It's Gorse of Course!

Photo by jen-the-librarian via flickr.

To wrap up Ireland I wanted to close with one more of my Grandma's journal entries. It is about the flower gorse, and I just loved it. Especially written in her beautiful cursive script.
"When gorse is out of bloom Kissing is out of season" (this is an old Irish saying).
"Yellow flowers in pastures = gorse. Farmers don't like it. Blossoms 3 times a year". If that doesn't tell you enough you can check out the wiki entry here.



I'm pretty excited because I just booked my trip next week to go visit my BFF Ris in Portland, Oregon. I'm continuing my travels to the places that I've done in the Places I Have Never Been line! So sad that Sasso can't come with me. It has become apparent that he will be chained to his desk this summer (just like last summer) so I've resigned to do some solo travel, so sad. Well, less sad cause I cashed in my miles for a first class ticket... to ease the Sasso missing.

Check out those pipes: Part Deux

Photo by AndreasC via flickr.

I've been away due to one of those lovely July colds. They are so hard to get rid of... you are hot (cause it is a thousand degrees out) so you put on the a/c but that just makes the cold worse. But all is better. Thankfully it came after our wonderful July 4th weekend to Cape Cod, namely Wellfleet and Provincetown. It was great to go to Wellfleet because that is a place from the Places I Have Never Been series, and now I can start my real vacation drawings for it.


Photo by Mark Grealish via flickr.

But to get on with wrapping up the Galway pattern... I just kept seeing pipe organs in all my sketches (see part uno) so I started to do a little research. I fell in love with the pipe organ at the Galway Cathedral. I couldn't believe the stained glass piece that was above it, because I had been drawing something similar to mimic the gorse flower that I wanted to be in the pattern.


Photo by Mark Grealish via flickr.

The organ was built in 1966 and then rebuilt and expanded in 2006-2007. The organ has 59 registers, divided over three manuals and pedals and the action is electro-pneumatic. That's a little techie for me and I have no idea what it means - but I just think it is beautiful. If you happen to be in Galway on July 29 you can attend one of the Cathedrals many recitals.

For more info about Irish Pipe Organs click here and for a "good laugh" check out the Pipe Organ joke page here, it is priceless!

Mmmmmm... Yellow + Green

Things have been a bit busy the last few days. We had a lovely lovely engagement party with close friends and family so there has been lots of visiting the last week or so. Now the leftovers are gone (well, almost) and the champagne haze has worn off and it is back to work.
The Galway pattern is a riot of yellow and green. I have been loving this combo lately so I thought I'd pick a few of my fav y/g things from the web. See as follows:
1. Ceramics by Liz Kinder. We have a few of her ice cream bowls and just love them
2. Stationary by Albertine Press I love this World Note collection
3. Notetags by Ashley Bug This print would make a fantastic skirt
4. Owl by Tiny Warbler Designs I am starting a slight obsession with high-end handmade softies. I'm thinking of starting a collection... one that I will need to hide away from my future children. I think this owl would be a perfect beginning.
5. Wrapping Paper by Feterie Mmmmmmmm
6. Kitchen Aid Mixer I'm convinced that I would make great cookies with this. I'm also convince no one is going to spend $300 on this for me which is why it is missing from my registry. Making it even more tempting... it comes in such pretty colors.
7. Notepad by Susy Jack I love love love Susy's work and I was so in love with it I got all shy at the Stationary Show and didn't introduce myself to her. Silly, I know. I love how you can mix and match all her colors!
8. Grocery Bag by Envirosax We have a set of these that we use on every shopping trip. Sasso said they were too girly at first, but he manned up and I know deep down inside he loves getting compliments on them at the Whole Food's checkout.
9. Print by Ink + Wit Tara was my booth mate at the NSS and I got to go home with some of her work. She uses the prettiest yellow...
10. Lamb Wallet How hot is this?
11. Yellow Belt I'm all about the belt this season...
12. Ashely G Print pretty bird, pretty bird

Oh, a side note. Thursday night I'll be with Boston Handmade on the lawn at Curtis Hall for Jamaica Plain First Thursdays 5pm - 8pm!

Listen to those pipes!! Part Uno

Pipe organs, when I was perusing Flickr for some Ireland inspiration I kept stumbling upon them and I thought they were totally beautiful. They also brought me (somewhat) nostalgically back to the Catholic church days of my youth, leaning forward with my forehead on the pew in front of me praying for God to end the sermon and let me go ride my bike.
This first "organ" may not be the traditional kind. The Giant's Causeway is an area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, many forming together to look like a pipe organ, located in Northern Ireland. Legend has it that it was caused by an Irish giant running away from a. either a baby eating a steak or b. a baby that was gigantic, tearing up the Causeway as he went. Read here for yourself. You might recognize the Causeway from the cover of Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy album (you know, the D'yer Maker one). Check out these BEAUTIFUL pictures of the causeway below from brian77kelly via flickr.

