Driving down the bayou road to Harriet Catoe’s home, I passed a long line of sleeping iris just under the leaves only needing a flip and a half of a calendar’s page to show their glory.
Inside, I was welcomed by all my friends in pinks and reds welcoming Valentine’s Day. We had a full house all excited to hear from our speaker, Haley Farris from Clarksdale, a designer of home decor from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Ft. Worth, Texas.
Haley serves as a grand model of following your heart, staying true to your instincts and putting in the hard work to succeed. A graduate of Lee Academy and Ole Miss, where she majored in journalism, she always loved to draw and took a few art classes.
With an early start in pottery, she was drawn for a deeper expression of her design in home decor. Choosing the color of nature, Haley creates abstract acrylic paintings in the soft blues, greens and blushes of the delta sky.
Beyond the canvas, Haley found another world in designing textiles and set about a series of throw pillows from start to finish, designing the print and colors, finding the fabric and the ones sewing, creating contracts.
Wallpaper became a natural addition to throw pillows, then table linen. For the last few years, she has made by hand Christmas tree ornament balls in a series of colors specific to each year. Last year, she made 1,200 ornaments starting in October.
The whole bit of running a business starts at 4:30 a.m., Bible in hand. Like clockwork, she accomplished emails prior to her boys awakening. Full stop, getting boys off to school, and then full go until boys are out of school, then full stop.
A very lucky child could have their own custom, one-of-a-kind wallpaper, throw pillows and wall art not replicated in these parts and have it tweaked as they grow since all records are on a computer file. Another pillow can be made with a dominant color in the future. Instagram is Haley’s quick and easy choice of displaying her art to the public.
Cindy Pennington concluded the meeting with a flowering tree study of the dogwood, her favorite tree and mine. At this Lenten time, a perfect reminder of the story of Christ and the symbolism of the flowers was given. She motivated me to plant a dogwood this year.
Harriet and co-hostess Cheryl Swindoll served delightful strawberry cream puff pastry with coffee or bubbly, and we could add strawberry syrup and fresh strawberries.
The centerpiece was a welcoming array of spring flowers, a jolly leprechaun and colorful eggs.
Ann Jones and Mimi Mehrle flanked a side table display of our finished glazed pottery from last month. We were much surprised at how a little lipstick and rouge fixed them right up.
Our most talented hostesses gave us each a parting pottery gift of a heart and bird I will display on my sun porch.
