granny love: show it off

This past week I've been busy getting my website all ready for the world to see. Lots of balancing in awkward poses to get the shot, but it was fun seeing all my finished pieces. I realized that I never showed this quilt, all bound and beautiful on the blog, so here it is!

You can read all about my process with this quilt in this post.

little scrappy quilt

Happy Thursday Lovies! First of all, I want to apologize for being so absent lately. If you saw my last post, you already know that my sweet dog, Solomon passed away recently. It has been so incredibly difficult for me. And the only way for me to stay sane is to throw myself into work. So, that makes for a really sweet baby quilt. This is the fastest quilt I've ever made, which is really surprising, because the whole thing is hand quilted. I know. I still can't believe I did it either.

I made this quilt in 18 days. And I think it's safe to say that this is my favorite quilt I've ever made. It has so much personality and I think it really shows a lot of me in it. This quilt began at our Savannah Modern Quilt Guild's "use up your scraps" Retreat. That's the best part- all of these are scraps! And I think in the end it looks like confetti, so that's pretty awesome. 

Alright, get ready for one big scroll party! See the Little Scrappy Quilt from start to finish.

A few days into the hand quilting, my elbow was killing me. I honestly believe I had "quilter's elbow," you know, like tennis elbow! I'm telling you, quilters are hard core. 

It needed a little POP!

All quilted! Each piece is quilted with a white pearl cotton, with about a 1/4 inch border. There are 4 scraps that have a radiant orchid border- gotta love that pantone color of the year!

 

Hand stitched binding, as always!

And it's done!

 

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:

bella's bed

Last quarter I was in a class called "Studio Production." I gave you a little info on the class and told you that I would do a post on the dog bed that I made. Well, I lied. Sorry about that. Here is the post, oh only 5 months later! :)

With the project, I was assigned a word. There were 3 words: eating, sleeping, and relaxing. I got "sleeping." I had brainstormed many ideas, such as, a sleeping bag or some curtains that would block out the light. But, I know when my idea is not quite right. It doesn't click. A few days and some heavy thinking later, I decided to make a dog bed. And not just any dog bed. This would be a dog bed for poor Bella, my mom's almost completely blind dog. She was having a lot of trouble finding her bed because the colors closely resembled the color of the floor. She needed her bed to have contrast so that what little vision she had left could find it easily. I chose to do a chevron pattern because it also helped give contrast.

This is how I laid out my stripes. I first grouped colors and then sewed the squares into half square triangles.

All of the half square triangles leaves you with a lot of dogears, but I think it's a beautiful mess. 

     

At this point, I realized that half of the stripes were going to be on the front and half on the back, and this is not what I wanted. So I split the colors and put some on the front and some on the back. Problem solved. Next both the top and bottom were quilted and then sewn together with a side panel and an invisible zipper. I wanted to make this washable, so the zipper was a must.

And here it is! All finished! The best part is that it actually works. Bella can find her bed so easily now. No more wandering aimlessly around the room hoping to stumble upon the bed for this girl.

it is well with my soul: tutorial

This past January, I blogged over here about my Christmas present for my mom. This is one of her favorite songs. I pinned it on pinterest and got a lot of hits! When I blogged about it before, I didn't give a tutorial on how I made it, so that's what I'm doing now.

I want to go ahead and say that this is such an easy project that has a lot of empact! I completed this Christmas eve, in a couple of hours. Also, remember that you can use this tutorial on your favorite song or quote.

Start with 2 canvases. I got mine from Michaels, and went with 22x28 inches.  This is a good size, because when used together, you get quite a large piece.

I printed out the words from text edit. At this time, I just got a new computer, so I didn't have Microsoft Word. Since the song is old, I wanted to go with a modern font. In Text Edit, I chose Bebas New. This is a clean, bold font, so I'm sure there is a similar one in other programs. After printing out the letters, carefully cut them out individually. You are going to be tracing them, so it's important to cut them out as perfectly as possible. Next, I used tape to hold the letters to the canvas while I traced lightly traced them with a pencil. Remove the letters when finished.

Now, it's time to paint! I painted the background first, with one coat, and then the letters, with 2 coats. Looking back, I definitely should have painted the entire background first, then traced the letters and then painted them. I just made more work for myself, so dont do that! :) I used really cheap acrylic paint for the background. I mixed together Americana's "Sand" and Americana's "Terra Coral" until I got a nice warm neutral. The letters were painted with Liquitex Basics Acrylic Color in "Copper". I love this color! It has a great metallic sheen to it that changes with the lighting. I chose these colors, because I wanted to piece to be warm. I wanted my mom to feel alive whenever she saw it.

Alright, that's it! So easy. I hope this tutorial helps you create that piece you've been dying to make. Remember you can change the text, font, and colors, but still follow these simple steps, and you'll get your perfect piece. Let me know if you have any questions!

xo,
Lark