Notes from Grandma

Sorry for the lack of posting, it's been busy. Well, that isn't entirely true... design wise summer is s-l-o-w but doing all this engagement party/wedding business has been time consuming. The great news is that we have a date, a place, I have a dress and a house to stay in. We'll be getting married in a tiny ceremony in Playa Negra, Costa Rica next February. We are way excited. You can read more about our last CR trip here.
Then there was the whole Celtics winning the championship thing (woo hoo!) which kept me up late, and the celebration with a nice bottle of champagne and a box of delicious pastries from Flour kept me in bed late the next day. But I'm back!



So my Grandma, Madelyn, was the inspiration for the Ireland print. She was so nice to give me her travel journal from her 3 week trip to Ireland in May of 1984. She went back to see where her grandparents were from and to explore the country that her family reminisced so much about. A woman close to my own heart, most of the journal is a chronicle of the food she ate on her trip, but there are a few choice stories:
• Accidentally waiting for a LONG time on the wrong side of the street for the bus
• Meeting an Irish man who bought her a Coffee Royal to treat her cold and celebrate her birthday.
• Saw the castle that "Tip O'Neil stayed at the night before"
• After seeing an Irish funeral, they were invited in down the street for an Irish wedding
• Apparently they missed a lot of Irish Music because there are many entires that end in "Sorry no Irish Music"
The journal is extremely factually with very little opinion about what things were like. The only one I noticed was that "Cork was dirty."



At the back there is a list of addresses of the people she must have met, I'm SURE it was in order for her to send a thank you note promptly when she returned to the states. She also notes that it was a 747 and that there were 500 passengers on board. The whole thing is written in her beautiful penmanship, something I wish I had. She writes about gorse, the flower that is in the print, but I'll share that all on the next post.
All in all she is a wonderful story teller. She is quite funny and always likes to throw in a little gossip. When I see her next week perhaps I can get her to give up some of the goods and do a little podcast.

The Galway Pattern

Here she is, the new Galway Pattern. Inspired by the yellow gorse flower, (which my Gramma wrote about in her Ireland travel journal), and pipe organs. Why pipe organs? I just kept seeing them everywhere in my research. There are some beauts in Ireland and even a series of gigantic rocks that resemble a pipe organ. Maybe it is from being brought up in a pseudo-Irish Catholic household, Ireland reminds me of church, church reminds me of pipe organs. Go figure.
The Galway pattern graces one of our new Hello! note cards: Top of the Mornin'. This shot isn't bad considering my camera can't focus on anything lately (Dear Sasso - My birthday is next month... a new camera would be an amazing present).



Since we are talking about Ireland here...ss anyone else out there watching these Celtics games? I mean... I almost turned off the tv in disgust last night but boy was I glad that I didn't. Talk about the luck of the Irish! Fantastic!!

Ooooh... Ireland!

This new pattern is one that is quite close to my heart. It was inspired by my Grandma, well both Grandmothers. Both families' came over from Ireland to settle in New England, both gave up their Irish maiden names (Sheehan/Boyle) for that of a different sort (English/German) when they married. They both kept their families' Irish traditions going and passed them on down.
My Grammy Hill passed away a few years ago, but my Grandma Ammann is still running (or walking at least) around at the lovely age of 92! About 20 years ago my Grandma Ammann took a 3 week voyage to Ireland and England, it was her first and only time out of the United States. I don't remember her really going on the trip, but I remember her bringing me back a sweet batone with green, metallic streamers adhered to each end.
Finally, after about 6 years my Grandma really understands what I do for a living (when I worked for Fresh she thought I actually wrapped the soap, and would always tell me how she knew of a place in NH that wrapped soap and I should just work there instead), and she is a big fan of my calendar.
So I thought it was about time to do a pattern for my dear Grandma. She lent me her travel journal which was a hoot to read (I'll share that here later) and gave me a book about Ireland. I researched where her family was from and different things about Ireland. I came up with a bright pattern inspired by Galway... which I'll post online tomorrow!

Oh Merci Loire Valley!!!

I thought I'd wrap up the Loire Valley today. She really is a very pretty pattern, May in our 2009 calendar. She also is the first card to debut in our new thank you note collection. We have a couple new collections that take the traditional note card (such as thank you) and change the wording to match the place of the pattern. So our French Loire Valley pattern becomes Merci. Tomorrow I'll show you our new Savannah thank you card. It has been really fun/interesting to think about the different ways that people say the same thing. Not just in terms of different languages, but even regional slang throughout the U.S.

