Missing our girls, and a Fabulous Friday….

So Mom and I (Abiah) are holding down the fort while Apphia, Achaia, and Abigail are at International Quilt Market. Very sad, I must tell you, AND (shh..) very quiet. We wish it were loud again. All that to say, here are Mom's and mine Friday Picks, with a few universal favorites, too!

Kristie's Picks…

My new Vera Bradley Mailbag in Ribbons!

This piece of Japanese fabric

This Bias trim is darling!

My Ariat Dahlia cowboy boots… (similar)

Abiah's Picks…

Pencil skirts in fun colors!

The cutest beach huts EVER…

This picture of Dana Andrews and Jeanne Crain from "State Fair"

Her hair is soooooo pretty. period.

Universal Favorites…

We miss our girls SO much….Did I mention that we're checking our Instagram page every fifteen minutes??? Literally… just to see what they're doing, you know.

Now, off to finish the pizza, eat some good junk food, and watch movies….doesn't that sound great?!!?

Hugs and Kisses~

Abiah and Mom

a Tuesday Report brought to you by Achaia

Samples garments made = check. Brochures = check. All the extra booth necessities = check. Trailer loaded = check. Nanny and Paps here = check. Bags packed = almost. Time to leave for Houston = tomorrow.

It seems that we have been sewing non-stop for the past week on all of the goodies for our Market booth. This time around we decided to hold off on our sample sewing until the week before (we know, we know… not the best idea…) so that we could use some of the great new fabrics we wanted to include: namely, Pam Kitty Love, due out in December, designed by our wonderful, cute friend, Pam. As you can see above, we used everything she sent us, practically down to the last scrap! I suppose we could say 'all's well that ends well', since we sewed up the last little happy girl apron this afternoon, and everything's done and loaded!! Yay!!!

Sadly, we have to leave our other/better half here at home: Kristie/Mom and Abiah. We're going to be so sad without them! Abiah has kindly loaned us her camera, so we're obligated to take some good pictures for them. The other night at the table someone came up with the idea of carrying around a recorder so we could make sure they would stay up to date in the end and we wouldn't forget any important happenings. I think we decided against that — no promises though! So, Bug will be handling the blog while we're gone…. she's so cute, she's just bound to do a good job.

Oh, and did I mention that in the past week we had the birthday party for this little hooligan + a graduation party for the other little hooligan, Abiah Hope Kingery??? Oh, yes, we squeezed those in too. Saturday night and Sunday night, respectively. Along with deciding to enlarge the storage space under my bed today, naturally, with 5 1/4" stands. So, a little cleaning under the bed happened too (how does it get so dusty under a bed?? I guess I'll save that for another day.). Did I mention that I'm a little tired? Yes, I think I'll sleep all some on the way to Houston.

Off we go! We would greatly appreciate prayers as we travel, and that Market will be a big success! We'll plan on reporting back when we get home. Sorry to say we won't be taping it….

Hugs and kisses!

Achaia ~for all

Oh, oh, oh, I just have to give a shout out to some new fabrics that I put up recently!! They're just that great, and it wouldn't be fair for me to keep them all to myself ourselves. So, what are you waiting for?? Go see Garden Party, Happy Land, Hua Hua Lu Lu, and The Simple Life!!! They're all cute! xxx

twenty years.

It seems like such a long time. Probably because none of us can imagine life without her. Our Abs! And today is her birthday. So here's to 20 years of life with Abigail — twenty years full of bright and happy days and hard days faced together and ice cream and mismatched socks. We pray God gives us 100 years more!

