Introducing an Innocent Crush

innoncent.crush.beauty.shot

First Impression. LovesMe LovesMeNot. Maybe. Mixed Signals. Woodcut. Turn of Events. Queen of Hearts. Shattered. Slow Dance. Bubble Burst.

These are subtitles that moved along my little story of an Innocent Crush. (Okay, maybe not such a small story.) They're not just plot twists, but also the titles of each of the ten prints that compose the whole saga. I had such alot of fun with this group. That might show itself, I think (like my slip peeking out of my skirt not-so accidentally). But this story is for you. Make of it what you will, as innocent or not as you choose. I will start you with a thought, though, because its one that drove my whole design process: I love the phrase Innocent Crush, the paradox, the youth, the sweetness of it, the awkward-not-quite-right, mismatched, fickle-ness of it too. Harmony is inspiring for some, occasionally an emotional collision is even more so. Enjoy!

innocent.crush.quilting.2.by.AMH

Quilting Cottons: Charmed palette 44/45

innocent.crush.quilting.by.AMH

Quilting Cottons: Swept Away palette 44/45

innocent.crush.home.decor.2.by.AMH

Cotton Sateen Home Decor: Dream palette 54

innocent.crush.home.decor.by.AMH

Cotton Sateen Home Decor: Blush Palette 54

innocent.crush.voile.by.AMH

Cotton Voile 54

innocent.crush.velveteen.by.AMH

Cotton Velveteen: Wink palette 54

innocent.crush.velveteen.2.by.AMH

Cotton Velveteen: Smile palette 54"

Of course you know I'll be posting lots of projects and inspiration for you as well as some comprehensive info about how best to welcome velveteen into your sewing!

Have a great night, xoxo,Anna

Elsa Benitez




Elsa Benítez is a Mexican supermodel. Benítez was born in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico, and she got her modeling start after winning an international model search, held in Costa Rica in 1995. With Linda Evangelista as one of her childhood idols, Benítez decided to follow her dream of modeling. Modeling opportunities opened up for Benítez soon after, first in Mexico, where she started out her career, and then in the United States and Europe. She become a supermodel after being chosen by photographer Steven Meisel and being featured many times on the US and Italian Vogue for Meisel's layouts. In 1996, she appeared on the cover of Vogue Italy three times in April, August and September. After signing with Elite Model Management, she then appeared on the covers of many fashion magazines, including Vogue, ELLE, Glamour, Mademoiselle, Harper's Bazaar, and Marie Claire. Benítez has also done advertising campaign work for Dolce & Gabbana, Macy's, Episode, I-N-C, J.Crew, Óscar de la Renta, Rena Lange, Nine West, Valentino, and Jones New York, and has modelled for Victoria's Secret. Benítez appeared in the 1999 Pirelli Calendar that featured "Women Through the Decades." She was photographed as a representative of the "groovy '70s."

Afloat in a new Patchwork

patchwork.pouring

Today in the studio, I am playing with scant new samples from Innocent Crush, mixing them into the well-worn favorites from Little Folks. New patches swimming around with familiar patches, and I am afloat.

To pick up a bit where I left of in fabric, I wanted to answer questions in regards to the Innocent Crush Sneak Peek - right after I say thanks so much for all the excitement!!!- (even if most of is was for the tights!- that's okay- I chose those myself, so no insults!) No one is more excited than me, and here is the low down on what Innocent Crush will inlcude: 22 quilting weight cottons; 14 home decor cotton sateens; 10 cotton voiles; and 8 cotton velveteens (!!!!) I'll be sharing 3 free patterns for the collection and we're working on loads of inspirational sewing to share for all the different fabric substrates. I am so excited. I am jittery right now and the coffee finished its job a little while ago- these are bonafide fabric jitters. I will share all the images next week!

About the darling "dress" in the photo: Its made from one of the new voiles called "Shattered" and it is not a dress at all! The top is a Roundabout Blouse (we just left the lower band off) and it's tucked into a "Flirting the Issue" skirt which will be one of the free patterns due out at the same time as the fabrics (Oct/Nov). Making the blouse and skirt of the same fabric achieves the lovely dress look, but with the obvious advantage of wearing the pieces separately too, if ya wanna. Make note of this with an ink pen on your palm.

The tights are from Anthropologie and I picked them up a few months ago. They are from one of the their in-house brands, called Eloise, otherwise I would stock them and sell them to you. I would get say sentences like "I stock stockings in my store". So it would be worth it for that alone. I think I may have helped sell out the last of them the other day once it was figured out. Sorry. I mean, you're welcome Anthropologie. The shoes are red suede pumps from Steve Madden that are so perfect to behold, but so hard to walk in. Perfect for shoots.

a.sea

Now. I can't say enough how much I appreciate your comments ever since I wrote a mini-novel. Like a beautifully woven, fine net, catching me before I fall too deep. Thank you so very much. I have read every word and happy to be in accord with so many kind souls. This is new. And while I realize that the indulgence I take here every so often with my thoughts is more than some of you might expect, or even care for, from just a mother-artist-business-owner-designer-fabric-lady, what I'm sharing with you, I am sharing with myself too. And it helps.