Here is a conversation between me and Sasso last night, something funny:
(setting the scene: searching amazon.com for a fold able hand truck for the stationery show on a laptop at approximately 11:30pm in a dark bedroom)
Jennifer: Oh I'll get this one. Ugh, overnight shipping is $40 to get it here by Thursday. I'll go to Tarjet tomorrow to see if they have it in the store
Sasso: Just get it regular delivery
Jennifer: Um... I need it before we leave on Friday, duh.
Sasso: Where are we going on Friday?
Jennifer: (stunned silence - I mean I've only been prepping for this since January) New York. For the Stationery Show.
Sasso: WHAT!?!?! The show is this weekend?! Are you sure? I can't go! I have to work! I thought it was next weekend! We should really have a calendar for this stuff.
Jennifer (continued stunned silence while thinking about the calendars that I MAKE, one of which is hanging in our kitchen with all the NSS days marked on it) Why do you think I was packing everything up, got the car tunned up, took most of this week off and all that.
Sasso: I thought you were just really over prepared....

This is why I wear the planning pants in the family.

Valley of the Flowers

I had originally designed this pattern to be big, bold and kind of in one's face. But when I put it next to the other patterns for the 2009 calendar, it seemed really out of scale. So the whole thing got shrunk down. And in the end I like it very much, the only sad thing is that you loose a lot of the details in the flowers. I spent the majority of a dreary Saturday this winter drawing these flowers, each one blown up to like 800%. So I thought I'd blow them up a bit so you can see the detail in them here. The funny thing is I swear that I wrote down the name of each flower so that I could show you an original picture too... but apparently that was a good idea not followed through on.
Today my mom is coming in for a short visit and we are going to go wedding dress shopping. I'm not a big clothes shopper. I prefer to obsess over something online and then order it in 3 sizes and try it on in the comfort of my bedroom. Something a bit more difficult to do with a wedding dress. I'm looking for something white that is simple and costs less than my share of the booth fee to the stationery show. We'll see how it goes....

It's a Chateau Dahhhhling...

I wrote about my love of the word Villa in my Cabo wrap up, well I have the same affection for the word château (and also Chalet). Basically any word that is a bit more romantic and dreamier than "house". There were 3 châteaus that I thought of when I did this pattern.


1. Petit Hameau: The original inspiration for the patten was this little rustic place built for Marie Antoinette at Versailles. Do you remember in the movie when Kirsten Dunst was running around in tall grass in the most beautiful sun light glow? Then she picked strawberries and poured the most delicious looking cream from a pitcher.... mmmm. After checking it out I decided i wanted it all to be a bit more in your face and not so delicate. So I went on search for more châteaus.


2. Château de Chenonceau: The château was a gift from King Henry VIII to his mistress Diane de Poitiers. The place is so magical the way that it extends over the river. It has some amazing geometrically designed gardens too. You can visit the château's website here.


3. Château de Villandry: The gardens here are amazing. There are all sorts of geometric shapes including one part that is all hearts, which is where I got the inspiration for the hearts in the Merci pattern. You can visit their site here and see some amazing pics here.

I wish someone would say "Bonjour Mademoiselle!" and whisk me off to a château today. It has been a rough couple of weeks. The kind that makes you say, "Holy crap. The universe is trying to kill me!!" It has involved print proofs gone awry, burned hands, head colds, unresponsive vendors, torture via dentist, crazy client phone calls, a broken cell phone (which is just plain maddening), and one mess otherwise known as our engagement party / wedding.
But I'm not gonna let it get me down no more! The sun is out and even if I have to sit in my yard (with a box of tissues) instead of a château's that will do for now. To make things even better Eric the UPS man just brought all the new Thank You, Hello! and Holiday cards to me. The printing is SO beautiful! Lots of new stuff to show you soon.

Floral Couture

I write this with a throbbing face, cheek really I guess. My tooth had been aching and I had to go to the dentist. I made my last minute appointment thinking, "oh this is no big deal... I can do it in the A.M, have the whole day to work and then I can still make that Design Salon event I've been looking forward to in the evening." So I went, shed a few tears (you would too if you had 18 teeth pulled as a young one), and when I was leaving the (wonderful) dentist said to me "so once the Novicain wears off this is going to hurt at least twice as much as that root canal you had. Here, go get some Vicodin." Oh it appears I gravely miscalculated my procedure. Which is why I'm sitting at home with a throbbing face.

To take my mind off that (and how I really can't buy a M.J bag from the employee sale cause I just dropped the equivalent at the dentist) I thought I'd write a bit about the beginning influences of the Loire Valley pattern. Well, it was all those flowers over flowing the Spring runways. I mean they were EVERYWHERE! I could have filled an entire sketchbook with inspiration, forget just a few pages. Here are a few glimpses of my floral sketchbook pages.

