Early June: California show tour.

Oh yeah.  OOOOOh yeah. Weeeeeeeell, well, well.  I think we were playing hide and go seek with Summer.  It found a really great–amazingly clever–hiding space.  I went off looking and got so distracted by other things (like opening a shop, maintaining and gaining wholesale accounts, and driving to and from shows/events in Seattle, SF, LA, and Chicago) …I forgot to actually go and find it.

Mid June: New shop design shopping. Wow, what a task.

So…Summer got bored and left to play with Fall.  And then Fall killed Summer.

Late June: Fill the biggest order of my life.

Okay, not really.  Maybe Fall just tucked Summer in for its yearly hibernation.  But the thing is, summer is gone now and it’s time for me to be okay with that.  And come to grips with the fact that I’ve just experienced the craziest Summer of my life.

Early August: Big sis gets hitched and I wear my favorite summer jewelry.

Here we are in…OCTOBER… and I’m trying to be here. Now, with the Fall.

I find comfort in this blog and I hope to be snuggling up to in the next few weeks.  In the meantime, please know that I’ve missed you guys.

Early September: Snuggling with Gingham. (This one sort of sums it all up.)

Stories of how time flew by are most definitely waiting behind the curtain for their cues.  I shall be calling them onstage very very soon.

xo~betsy

***Song of the Moment: Chilly Winds Don’t Blow, by Nina Simone***

So yeah…11 hours to drive to San Francisco.  We ended up breaking up the trip in Redding at around midnight, sleeping in a that’ll-do-it hotel, where the very sweet woman with missing teeth and a tone that made it seem like she’d been smoking for more years than she’d been alive didn’t know how to process a priceline purchase; so we had to wait another 20 minutes before we could actually get in the room.  We woke up at 4 am (yes, that’s only 4 hours later) to get on the road for another 3.5 hours of driving straight to our 10×10 square of a pop-up street fair city where we would live for the next 2 days.

That was the start to one of the most challenging shows I’ve ever done. So while I was dealing with some major feelings of joy having just landed the new shop space, I was battling everything inside me that just wanted to quit the show and go home and sleep.

Audrey, our saving grave in SF

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that when we arrived in San Francisco, it was raining.  But not the Portland kind of misty, non-committal drizzle rain, the kind of rain that’s accompanied by these thoughts, “Not a soul should be outside right now.” These thoughts were butting up against the expectations that this show (which boasts around 100,000 attendants every year) could possibly be the most successful show we had ever done.  And at a time when we really really needed it.  So yeah…no one should be outside and yet we were standing there trying to set up a booth, with fabric for walls, in the pouring down rain.

this saves.

There was no sign of any of those 100,000 attendants, Will had put our new beautiful display boxes together backwards, we quickly discovered that those fabric walls had tiny holes all over them, and the tarp we had set up to protect us starting acting like a sail when the wind started blowing.  Oh yeah…the wind.  We had weights on our canopy, but since none of our neighbors in the street fair city had shown up that day, our booth sort of became its own wind tunnel.  When people actually did come out (and they did), we had to stand there like pillars of our own home and hold the tent down.   One more thing—it was the first weekend in Portland (in months, no less) when the sun had decided to come and play…full on, no holding back, play…the kind that brings out all the birds and the people and 85 degrees of warm happiness.  You better believe that was on my mind.

This is the Betsy who pulls it together.

Pitiful.  That’s how I felt about the situation and myself.  If it wasn’t for Lupe, I think I probably would have had a breakdown in the booth that day.  In fact, I bent down behind the tables because I felt the tears coming on.  I started tooling around on my phone to distract myself and there, waiting patiently for me, was one of the best emails I have ever received from a friend.  It actually brought the tears on, but they changed from darkness to lightness and I felt that everything was in its right place.

yeah, the door opened.

It went from challenging to character building.  JW said amazing things about how she thinks of me (things I didn’t quite feel I deserved) and it made me feel so grateful to have what I have…amazing friends and family like her…and I realized that sitting in my own pool of sorrow was trapping all of the nice things she said about me.  And I wanted to prove her right.

beautiful Carmel

So with Lupe’s amazingly generous help and all the beautiful gracious hospitality along the way, I pulled myself together…and we ended up having an amazing journey through California.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart  to everyone (you know who you are) who played a role in making our trip so sweet. The first show even blew me away, people’s willingness to come out and support an artisan-based show in the middle of compromising weather—our numbers were way higher than what I thought  and we’re pretty sure that in nice weather it really would have been beyond our expectations.

Stripe trunk show, Santa Cruz, CA

generosity

Suna's home... from Stripe, a store we sell to in Santa Cruz, CA

she made food for us in her beautiful kitchen and then we stayed the night. Amazing.

our room.

beautiful hotel in Carmel

so me.