I cried at the meat counter in the grocery yesterday. I kept buying things that she likes out of habit. But every minute, it gets a little better. After wrapping up a very busy day of work yesterday, still catching up from that lost rainy day in Astoria, I got the meat in the oven, potatoes prepped, peas ready for steaming, a few started on their homework, Jeff had started a bath for Roman and I dared to think I could go out for a quick evening run before everything/one came to need me for something. I quickly changed into my gear and headed for the door. Then in one single instant Roman pooped in the bathwater and helmut-less Nicolas slammed his head into the driveway curb after skating something fancy on the quarter pipe. I stood frozen between the two, trying to figure out if I should give Jeff a pack of ice and give Nicolas some wet wipes and the tub cleaner....or the reverse.

I snapped to. I am needed here. Everyone got taken care of and I headed out for my run. Each pound on the pavement was accompanied by knowing that my life is full and these changes are new patches being sewn onto the familiar. And it is all so beautiful, no?

with thanks, xoxoAnna
(the tub & Roman are both sparkling and Nicolas' head is fine)

the Bridge

the.bridge

I'm not sure what I was expecting. Taking her to school. I should have guessed what would have drummed up inside me ready to spill everywhere, leaving a trail of years and memories between here and Brooklyn. But I didn't see it coming, not all of it. I am very used to living in the present, but was shot out of a canon to the past. So many times over this past summer. Just shot towards her birth and the beginnings of all of us, the beginnings of Jeff and me. But being hurled past it in a rush of memories it is so hard to see it all the way you saw it then. You think it will last forever, and some days even wish away the difficult parts. Humans just don't know the blur it will become. I believe this to be by design. Inherent in our making. We couldn't handle the frailty of ourselves walking around, if we knew how fast.

Getting her settled, saying our goodbyes, it was bitter and sweet and beautiful and sad and perfect. We walked slowly back to our hotel with the sky threatening rain, my eyes threatening worse. We took a detour through Fort Greene to sit and take the walk as slow as possible. And it happened. The sky sobbed. I rained. And we were stuck, under the shelter of the visitor's center. We are after all, only visitors. We waited for it to stop. Waited. Waited. Didn't bother to verbalize much of what we were already feeling in perfect synchronicity. Fearing we would miss our flight, after waiting as long as we could there, and with no change in the weather, we decided to drown down the hill in a rush of water and emotion, getting utterly soaked.

At the hotel we made a quick grab of our suitcases, while the taxi waited, and headed to La Guardia. Not much conversation, but an unusually talkative cabbie who asked us all about our family, was shocked we had a daughter old enough to be in college, further shocked that we had 5 waiting at home, and I wasn't in the mood for any of it. "I like you two", he kept saying. "Children are God's greatest blessing" he said. And I. Was not in the mood for conversation. I was definitely not in the mood to hear that all the crying the sky had done delayed our flight by an hour. Two hours. Four hours, so now we'll miss our connecting and be stuck in Baltimore. Cancelled. So now here we are. Rush back to her? See if she wants to skip orientation and hang out one more night with her parents? No. Stuck. Floating in a sea of rain and utter sadness. It was calling to mind something, a memory, I couldn't place what.

Then the waiting. We couldn't get out of New York for another whole day later. I needed the intoxicating hugs of the rest of my brood. I wanted to cry into Roman's bewildered but willing little neck. We poured into a nearby hotel. The room was freezing and the only thing that I could do was crawl into the bed. I didn't move for hours. Didn't even shift. Just Jeff and I there. Waiting for the hours to go by. Jeff went to get us food. Went to get us water. I slightly laughed at a movie or two, but mostly just laid there, out of body. Looking around inside my new self at how it looked and couldn't see much that made me happy without her. I dozed off around 1am. Woke up around 3am. And was arrested again by the familiarity of this set of circumstances. Trying to get somewhere, but getting stuck twice, once in the rain, once at the airport, then the all night waiting. Jeff. Me. And searching. Looking for her precious smile in my mind.

And then remembering.

We were 19. Unmarried, and unexpectedly expecting. Expecting Juliana. We had chosen adoptive parents. It seemed like a good idea at my age and we could continue the paths we had begun. She could continue with an eager family who was prepared for her. Had been praying for her.

