encaustic

Where has the time gone? I can't believe I haven't posted since July. Well, good news is there is a lot to catch up with!

I'll start back where I left off.

In August, my mom was asked by the Breast Imaging Center at Memorial Hospital to create a body of work for their newly renovated building. They gave her a very short timeline so she enlisted me to help her create some pieces. She painted a lot of oil paintings and I made some encaustic pieces. This was my first time working with wax, but I quickly caught on. I really enjoyed this medium, and it was pretty great to spend so much time with my mom.

We decided to use original thank you cards that the employees have received from grateful patients over the years. We made photocopies of the cards and put them against pictures of one of my grandmother's quilts. The choice of using our quilt in the pieces was because breast cancer has been a big part of our family. My grandmother survived it, but my aunt did not. The quilt in this group of 9 was made by my grandmother of my mom's and aunt's clothes.

These are the final pieces as we were arranging them to hang on the wall. We are so happy with how they turned out. 

I also made 2 larger pieces with some of my grandmother's fabric. On this one above, the fabric was actually old sheets that my mom used when she was a child. And the words are are from The Beatles song. My mom and my aunt loved this song. They sang it a lot while she was sick. It still has so much meaning for my mom.

This next piece is actually the mock up I made on photoshop. I don't have a picture of the finished piece, yet, but this is very close to what it looks like. Again, the background are my mom's old sheets from when she was little. We wanted all of the pieces to be encouraging and uplifting a stressful time.

This last piece was made for the nurses station. It pretty much says it all.

I hope to get over to the center and take better photos of our work! It really was a fun time for both my mom and I, and it was for a group that means so much to our family. 

happy fall

I am thanking my lucky stars that it is fall, and that it is feeling like it! I've been going a little overboard, but I can't help it. It's our first fall in our new house and I am totally taking advantage of all the decorating opportunities! Bradley has cut me off from buying anymore pumpkins. Last christmas it was ornaments, and this fall it's pumpkins. Seriously, if this is the worst problem that we have, I think we'll be just fine.

Bradley works for a local nursery and landscape company, so of course we paid them a visit. They have an awesome selection of pumpkins and gourds of all shapes and sizes. I was very impressed to see so many funky ones with bumpy texture and fun colors! Bradley was going crazy because it took me forever to pick my pumpkins, but you see it's not my fault. The store had two long tables set up with all their goodies, but they were separated by a display of flowers. So I had to constantly move between the two tables creating the group I wanted. I would get to one table and not remember what the other table had! Eventually, we I was able to pick my group and we headed home to set up the porch. I am so in love with the cinderella pumpkins that you can stack! And I think that blueish one on top is a gourd. Either way, it's awesome.

And moving on to the mantle, I love these teeny baby pumpkins. And even better, they were only fifty cents! So of course, I bought like twenty! Putting them everywhere. I am dying to get my hands on these mercury glass candle sticks for the mantle. Maybe one day this week I'll be able to swing by and pick them up. Also, let me just say, now that we have a house, it is so freaking wonderful to have an artist for a mom. I mean it's been wonderful my whole life, but now, I can steal goodies for my house!

Lori Keith Robinson

you are the bacon to my eggs 

This is just the first of my decorations for fall, despite what Bradley thinks! More pumpkins. 

More gourds. And maybe a few garlands! Happy Fall, lovies!

prism

Here it is! This is that huge quilt I finished a few months ago, and couldn't find a big enough place to hang it for photographs. Mom helped me out on that one. This is one of the independent pieces in my portfolio and is my favorite piece that I've ever made. I am so in love with the colors in this quilt (thanks Joel Dewberry!) This was the first queen quilt that I have made and I am more than thrilled with how it turned out. 

The front is really print heavy, so on the back I went with a gorgeous solid chartreuse cotton sateen. (My mom was reluctant to give it up) I knew from the beginning that this fabric would be the back. It's beautiful and has more weight than the quilting cotton and a nice sheen. Perfect combo.

This was also the first time that I have done triangles in a quilt. Talk about a lot of piecing! There's something like 640 triangles that I got to match up, but I would do it again, in a heartbeat. 

Cheers to my first queen quilt and on to the next one!

woven

I'm so excited to share some pieces from my portfolio! This is my collection of three. I designed three jacquard fabrics, wove them myself, and then made some awesome pillows. This has to be one of my favorite projects. Don't get me wrong, I obsessed with quilting, but this is something that I will probably never be able to do again. Well, that is, unless I can get my hands on a jacquard loom. Guess I have to do grad school at scad? Anyway, I can't explain the feeling of watching your design come to life. I drew these repeat patterns, and have loved them on the computer and paper, but to see them woven was unreal. I loved how each pass of the shuttle gave me another line of my pattern. Watching it grow was amazing. Eventually, I will put up all of my portfolio pieces, but not today. I only have TEN more days of college! So, I better get back to work.

And here are some process shots:

lyon

Last week we went to Lyon for one day. We left Lacoste at 5:30 am- so excited about that. By 8:30 we were in Lyon and ready to see Prelle! I could have taken four times the photos that I did and I still would have missed stuff. Everything here was gorgeous. Prelle is a family run company that has been in business for over 200 years. They specialize in handwoven fabrics. They have made fabrics for Versailles and the Biltmore Estate that cost about $4000 per meter. And Marie Antoinette looked through those swatch books below to decide what she was going to wear. No big deal.

from paris, with love

I went to Paris! We spent 5 days there, and now I am completely exhausted. There is so much to do- far more than you can accomplish in 5 days. There came a point where I had to pick and choose the things that were really what I wanted and to learn to stop. You can't keep going nonstop the whole time. You'll end up tired and drained and you won't be able to move and you won't enjoy anything. Paris was a great city- it's so big! Bigger than I needed. After being in Lacoste for 4 weeks, Paris was a huge change. And by then end of the 5 days, I wanted Lacoste back. I missed our little village where you could get to class in 1 minute. But I am glad that I was able to experience Paris and I'm sure I will return.