On day two of our American Northwest Coast road trip 2010, we said goodbye to green and growing (and full-service gas-stationed) Oregon and drove up to Seattle, the city of waterways and coffee shops.  As it was the first visit for both of us, I don’t have many eclectic finds to share, since we diligently hit the top few tourist hot-spots suggested by all the guidebooks.  The space needle was fun, but it was a shame not to be able to see it from inside of itself – we didn’t realize how much character it gave the skyline until we saw everything else without it!  Pike Place Market, on the other hand – full of good smells and busyness – got better the farther in it we walked.  We had a perfect French breakfast at Le Panier, and wandered around the stalls of salmon on ice, berries, and desserts between the coffee houses.

From what little we now know, I would definitely recommend finding a place to stay as near to Pike Place Market as possible – especially if you are staying for several days.  It would be so decadent to be able to have breakfast there every morning in a different little place each time!

In the evening, we strolled the Pioneer Square First Thursday Art Walk, where we spent most of our time at Davidson Galleries, which was showing some of my recent print work.  (This event was the original impetus for our road trip, and it was a lot of fun.)  The gallery was filled with people and flat files full of masterworks and contemporary prints – heaven on earth – and for those few hours, it wasn’t even raining anymore!

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We love getting to see the adorable things people are able to do with the materials and fabrics that we have made.  Here are two cute finds that are currently on Etsy.

This is a sweet Noah’s Ark Two of a Kind quilt by My Cute Idea from Salt Lake City (top and left).  (It looks great hanging on your fence, by the way.)

And here (top and right) is a clever Little Pond soft-book-turned-rag-quilt with a burp cloth and toy clip by Diana of Crafts by Diana.

Lovely pieces, Ladies!

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Not long after the Surtex extravaganza in the big city, my sweet husband and I took a four-day road trip from the Bay Area to Seattle and back.  This prophetic fortune from our favorite restaurant was discookied the day before, so we were feeling good about the adventures ahead – I don’t think we even checked the weather forecast until right before our 6am departure time.  “A SOGGY, YET ENJOYABLE VACATION IS AWAITING YOU” might have been more accurate…

Here are some pictures from the day we drove the scenic Columbia River Gorge.  It’s a segment of Historic Route US 30 that runs alongside I 84 and is dotted with waterfalls and waterspouts and water oozing from rock walls and blooming lime-green saturated sculptures of moss.  The first few are amazing, but there are so many that like watching fireworks, after awhile, we started getting picky; a brown sign would announce another approaching fall and we would crane our necks to see if this one was majestic enough to park the car.  Here is one for which we stopped to climb closer (left) and me (right), getting mist-soaked in an effort to record the moment, which lasted for about as long as it took to snap the picture.

Here are a few products that we put together for Surtex that would have come in very handy on the trip.

I guess that if you decide to live on the Northwest Coast, you need a great umbrella, impermeable shoes, and a bottle of Vitamin D.  The benefit is so much green that you feel if there were such a thing as Minpins, this is where they would live.

No matter how many hip new restaurants pop up in New York between our visits, I always try to save one meal for a visit to Trattoria Dell’Arte. This trip, we found ourselves there three times! It was only two blocks from our hotel and it was still as wonderful as I remembered. On our last night we popped in late and sat at the antipasti bar.  It’s so much fun to pick and choose from the sumptuous platters of seafood, vegetables and cured meats.  Our official trip favorites were the fried cauliflower, broccoli rabe, and the tomatoes and mozzerrella.  If you find yourself there after the theatre, the pizzas are perfect … light, delicate and crispy. (Looking like the tourist that I was, I took these pictures with my phone!)

For me, there is another added sparkle, which is the fact that Trattoria Dell’Arte was designed by Milton Glaser, from whom I took a class at School of Visual Arts when I was a young illustrator.  I am still inspired today by some of the lessons I learned in his amazing and intense class.

When you enter the restaurant,  the space opens into a large, beautifully lit room – the kind that makes you glow even if you feel tired and pale.  The classic space is filled with art and sculpture … all odes to the body.  Monumental body parts, with a special affinity toward noses, surround midtown diners.  Sometimes, my girls will say, “Can we go to the restaurant with the noses?” and we know exactly which restaurant they are requesting.  I’m sure this is not what Milton had in mind when he created this space, but then again, perhaps he did, because, in a way, it’s just another form of branding.  Apple = Macintosh, Nose = Trattoria Dell’Arte.

There are many other examples of anatomy throughout the restaurant … from lips to feet to bottos.  In fact, I also have a picture of a pure white, 3-foot-tall bas-relief bosom hanging above one diner’s table, however I didn’t think I should necessarily feature it here on our family-rated blog.  But, it was impressive!

Left:  Cathy and Ellen discussing the busy day at Surtex and enjoying chicken paillard while sitting under a very large drawing of this splendid nose.  Can you guess which famous Italian belongs to this nose?  Well, I guess you will just have to go to Trattoria dell’Arte and take a look at your napkin ring.

I LOVE to walk everywhere in New York City.  With every step there is new inspiration. Around every corner there is a seed for a new idea.  Here are some visuals from a lazy walk back to our hotel: Fat ceramic chickens, jewel-toned glass pitchers, yet another cupcake shoppe, and a Mother’s Day cake oozing with flowers.