Matthew Willamson, Prada, and Balenciaga. Balenciaga was the big time influence. All those cool floral patterns, and those crazy black and white gladiator sandals totally inspired the Chester, England pattern (I want those sandals, I know... where would I wear them... but I want them anyways). So here, take a look.

Introducing Loire Valley

Soooooo.... I need to note that right now I am sitting in the studio with all the windows open getting a fantastic cross breeze of warm air. So warm that when I walk through the kitchen I check to see if the stove is on, I've been doing this all day. The scent of a neighbor's BBQ have been wafting in... I've been waiting for this weather to return since November.



A while ago I wrote about what was inspiring some new patterns. The first new pattern to be released is Loire Valley. She is French and very bright (as in colorful, though if she was a person I think she'd also be very smart and clever), and just bursting with flowers. The pattern was inspired by the flowers that flooded the Spring 2008 runways (especially the Balenciaga collection - swoon), a few chateau gardens in France and the idea of a colorful fruit basket (not sure why but that popped in my head the whole time I worked on this pattern).
This is also the first release of the new Thank You card line, which Loire Valley graces on the Merci card which you can see here. The cards are sold as singles as well as in packs of 6 and they are all enviro friendly as mentioned before.
This pattern had so many great inspirations and I can't wait to share them all. I know posting has been a bit light. Sometimes it is tricky to get pumped up about the inspiration for patterns I did like 18 months ago, so I'm really looking forward to sharing the 14 new patterns I have with you!

On another note my dear-dear-dear-lovely intern Alston is leaving me in Mid-May so I'm on the lookout for another talented design intern. If anyone is interested please email me at jhilldesign (at) mac.com for more details. One of the big projects for the summer is the rework of the Studio's website which will soon have a wonderful database driven shopping cart (adios paypal buttons!). Good experience and fun :)

Ooooooooh... Rome!

Rome, Rome, Roma!! It is April and the sun is shining into the studio (finally). I was so happy to flip over my wall calendar and see happy April smiling back at me. This pattern was all about gelato. My dear Leeees took a great picture of gelato on one of her Italy trips a while back and it got me all sorts of inspired. I can't wait to do a gelato taste test this week, and I'm sure Sasso will be looking forward to that as well.
It is a momentous day. I finished ALL 12 new patterns. I honestly feel like running up city hall's steps a la Rocky and doing a little dance. The first ones to be released will be Loire Valley (next week), Chester, England and Austin, Texas. The whole line is just about finished :), I'm just working on the new holiday cards. One exciting thing is that I'm switching most of the line's printing to an eco-friendly process. They will be printed with soy + vegetable based inks on 100% recycled, 50% post-consumer, non-bleached paper. It is very nice. Hopefully I'll be able to switch the calendars and the new notepads over once I can order, like thousands of them (it's all about the quantity).

Places I Have Never Been... 2009

Oh God I have no idea what month or year it is. Sometimes I sign my therapist's checks 2007, others 2009... See I'm showing at the National Stationary Show in May, and I need to have the new collection/calendars ready then. Which means, in theory, in June I should be working on the 2010 calendars. See my problem?
Oh but it is so exciting to have my new Moleskine sketchbook obsessively divided into places and being filled with ideas for new patterns. It's also a bit trying. I swear to god it is like conceiving and giving birth 12 times over. Every year I get a little cranky during this time. It's crappy outside, Sasso has been LOUDLY playing Call of Duty for 24 hours straight in the room next door and I have to give birth 12 times.
But I am excited about the new places! I can't tell you all of them, (what would i talk about here for the next year) but I thought maybe I'd share the one that I am wrapping up this weekend: The Gardens of the Loire Valley in France.
Sasso says I do too many France patterns - but I LOVE France. I have dear friends from France and it is the only foreign language I can speak. My only regret is that I can't do a macaron pattern for "Placse I Have Never Been" because I have been to Paris (and fully indulged in macarons). Well, the Loire Valley pattern is inspired by Balenciaga's Spring 2008 line (I mean look at those flowers?!) and the movie Marie Antoinette. I just keep thinking about mazes and the phrase "A riot of color". Oh, it is fantastic... you will see it in all its glory in a few months.
I thought perhaps I'd solicit a little help. I'm stuck on a pattern. I want to do a piece about Portland, Oregon and for some reason I haven't gotten that bolt of inspiration yet. My best friend 'Ris lives out there, the PIHNB line is sold there in a few lovely stores... for some reason all I can think of is moss. So if anyone has any little tales or favorite things they'd like to offer shoot me a line or leave a comment.
Tomorrow a new place begins.... I'm thinking we'll start talking about Tuscany.