20 fun facts about our Abs-n-tabs…

She learned how to sew by practicing on her tiny 11 lb. sewing machine, making pillows for everyone we knew (and stuffing them with wads of paper towels when her stuffing ran out).
And today she's the fastest seamstress we know!
She considers ice cream the ultimate cure-all. Bad day? Have a bowl. Tummy ache? Have a bowl. Head hurts? Have a bowl. Can't think of a good reason to eat ice cream? Have a bowl anyway.
Has the most beautiful hair in the family. (See? Yes, we're all jealous.)
Often wears mismatched clothes, but manages to look smashing in spite of them.
Only likes to wear bright colored or happy printed socks (when you can get her to put anything on her feet, that is.)
She started screaming at the top of her lungs non-stop when she was four days old. She screamed for months and months and months (but managed to give Mom a break on Christmas Eve).
But that must've been good for her or something, because she ended up as one of the most impressively creative people we know.
She has the reputation for being the life of the party, and we all agree.
She has the cutest way of mixing up her words. (For example, "flashback" becomes "backflash" and "nitty gritty" becomes "gritty nitty".)
She makes an impressive 10-12 gallons of sweet tea at a time on a regular basis (in other words, Dad would be lost without her!).
Loves bright colors and exciting patterns.
When she loves someone, it's like crazy.
Has a thing for her closet space. (So we tease her about it quite a bit.)
As a result, she likes to get rid of stuff just to see an empty hole in there.
She's always up for an adventure of any kind.
And she likes to flop around in her leggings and a big old chambray shirt before bed.
She adores John Wayne movies. (McClintock, The Quiet Man, and Angel & the Badman come to mind immediately.)
Liked making "mixtures" when she was little… and though we really love her a lot, we couldn't bring ourselves to taste them. (Does something brown and lumpy and greasy looking with a name like Odeebutters sound good to you?!)
And she has the funny habit of giving out unusual nicknames to her family members.

And you know what? We're just pretty crazy about her. We hope she has a birthday as beautiful as she is. Please wish our Abigail American a happy 20th!

Absie, we'll love you forever and ever!

xoxo, Mom, Apphia, Achaia, & Abiah

Where to buy, where not to buy. That is the question.

When we were hosting the giveaway for the Botkin sisters "Reclaiming Beauty" webinar, we welcomed beauty related questions. We received a few, and hope to answer them along and along! And, just as a side note, if anyone has any other questions they would like answered please leave us a comment below and we'll do our best to answer!

To start things off we'll go with a question from our friend Cheri —

"When you
aren't making something for yourself to wear, what is your favorite
place to buy apparel and/or accessories & shoes?"

As you might imagine, we do make quite a few of our clothing items. Some of us more than others. Or, certain ones of us prefer to make most of our skirts and purchase the majority of our tops. But, we digress. Where do we like to buy clothes?? Here's a little list of the places we frequent when we're looking for a buy….

Macy's

Kohl's

TJMaxx (good for accessories- hats, bags, etc. too)

Target

Lands' End

Lands' End Canvas

American Eagle (just a sidenote: you do have to sift more through unappealing items for the good ones)

Of course, with a lot of these places, sales are the key word. We LOVE getting things on sale! Lands' End does have sales quite often, free shipping, etc., we almost exclusively get things that way. We've been wearing Lands' End's clothes since we were born and that is no joke!

Our Joplin doesn't have oodles and oodles of places to buy clothes (it isn't Austin, Texas after all….) so we do buy lots online. Oh, and we love Goodwill, but the May 22nd tornado took ours out — how sad — so we've been missing out on thrift store shopping. Another place we have been looking at more recently is JCPenney. They recently did an overhaul where they dropped their pricing, which makes them more affordable! We love this sweater that we found there!

We can't leave without mentioning eBay. It is our all-time favorite place to buy skirts, especially denim ones. They have scores of them. We simply 'save search' the size, length, etc., we're looking for and keep track of it that way.

For splurges our favorite places our….

Coldwater Creek (Kristie, especially)

Anthropologie (Achaia, especially)

J.Crew (Apphia, especially)

Boden (Abiah, especially)

Lands' End Canvas, Eddie Bauer (Abigail, especially)

We like to ask for gift cards to these places for our birthday, save up our money for a special item from them, or scour the sale racks.

And, we can't forget shoes + accessories. We would probably say that the places we have already mentioned get our business for those items too. We get our boots at Western Wear stores (either here or in Texas) and we also like shopping for shoes/boots at Zappos. They have free shipping and free returns all the time, which is always a plus!

So! Does anyone have any input on where they find their best clothes? Please leave us a comment… we want to know!!

xo K A A A A

Disclaimer: although we do like to shop in these stores, we do not necessarily agree with the stances they take on any number of important issues!

We call her francie…

…our new girls' pattern for this fall!! We are SO excited about this little dress. It's the new favorite around here, and we've been itching to show her off.

This is view A – the short sleeved dress.

We've added funky fabric flowers to this one, with bright ric rac stems. And the francie has side pockets, for storing little treasures! View C can be worn as a sundress or jumper…

But we sort of have a soft spot for View B. This version of the francie dress has three-quarter sleeves and a faux button placket. (Making it out of fun Liberty prints and pairing it with tights a purple-y moccasins really was a good idea. Just ask Darison.)

So, here's the scoop on the francie…

-Shipping from the studio in November, but available for pre-order NOW!