We went to the hospital in labor, lawyers, parents, everyone, waiting in the wings. My labor stopped after I got there. We got stuck. Then sent away. We went again, a second time, to the hospital in full labor, which after an hour of convincing everyone around me that it was the real thing, decided to stop in its tracks. On the way home, I realized it wasn't a mistake. It was her, begging to be mine. My body would not give her up, even if my mind already had. I called off the adoption. Then the third time in labor, we decided to wait it out at home. Jeff. Me. And searching. Looking for her precious smile in my mind. For a whole day. And then, the third time, she was ours.

So there it was, in the middle of the night (a Sunday night after 3 am, quite near how she was born) at a hotel in Astoria, New York, raining, I was granted the memory to answer the nagging something that I was recalling. We brought her, again into a world. This time she is her own.

This past June just she and I went to Brooklyn to get a feel for it, and just enjoy some time together for four days. Really, the trip of a lifetime. We did nothing special, we didn't have to. On the last night, we took in a French film in a small theater in Soho. Leaving Manhattan into the wee hours of the morning, those cabbies fly. It is funny, how fast, and like a roller coaster. As we approached the Brooklyn Bridge, I thought, there it is: the bridge between where she is now and where she will be at the end of the summer. The summer: the bridge that will give us our last childhood days with her. We were so tired, barely spoke, but both obviously enjoyed the coolness that had cloaked the city after a hot day, windows down, our hair whipping everywhere. Then as we encountered the stretch across the water, I was flooded with memories of her as a baby, a toddler, her bubbly face, her beginnings, the she that almost wasn't mine, and I fought back tears. I couldn't believe we were about to reach her soon-to-be-home, just on the other side of the bridge. Rushing through the lights and under and over the architecture , I was looking back in time deep inside of me. Then I heard her say it, and I couldn't believe it. She said, like a little child, filled with excitement, "Mom, look back!"

I am! I thought, screamed, inside my head, in wonderment at the moment. How did she know?

I looked away from my side window where I was hiding some tears, that thankfully were quickly being licked up by the wind, to see her looking through the back of the taxi at the lights of Manhattan. They flickered through the thousands of suspension cables in the most mesmerizing way, like a dance. Like a filmstrip of life gone by. She was suspended there on the bridge. The thought of it is suspended forever in my mind.

And I am, more than I am anything, grateful.

To quote a cabbie, "Children are God's greatest blessing"

xoxoAnnaMaria

Torrie Wilson




Torrie Wilson is an American professional wrestler, fitness competitor and model currently signed to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) working on its SmackDown! brand. As a fitness competitor, Wilson won the Miss Galaxy competition in 1998. Shortly after, she was hired by World Championship Wrestling, where she was employed from 1999 until 2001. In 2001, she began appearing on World Wrestling Federation (WWF) television as part of The Invasion storyline. Her most high profile storyline took place in 2003 when she feuded with Dawn Marie. Wilson has also been a part of the all-female stable known as Vince's Devils, which ended its run in 2006.Aside from wrestling, Wilson has been on the cover of several magazines, including FHM and Playboy, which she posed for twice.(Source:Wikipedia)

Innocent Crush Sneak Peak

sneak.peak

Launching at market in October, in stores this November! More soon!
xoxoA

the early

early.bed
early.pillow.pile
early.explorer

Our bed abandoned earlier than normal.
The bed pillows piling in the corner chair each night.
Seen under an earlier than normal light.
An explorer setting off to his tasks.
Earlier than normal.
The house, so quiet. Just the cicadas on the other side of the window.
One yellow canary finally settling after so much early singing.
One yellow dog breathing in a cold marble entry floor. Dreaming.
One father to work.
Two girls backpacked, fed and brushed on the early bus.
Two boys, backpacked, geared for afterschool activities, fed and hand-combed on the later bus.
One young lady still sleeping in this house. For now.
One baby back to bed after enough exploration. Eagerly to bed.
And a mother. Thinking of what the quiet might bare.
Thanking the early.

Found: After-school nothingness nap

same.time.same.place.next.day

Its amazing the toll just a half-day can take.

xoA

Wanted: More summer days in which we do nothing

summer.nothing

I could at least stand to watch the kids do nothing a little longer even if I have to do something. But alas, I will deposit 4 out of 6 children onto a school bus in the morning. There are some emotions there. Hmm, what are they? I think generally relief for a schedule again. Tomorrow is the day I thought I had been waiting for since the moment they tore through the front door on the last day of school. But now that its here, I dunno. I like turning around from my work every now and then and seeing just this sort of silly nothingness that seems to only happen on a boring summer day with nothing better to do than hang upside down from Mom's studio chair.

