Did You Know... 10 Facts About Heather Bailey!

Did You Know?  10 Facts About Heather Bailey!

1)  I did not graduate from high school. On a whim, at the beginning of my junior year, I applied to my parent’s alma-mater university. And to my surprise, I was not only admitted, but offered a Leadership Scholarship. After my freshman year of college, living out of state and entirely on my own, it was surreal to attend my would-be high school graduation as a spectator. And yes, I did graduate from college.

2)  My sister says that physical humor is my hidden talent. When I play Charades or parody a groovy Golden Platters dance from The Brady Bunch TV show, I am 100% committed. Her personal favorite is my “Foxy Lady” dance to the Jimmy Hendrix song by the same name.

3)  If God had blessed me with a talent for singing, I would write folk songs and play a mean acoustic guitar. I might even dye my hair a funky color and wear drippy macrame fringe. There is still hope for the guitar portion of this fantasy. However, I must admit that I have started classes to this end on three occasions and I still only know two chords.

4)  My childhood family nickname was “Finder Girl.” With a photographic memory, I had an uncanny ability to find lost articles by “flipping through the pictures in my mind.” My memory is not quite as sharply photographic as an adult, but I am still very good at finding things.

5)  I am a patented inventor. I created a new hair-styling tool which can replace bobby pins, hair elastics and headbands. I cheekily named them Trash Ties, after the twisty-ties we use to seal plastic bags. I offer them today in tons of colors, each with a fully-photographed, 16-page style guide at HeatherBaileyStore.com.

6)  When I was eleven years old, I took the universal girlhood horse-loving phenomenon to new heights by becoming a trail guide for a nearby stable. After cleaning stalls, applying ointments to old horse knees, reconditioning tack and shoveling straw, an older friend and I would saddle up a number of the horses and lead customers on trail rides through the golden hills of San Francisco’s East Bay. It was dreamy.

7)  I boast an odd assortment of meaningless, but funny, celebrity encounters. Claire Danes stepped on my foot repeatedly when filming the opening sequence for the movie, The Mod Squad. Cameron Diaz grabbed me on the shoulders and shook me as she brightly exclaimed, “I’m in the wrong trailer!” She was dressed as a mustached man at the time—so this definitely qualifies as weird. (She was in disguise for the movie, Charlie’s Angels.) Drew Barrymore doted over my oldest son while he smiled up at her from his stroller. James Franco asked me to make him some sterling silver hair combs for his girlfriend. David Arquette saw me making said hair combs and started up a crafting conversation with me. To top off my brief Hollywood experience, I once wandered my way through an unmanned security station at the Oscars and found myself on the red carpet. THE red carpet. I was in a tee shirt, jeans and sneakers and was carrying a large stack of books from the patent library. Very elegant.

8)  I believe that running is one of the most convenient forms of exercise. However, I have had a difficult history with running. In high school, I joined the cross-country running team, but never was able to fully run a 3-mile race. My lungs would burn and I would become faint and dizzy. In college, my apartment was right next to the university’s track field, so I gave running another try and failed. I tried to master running at least two more times as an adult and failed again. It wasn’t till after my youngest son was born, when I was thirty-six years old, that I finally figured it out. I had told myself to give it one more try, but with an all-new approach: find some help and take it s…l…o…w…l…y.

            This time around there was new technology available that didn’t exist during my previous attempts. I used an app on my phone called Couch to 5K which instructed me when to run and when to walk. For the first few weeks, I didn’t feel like I was even exercising. However, within a few months, I was running as far as six miles in one go. I am still stupefied by this. It turned out I was pushing myself too hard when I was younger and not easing my way into it. Go figure.

9)  I love to knit. I asked for basic supplies for Christmas my freshman year in college. During the break, my mom showed me how to cast on and introduced me to the two basic stitches, then promised to help me more once I returned home in the summer. I couldn’t wait. By the time I was home again a couple months later, I had completed two fisherman’s-knit sweaters—the ones with the intricate cables and whatnot. (This was before knitting had its comeback.) Later, when I entered an apparel collection into the school’s fashion show competition as a Junior, competing against the graduating Seniors, I won the coveted, top award of Best Overall Line. The Seniors were not so thrilled. I believe it was the one-of-a-kind hand-knit sweaters that won me the show, including a few sweaters for which I had hand-spun the yarns on my own spinning wheel. Yes, I was a college co-ed who kept a spinning wheel at the foot of her bed and knit during class.

10)  If you haven’t picked it up from the other facts above, I definitely have an inner hippy, though I don’t think this comes across upon first impression. I like to bake bread from freshly-ground wheat and make homemade greek yogurt. I spin yarn, embroider and keep a garden when my design schedule permits. In my dream life, like Marie Antoinette once did, I would build a quaint village next to my home to play out my pastoral fantasies. I would dip candles, sheer sheep, raise chickens, and supervise pony rides for children. I would have an orchard and a robust garden. Heck, while we’re at it, let’s turn those village buildings into guest houses and host sewing and self-improvement retreats. Imagine us all sitting around the campfire with old quilts wrapped around us, singing folk songs, sharing stories and playing charades. Yeah, it’s a good dream.

Share with us what you have in common with Heather and be entered in to win 10 yards of her new fabric collection!!

Congratulations to our winner Abbey... she also enjoys running!

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