just for the bright side project giveaway this week. To enter, all you have to do is click over to the BSP blog and leave a comment on the post about your favorite indie designer and what they create. Contest ends Friday, May 1st.

pillow back | georgia in parkide & linen/rayon (zipper closure)

just the spark i needed

Hola! Are you having a good week so far? Things are hot over here - temps & attitudes alike. My fire is fueled in part by the fact that I was contacted by a magazine editor yesterday for a feature about my fabrics. Yes! I'll be sending those off shortly b/c they said they could make a summer issue! Oh so thankful for the opportunity!

Another spark was ignited recently when I rec'd my Sewing Green book by Betz White. I've been making eyes at my sewing machine for months, especially now that I have these yummy new organic fabrics all around me. Betz hand-delivered a copy of her book to me last Friday in Philadelphia, when I met her and the wildly talented Elissa Barbieri of Loop for coffee. We talked business, art, surface design, sewing, life - just nice chit-chat on a sunny afternoon in a city park.

Well, I perused her book back to front and front to back all Friday evening - and my hands are ever-so itchy to get sewing now!! It's brimming with savvy information, useful patterns, fun ideas & intelligent writing! Betz is a supremely crafty & creative sewist [ not a sewlette or a sewista ;) ] with a passion for earth-friendly alternatives for everyday, useful objects. How to repurpose sheets and shirts, where to find pretty organic fabrics, why it's so important to be green anyway - Betz's book covers all these topics. Here's a link to Betz's blog, where you'll find a slew of links to blog giveaways and links to purchase her book and other patterns. Hope it inspires you, too!

color inspiration: children's books

I was in Peanutman's room the other day and took a gander at his old books. Makes me both sad and happy to see them. We're so far past them, but they hold such dear, dear memories. The bedtime routine, the rocking chair, the snuggling, the entranced toddler, the demands of "mores mommy. read mores!", the voices I'd use, the cadence, the repetition and rhyme, the illustrations...the days of complete innocence. I never tired of reading to him - and now he is quite a voracious reader on his own. Makes me melt when I see him buried in a book. Those indulgent, time-is-standing-still moments apparently served both of us very well.

Do you have an absolute favorite book you read yourself or read to your children?

coming into focus

Typical mid-week reflection time for me. Hitting a lot of high notes this week with business plans coming together. Things that have stymied me for months now have anwers, and with some resolution, suddenly there is clarity. What I appreciate most about the timing is the affirmation it has provided in how I must continue to make things unfold for my business and my chosen course.

Most businesses are not built overnight, and Daisy Janie is no exception. On the "about" page on my website, this statement has been there for 3 years: "Daisy Janie is future-focused and projects in the works include wholesale availability of Jan's custom fabrics." My husband - with his intuitive foresight - was always able to see this vision, as he constantly pushed me toward fabrics and away from sewing handbags. He wanted me to be able to capitalize on my talents before the market was saturated with independent fabric designers (who are willing to print their own fabrics & sell them directly). Well, I'm not sure I hit that mark (he's always been ahead of his time), but I'm sort of glad. In hindsight, I can see I needed to take an indirect path to make the connections I made along the way. Connections to others, to myself, to my work, to my talents, to my philosophies, to the world. In many ways, the past 3 years have been as much like a stressful internship as they have a voyage of self-discovery. I treasure all that I have absorbed along the way - good, bad, indifferent -  b/c this is the right time for me. And that has never been more clear.

an extra-terrestrial in my spirea

check out the alien dude! i laughed when i saw his beady little eyes looking up at me!

urbana fabric giveaway

Daisy Janie fabric giveaway at the long thread - - - - - - -
A 'make-your-own mix pack of 3 swatches' from my latest fabric collection, Urbana, is up for grabs. The Urbana Collection is printed on 100% organic cotton sateen...soft, luxe and eco-friendly...great for all sorts of sewing & crafty projects.

Enter and get all details at the long thread. There are a few other spectular green giveaways going on over at the long thread throughout the week, too!

p.s. there's a Daisy Janie pillow giveaway coming up on Sunday on the bright side project. reminder forthcoming.

giveaway winners

There will be a couple giveaway announcements this week - here's the first.

The print giveaway winners are....

comment #20 from Qiana Pucel (love her work), who said:
I love the smoky blue (although I wouldn't mind any of them :-) ) but the blue reminds me of looking at spring buds against the sky. 

comment #26 from Tricia, who said:
There's a certain kind of blossoming tree on my ride home -- gossamer pink blooms. I look forward to it every year and miss it when the bloom fades. I'm sure it's some very common kind of tree, but I'm hopeless at this stuff! As for the prints: Sock-it-to-me yellow!

comment #12 from Amy W., who said:
I love green in spring since it is the sign my plants are coming up! But as far as these prints I have to go with smokey blue!

Thank you to everyone who entered and so graciously commented. I loved hearing what everyone had to say about their favorite Spring color! So uplifting!

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The immensely creative Candy Glendening of Candied Fabrics is having a "going green totebag" giveaway this week - to celebrate her 2nd business anniversary! Candy's designs are created from original fabrics that she hand-dyes, sews and embellishes with completely adorable and refreshing motifs - love the birds (and the daisy and the other flower and the other birdie...)!

Get the details and enter on her blog.

freakin. love. this.

spotted on sweet potato pie

color inspiration: paint splatters

Not just paint splatters....look below.

Do you see the nail in the image above?

The art institute where Peanutman takes piano lessons also offers all sorts of art, dance, music & acting classes for adults & kids. This massive canvas banner was created by a class of younger students, and it is the coolest!

They've hidden all sorts of miscellaneous objects in the paint, and they're only detectable when you have the 'angle of the dangle.' It hangs in a stairwell so you can get below the whole thing and look up at the canvas, with your field of vision on the same plane - we've spotted nails, screws, paperclips, rubberbands and pennies so far. There's also a colossal old, arched window to the right - I'm sure it's no accident that the teacher hung it here b/c the light throught yonder window makes it possible to see the hidden gems.