But then. Relief, yes. They are ready, as much as they whine, to have a big round clock to watch for prompting them onto to the next room, next friend, next subject, next experience and then home again. And by this time next week we'll have Juliana just about packed for her venture off to college. I know there are emotions there. My pillow is a bit damp with those most nights. I haven't quite figured out how to put those into words yet, but they are swirling about up there inside my skull. I think I'll go hang upside down on a chair and turn them into a dizzy brand of summer nothing for now. My capacity for denial improves with every passing year.

xoxo, Anna

Cameron Diaz





Cameron Michelle Diaz was born on August 30, 1972. She is an American actress and former fashion model. Diaz was born in San Diego, California. Her second-generation Cuban-American father, Emilio Diaz, worked as a foreman for an oil company, and her mother, Billie Early (who has English, German and Cherokee Native American ancestry), worked as an exporting agent. Diaz attended Long Beach Polytechnic High School. During her school days, she was called Skeletor by her classmates.

Favorite

twirl

My favorite photo of the week of my favorite version of the Evening Empire Dress made from my favorite combination of Little Folks Voiles worn by my favorite model twirling on about on my favorite piece of earth. Home.

Shared with you on my favorite day of the week.

have a good one. xo, Anna Maria

Finding Passion

1.passion.stitch

Sunday afternoon, Jeff and I were taking a few minutes at the dining room table to have some after lunch coffee. A favorite Sunday moment. Chatting away about the kids, the upcoming family visit that we are in the midst of now, the looming escorting of Juliana off to college here in a few weeks, recapping the book signing from the day before, etc. Typical life download that we do every few days when we get the chance. I started talking about the exhibit at the Frist as I had seen it for the second time the previous Thursday (going again today, I'm a junkie). There are television screens throughout the exhibit playing a loop of fashion footage from the era of the show. Black and white moving images of 1940's models prancing about in the perfected and gorgeous frocks, holding themselves so still yet moving here and there. And my favorite, the scene of women employed by the house, several of them, sitting around an endless chiffon hem and hand stitching a scarf hem all around. Talking, laughing, enjoying, working. Working.

2.passion.stitch

I cried. Jeff got that look on his face like oh no she's crying. I really am not a crier. Really. Talking about it, thinking about it. The idea of these dresses being the result of the dream of one, then the work of many. The subtle twists and turns of several eager, knowledgeable hands whipping needle and thread and cloth and a dream into something tangible. Still, though tangible, a dream to behold. And half a century later, I'm sitting at my dining room table crying about the beauty of the hand stitching, trying to explain why its so special. And my poor, patient, sweet husband, who looked as confused as he could be was not at all confused. I didn't just wet my lashes with nostalgia or appreciation for a dear craft. I sobbed like a baby. I kept saying over and over.... what is wrong with me, I'm such a freak , why am I crying so hard about this. Its my grandmothers, are they doing this to me? I think of them when I see that group of women sewing, I think of each of them... How does this not make everyone cry? where can you see this anymore? - a scene like that- I'm sorry. I am such a weirdo, I'm sorry

3.passion.stitch

You're just passionate, he said. (insert adorable husband smile with that)

Oh. Yea. I guess. And weird, I said. (insert dorky, wimpery wife sniffle with that)

The next day I was putting some freshly washed bath towels in the linen closet of the boys' hall bathroom and I was sure that I heard the sound of running water through the walls. I instantly thought back to a few months ago when I learned too late that the boys had let the outdoor spigot on for like, uh, two weeks without me knowing and we paid an impressive water bill. I dropped the towels, headed outside, mummering something about a lashing (though I've never delivered one in my life). But the spigot wasn't left on. After following the snaking hose, I found at the mouth, a really damp area where it had been left on weeks before. And for the first time ever in my yard I found a tangley patch of wild passion flowers growing out of the damp earth. Beautiful. Plucked one. Plucked a green pod fruit too. Completely forgot about the running water sound. On the way to the studio to take pictures (of course I had to) I thought of the embroidery that I had started the day before. The flower made me. The colors. So unbelievably beautiful. Like sea life. The flower, and those spindly, curly threads, of course. Threads.

So if I didn't have passion the day before, when I was accused of such, sobbing at my dining room table, I found it the very next day. In the midst of laundry, no less.

xoxo, Anna

Aline Nakashima




Aline Nakashima was born in 1982 at Sao Paulo, Brazil. She is a Brazilian supermodel who was discovered at a modelling tryout in Brazil when aged 17. She made her first appearance in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition in 2006. She is of mixed Japanese descent and has dark brown hair and green eyes and is 5'9" and dress size 6. Her modeling agency is Marilyn Agency, São Paulo.She has modelled for ALDO, Armani Exchange, DKNY, GAP, Esprit, Kenneth Cole 'Reaction' fragrance, Lycra, MAC, Morgan, Mercedes-Benz, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Playtex Lingerie, Ralph Lauren, Saks Fifth Avenue, Sephora, Triumph International and Victoria's Secret.