About | mysite

cindy mcdougall

Seamstress Extraordinaire

I have made pillows for as long as I can remember. Pillows for myself: childhood bedroom, college dorm room, first apartment, family home. Pillows for others: birthdays, graduations, weddings, reunions...pillows, pillows, pillows...and THEN I started scrapbooking. Oh you would go nuts analyzing the details of the scrapbook pages I have created for our three sons.....BUT ONE DAY there was a terrific crash/clash in my art room and I began "scrapbooking" with fabric! How fantastic to transfer photos and pictures onto a piece of fabric to use in your creations. I'm told highly critical, quilting enthusiast Great Grandmother Lucinda (my name) would approve. Truly, the sky is the limit and I enthusiastically embrace this photo collage idea in most of my endeavors, including my line of reversible aprons.

My husband now calls me: Lucy the Magic Pillow Princess

My Motto: All vintage, All on a pillow, All of the time

My favorite materials:

Marabou

Silk

Antique and Battered Lace

Crystal, Glass and Shell Buttons

Any type of FRINGE

Feathers

Fine Lingerie

(not necessarily in that order...)

Studio after last year's season

(It's better now)

"Honeybun101" explained....

(see also Day 10 "Empty Nesting 101")

U of Utah, Pioneer Memorial Theater, Girls' dressing room, makeup and costume before opening of "Funny Girl".

Honeybun101...No one really ever asked, "Why that silly name?" when I added it to my creations years ago. It was about the same time I began my 'naughty and nice' aprons, so maybe people thought it had something to do with cooking, or being in the kitchen, or '101' being the usual first class of a series...but the genesis of the name is not from any of these.

Here's a secret: another lifetime ago I was pursuing, and completed, a Fine Arts degree in Ballet and musical theater. I can't remember how many auditions I had performed beginning with high school, through college admissions, productions, etc. and then community theater, but there is one, ONE that stands out as my ultimate favorite. I could nail it like nobody else, it was my trademark piece and if the show was appropriate for me to pull it out, polish it up and perform it I was going to get the part...Honey Bun, from the musical South Pacific, made famous by Mary Martin playing the part of Nellie Forbush as she sung it dressed up in a sailor's uniform...

"A hundred and one pounds of fun, That's my little Honey Bun! Get a load of Honey Bun tonight! I'm speakin' of my Sweetie Pie, Only sixty inches high, Every inch is packed with dynamite!"

There was no other audition that made be feel as confident, happy, powerful and alive as Honey Bun...and it was a blast to perform, and usually unexpected. When contemplating the universe for a "name" for my creations I came back to this: What, when talking about it, hearing the name, saying the name, typing the name, reading the name, sharing the name, would help me to feel so optimistic that I could take on the world?... Honey Bun could...

Mary Martin made it famous, but in 2005 Reba McEntire performed it (with a hilarious appearance from Alec Baldwin) in South Pacific in Concert, Carnegie Hall. If you want a fun romp to start your day, plug in "Reba sings Honey Bun" on YouTube. She begins about a minute in. Delightful.

..."I'm caught and I don't wanna run, 'cause I'm havin' so much fun with Honey Bun!"

Honey Bun 101

sewing the good life