-Girls sizes 2-14, all in one envelope

-Full size pattern pieces, fully illustrated instructions

-Printed in the USA on sturdy paper (ready for tracing)

-Short gathered sleeve, gathered three-quarter sleeve, or sleeveless

-Back wrap closure (no pesky button holes or zippers)

-Optional front faux button placket

-Optional hem band

-Includes templates and instructions for several sizes and shapes of fabric flowers

-Side seam pockets

-View A or B falls to mid calf; view C (no hemband) falls below the knee

-We love francie!!! And we hope you do, too.

And you can pre-order the francie right now!

hugs and smooches,

the Long ladies

the happy girl apron… coming soon!!

Say hello to the happy girl apron – a sweet
confection that’s nothing but fun! With four layers of girly ruffles, this
apron was designed to make baking cookies (or throwing parties) just that much
more happy. Adult size fits most. The girls’ apron includes sizes Small (3, 4,
5) Medium (6, 7, 8) and Large (10, 12, 14). Our little girl friends even like
wearing a matching happy girl apron over their clothes as a
boutique-style addition to any outfit. And since both adult and children’s
sizes are included in this one simple pattern, it’s the perfect Mommy and Me
apron, too!

Some of you may recognize the adult happy girl apron as a rejuvinated version of our frilly fandango apron pattern that retired long ago. Now it's back with an updated size range, because we just felt like every little girl needs a ruffle-y apron at some point in her life! And this one fits the bill, for sure. (We made ours out of Lecien's 4 Girls Collection Berry Doll.)

So… what do you think? More pictures coming soon. But if you've already decided you'd like to add the happy girl apron pattern to your collection, it's now available for pre-order on our website!! (And if you pre-order within the US, we'll ship the pattern for free when it gets here. Just add it to your cart and check out now as normal.)

By the way, that cake really was delicious. It was chocolate inside!

xo, the Long ladies

P.S. Watch the blog next week for our biggest pattern reveal of the year! We're SO excited!

Saturday via Instagram….

Last year was so great we had to make plans to do it again! The only thing was that it felt about 20-30 degrees colder this year. Which was okay, because the fun was completely worth the cold! Instead of snow cones we opted for hot cocoa. And, hot pizza afterwards served to warm us up too.

Hope your weekend was as fun! xxx us

Shout Out! — We wanted to let y'all know that the brand new Pillow & Maxfield line (and we mean BRAND NEW), Garden Party, is 30% off this week only! We're making a quilt with it as we speak… it's going to be very happy and bright!!

Guacamole Burgers – Austin Style

A couple of weeks ago Dad was telling us how he remembered eating these delicious Guacamole burgers back in the late 70s – early 80s at a place called "Hamburger Hill" in Oak Hill, Texas. Then it dawned on us…. why not make them ourselves? So we used our favorite Gaucamole Dip recipe to make our own. They were absolutely delicious, and we have a feeling they are going to become a staple! Which is great, since we make lots of guacamole dip to go with Mexican food, which we seem to manage eating about 2-3 times a week. Now, on to how to make your own fantastic burger…. enjoy!!

xx the Long ladies

Mexican Burgers – Austin Style

Guacamole Dip – recipe below
lettuce
pico de gallo – optional, but delicious
cooked meat patty with cheese (cooked like you would for a regular burger)
toasted hamburger bun

Slather a layer of guacamole dip on both top and bottom of toasted bun (can add more as your taste desires). Starting at bottom of bun, layer as follows: meat patty with melted cheese, lettuce, pico de gallo. Put on bun top. Eat with french fries and Mexican coke.

Guacamole Dip

2 large avocados, peeled & pitted
1/4 cup finely chopped tomato
2 tablespoons lemon juice (can also use lime juice)
2 tablespoons grated onion with juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon hot pepper sauce – we use tobasco
black pepper

Place avocados in medium bowl; mash coarsely with fork. Stir in tomato, lemon juice, onion, salt, and pepper sauce; mix well. Add black pepper to taste. Serve immediately or cover and refrigerate up to 2 hours. Makes 2 cups.

dash. sew. braid.

The last couple of weeks have been a blur. Really. So much as gone on, and we finish one thing to dash straight to the next. Darison has been our sweet (as always) little friend and has been in on most all of the dashing. Between sewing like crazy and running constantly, Abiah found the time to braid my hair. It didn't take her long at all, of course. She's the best girl ever one it comes to hair. (When it comes to most everything, I guess.) She's my girl.

We'll try and be back later with some fun news. (!!!!!) xoxo Abi