JW was the first person to put the idea of “blooming where you’re planted,” into my head.  When we first became friends, we told stories to get to know one another.  After I finished my stories, she said that I was that kind of person. It made sense to me.  Everything in my life almost starts happening before I even know what it is or where it will go—dancing, college, theatre, grad school, music, Will, love, betsy & iya…almost all of it knocked on my door and I said…”okay!”  This is not to say that it’s been easy—in fact, I’d say that it’s been really tough.  But it’s that digging deeper and deeper that simultaneously opens the opposite side and then I look up and I’m like…WHOA!  There’s so far to go up there!  And then I jump real high and it feels really good.

last show of a 10 day character-building road trip to LA and back

In the last picture for the last show, I wore the morse code that says "here" ...it just felt right

Bloom where you’re planted.  Just try it.

so much more to share with you…p.s. we’re completely into our new shop and we’ll keep you posted on the door opening!

happy weekend to each of you!

xox~betsy

pps…next week is the premiere of the new line THE MUSIC at Radish Underground.  Details here: http://ow.ly/5uZV8

Song of the Moment: Everything in its Right Place, by Radiohead***

Today, my heart is living in the last picture.

I hope your weekends are full of love.

***Song of the Moment: In Love With You, by Erykah Badu***

Southern USA, here we come.

***Song of the Moment: I Walked, by Sufjan Stevens***

Have a beautiful weekend.

~betsy

***Song of the Moment: Where I’m From, by the Digable Planets***

There is a feeling of love that comes over me when I learn that someone wants to wear my designs.  It’s more than satisfaction.  I still have thoughts like: really, you want to wear this thing that I dreamed up?? really? You’re soooo great!!

It makes those breaks feel so much more special.  We worked hard, really hard, and it was worth it.

And then…

I have a moment, finally (usually on the plane or in the car), to remember why I do it all in the first place.  A moment to sit down and realize how important it is that we make time for space.  Because that’s where the magic happens.

Magic =

1) Gingham meets her auntie and uncle dogs.  And plays a LOT.

2) We see some of the most important people in our lives:  family.

3) We see each other.

4) We play.

5) We eat Christmas cookies.

6) We experience the real kind of love.

7) We hear new music.

8) We tell stories.

9) We have amazing conversations.

10) We enjoy the silence.

Now we’re back.  Now I know why we’re really here.

I hope you all had the most wonderful breaks and saw what you really needed to see.

Hope to see you in the New Year!!

xo~betsy

Song of the Moment: All You’ve Got to Do is Fall in Love, by Benji Hughes***

hilarious kid pic from www.wildindiana.com

Well, it’s for realz now, because we’re driving across country in 4 days.  Wow, I just scared myself.  4 days!?  Are you kidding me?!?

So help a brotha and sista out.  What can we absolutely not forget to take on a 3,969 mile drive??  We promise to recite them all before adding our own travel necessity and passing it on ’round the campfire.

***Song of the moment: Nonpareil of Favor, by Of Montreal***

I love every little bit of my job.  It takes me to family, old friends, and new adventures.  I have so much to share with you.  Here is just a small offering.

I always learn so much when I go away.

I find that fascinating.

***Song of the Moment:  Today, by Dr. Dog***

I keep waiting for things to slow down… for when I’ll sit down and write a meaningful post, share those pictures with you, reply to those emails, get in touch with that friend I haven’t talked to in so long, workout more regularly, go to Cathedral Park more often, etc etc, blah blah.  I keep waiting for all of these incomparably important busy things to slow to an end and then I’ll take care of all these other things that I really do also care about.

…wait.  …that are also indelibly important things…things that I’m always going to want to get to.

right.  riiiight.  I remember.  I know this place.  I keep coming back here.

I keep coming back here for a reason, I suppose… a great one, that I should be so grateful for—I’m BUSY!!!!  And really, if I think about it—I can only hope it stays this way.  I’m learning that it’s becoming more and more about finding balance.  A balance within me, that extends out to my hands, and beyond my hands, just as it exists in the world.

One of the first ways I’m trying to implement this into my life is by being with W when I’m with W.  I mean, like really being with him.  Road tripping, experiencing Vancouver BC (witnessing Olympic moments firsthand, before the TV footage and even the cameras that shot them), reconnecting, being our most authentically goofy selves, laughing out load (a lot), the tastes, the smells, the friendship     …even if everything stopped:

these are the things that would stay with me forever.

We had a wonderful time in Vancouver.  And even though I was able to focus on all the things that make my heart feel woo wooey,  the things that actually inspire the work… it came too.  I got four new accounts in BC before we headed home.  That’s right, Canada.  In the next few weeks, look out for betsy & iya in these sweet stores:  Riot, Dandelion Emporium, Smoking Lily, and Blushing Boutique.

I am so very lucky and grateful.  Thank you, Canada.

Soooo… stop thinking about it… just do it, you know?  that thing?  those things…  just go and do them.  and do them with every little bitty inch of you.

***Song of the Moment: Tonight by Lykke Li***

This outfit is almost entirely local!

Tank:  Mabel & Zora

(my new favorite) sweater: Radish Underground

Jeans: Levis

Rad Shoes: Terra Plana

Glasses: Amy Sacks from blink

Earrings: These are my new go-tos in my mixed metal collection, you can click on the pic to go directly to the shop.

We’re off!!!  Expect updates from the road.

***Song of the moment: Let it Fall, by Lykke Li***

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