I had forgotten about that great cake we saw.  I’m glad you took a picture!  The pattern on the surface of those balloon-like chickens reminded me of the skin on a ceramic antelope we saw at Donna Seager Gallery yesterday when we went to their Art of the Book exhibition.  So here’s one more square of sidewalk stimulation – but from sunny San Rafael…

If you find yourself walking home through Chelsea in New York City after a long day of work, (like we did after our first day of Surtex) and you are certain that you deserve a little reward, (like we did) I would like to recommend Cocoa V on Ninth Avenue.  The only issue might be the length of time it could take to choose just one little something chocolate.  Neat and tidy rows of beautiful chocolates are displayed like jewelry, so making a decision seems a little bit like choosing between the diamond ring on the right and the sapphire bracelet to the left.

Some of the delicacies are so pretty that one might be hesitant to actually eat them, so we chose the Pretzel Clusters … not that they were ugly, they just weren’t quite as intricately decorated.  (Due to their deliciousness they are not pictured above.)  They were excellent–the perfect blend of sweet and salty.
Not only are the chocolates lovely, the staff is lovelier.  And if you need an excuse to appease your guilt for eating sweets too close to dinnertime, you can be content knowing that Cocoa V is the first 100% vegan, organic and fair trade chocolate shoppe in the city!  And, if reading this little post is making your mouth water for chocolate, you can also buy these gorgeous confectioneries from their online shoppe here.
Here I am below in my chocolate coat choosing a chocolate snack. Bon Chocolat!

Noreen from Flomo! Congratulations Noreen, we hope that you enjoy you new Cathy Heck nursery art!  (This is what Noreen designed, by the way.  We think her choices are particularly adorable…)

Many thanks to all of you who dropped your cards into our cracker box at Surtex.  We know that even though the aisles of a trade show can get pretty business-y, a lot of you are there partly because of those little ones at home.

Before we say goodbye to Surtex for this year, we wanted to say thank you, blog-style, to our printer, St. Barry at Republic Printing here in Austin.  When I called Barry with my giveaway idea, he said, “Yes, we can do it,” to which I replied, “By Friday?”  Miraculously, we picked up all the pieces for making our Surtex giveaways on Friday, assembled on Saturday and Sunday,  and shipped them out on Monday.  Thank you again Barry, and to all my weekend elves.

I’m happy to report that the animal-cracking-bow-knotting-box-gluing charrette was worth it.  When we asked our Surtex visitors, “Would you like some Noah’s Critter Crackers?” the response was always the same.  First, a moment of curiosity, and then a smile.  Since the attendees were all grown-ups, I think it might have been a while since they had reached into a good ol’ box of animal crackers.  We heard later that lots of people actually called them lunch due to back-to-back appointments.   It‘s a good thing they were “Packed with Energy,” and “Enhanced with Creativity.” (Sorry, I just couldn’t help myself with the wording on the box … I think I might have been a little bit delirious when I was designing it.)

Above Left: Other pieces we needed by Friday included our press kit filled with information about the studio and some fresh new business cards.  Above right:  As you can see, we love a theme, and our theme was on everything, partly due to the fact that Welcome Home Noah, our newest collection, was making its debut next door at the National Stationery Show with C.R. Gibson, and partly due to the fact that we just love a theme.  It’s a good thing I don’t have a new baby in the house … she would probably think she was born on an ark and that her Dad’s name was Noah!

Many people have asked us how we made these nifty little animal cracker boxes.  Since you won’t be able to see the video for the creation of our boxed treats on Unwrapped (due to the fact that we only opened this assembly line for one weekend) we will post a few photos here in case you suddenly feel a DIY desire to make some animal cracker boxes.  Bon appetit from the Cathy Heck Studio Critter Cracker Factory!

Here are two of our younger visitors with their Cathy Heck Studio giveaways.  The smiles were all ours.

Next in this series featuring our friendly neighbors from Surtex, we have two textile designers from our respective states of residence: Laurie Wisbrun, not only a neighbor from Surtex but a fellow resident of our beloved Austin, TX, and Ketra Oberlander from the Art of Possibility Studios in California.

We had actually just seen Laurie’s recent work featured on True Up, one of our favorite fabric-design web sources, so it seemed like a triple coincidence when we found out that she was both from Austin and happened to be in a booth next to ours at the show.  Laurie was helped by her cousin (shown here on the right) and her sister, and the three were having a great time both at the show and exploring the city.

Laurie is new to the design scene, having recently finished a career as a marketing executive for an advertising agency in New York.  She began exposing her patterns to the public through Spoonflower and her etsy site – the perfect model of the home-grown start-up design business.  Now she has a collection out with Robert Kaufman Fabrics, and we are looking forward to seeing a lot of new work in the future.

Next, to our right, we met Ketra, founder and director of The Art of Possibility, an agency which represents physically-disabled artists and which has recently put out a quilting fabric collection with Free Spirit called, Wise Tree.  Ketra also mentioned that she might have sold as many Apple iPads during the show as art, and here, you can see my dad – a.k.a. contract man, chief I.T. guy, and bouncer-offer of new ideas for Cathy Heck Studio, being shown one of many very cool apps on the product (which Ketra was also able to use to present the company’s portfolio to clients).