Valori Wells

Teague Ashton Kennedy

Wednesday, October 7th 12:05p.m. Teague Ashton Kennedy arrived....safe and sound, 6lb, 15 oz, 20" long. It was an amazing birth to me - well, I guess they all have been - this was just very different from the rest. Not surprising.....he is probably going to do that to me for the rest of my life. We are now home...a family of 5.....wow!

 

Olivia and Teague - can't get Vi to sit long enough to take a photo - Ross got this with his phone. Olivia is a great big sister. I will post more when I get some taken.

XOXO

Valori

36 and counting.......

It is October and I have safely made it to 36+ weeks. YEAH! I am off to the doctor today to see how far I have progressed, with the symptoms I have I should be moving along. He likes to bang his head against my cervix-lovely, my doctor says he is just trying to find his way out. That would be nice I am tired of being pregnant and would really like to meet him and move onto the next part of it all. There is that part of me that remembers that this will be the last time I am pregnant and to enjoy it and quit rushing things along.

I wasn't able to sleep the other night and did the math on how early the girls were - Liv was 30 days early and Vi was 22. Right now I am in the middle of that. There is a lot of anticipation because I just don't know if he is going to wait longer or come any day. I am such a planner and this so throws me off my normal. But this little guy has done this from the beginning so I should not be surprised.

Mom heads off to market this week. She is taking some of my new product to put up in the Free Spirit booth. I have a couple of free patterns that I will get posted soon.....I think I have said that before. With the new Del Hi home dec there there is a cute bag - that takes no time at all to make. For the Della Flannel mom made this great little quilt - perfect for baby. And then I have a new Valori Wells Designs pattern that should be all printed and ready to go by the time the fabric hits the stores it is new stuffed animals - a kitty, Lucy and a dog, Logan. Here is the postcard that mom is taking to market......notice the two bellies....

 

I am on the left....and Miss Carolyn is on the right - her little boy is due mid December.

Well, off to hang out with the girls until heading to the doctor........

Have a great day!!

XOXO

Val

Buried in Fabric......

The new Della flannel and fleece sample yardage has arrived in the studio......it is exciting and overwhelming at the same time. I am buried in work.......and this little baby would like to try to come earlier than I would like - my doc has me on bed rest each day which is a good thing and a bad thing. I lay there thinking about everything I have to get done and finally will take a bit of a nap but feel like I miss out on a bunch  of the work day. Part of me feels like I will be able to get more done after the little man arrives that I can now.....I am sick so much now - nausea, heart burn, contractions....ect. etc. etc.........Oh, I shouldn't complain it is a blessing to have a baby just caught up in my own drama. Anyway, when the fleece arrived the buried the girls in it and took a photo - they had so much fun playing in the fabric and boxes that it came in.

It is a micro fleece so it is thin but OH SO COZY.....can't wait to make a blanket for myself for the couch......

Here is the Della Flannel.....very nice and goes really well with Urban Flannels. I want to come up with a quilt that uses them both....just haven't figured it out yet.

Sophie is always in the mix - she can't miss out on anything going on in the studio. Mom and I were putting together fabrics for the free pattern and she felt that she had to put her two paws into the mix. Gotta love cats!
On another note - this spring I met (well not in person but on line) a great gal, Rebekah Merkle, that lives in Oxford, England that makes little girl clothes and she wanted to use some of Del Hi. Well, she just wrote to send me the link to her site with the dress out of the turquoise PomPom from Del Hi......

Too cute.....Amoretti is the name of Rebekah's clothing line. She sent me a link to the video - I am unfortunatley a little behind on the technology and don't know how to put the video on my blog so I am putting a link to her site. Check it out - I am totally impressed!!!! The three beautiful girls are her daughters......Thanks Rebekah for using my fabric and sharing with me!!! I love it!
Maybe updating my computer skills would be a good thing to do on maternity leave......Oh, the list for maternity leave is getting longer and longer........besides just being with the baby!
Well, I have some deadlines to get back to before the end of the month.
Have a great day!!
XOXOX
Val

New Projects and more......

Now that my fabric is off to the "scanner people" I decided I needed a couple of hours for myself.....so, yesterday I spent some time working on the bummer pads and new quilts for the little Man! I haven't had my silkscreening equipment out in ages.....it is now out and being used. Here is what I got started. It was so fun to get to work in the ink and and do something different.........

I used a double gauze fabric from Japanese designer that had the great yellow dots - then I screened the elephant onto the top. The elephant came from a photo that I took at the zoo when we were there in July. He turned out cute.

Then with all of the excitement I screen printed yellow dots onto a solid fabric and put some elephants on the bottom and top and will make it into a quilt......now all I want to do is screenprinting and not work. I have another design ready to go with the elephants for a different quilt. Hope he likes elephants.

I also wanted to share with you a pattern that mom did for a really cool footstool. Here are the photos, instructions and illos.....now you can go out and make a great footstool.
These are the notes from mom........

"When we were at spring market the Mosaic quilt pattern from Aardvark Quilts was my very favorite so when I decided to do a quilted footstool cover I went to this design.  Pam Goecke is a fabulous designer and we love her patterns.

This is the original quilt.
The first thing I did was measure the soft footstool (kind of like bean bag filling) that I had purchased from the West Elm catalogue. It was 24" square and 13" high. I decided on a 6" repeat block for the top and then the 6" for the sides but added panels of fabric to make it 13". It was necessary for me to make the block a little larger but the technique still worked. You slice off the end of the square at an angle and stitch another piece to it. It creates wonderful movement throughout the design.

This is the block.
The living room in my new house is soft grey tones with green and orange accents so I started digging in my fabrics and made some blocks. I really liked the movement in the striped and the multi colored leaf fabrics. They added some spice to the design. Here you can see the blocks arranged for the top and the sides pinned next to the edges.

Once I was satisfied with the block arrangement I stitched them together. For the sides you can see I used panels of fabric in places to fill in. I thought it would be way too busy to have all blocks on the sides.

I felt it would be sturdier, with grandkids lounging and playing on it, if I quilted it. I used a thin batting and no backing. With my free motion embroidery foot I stitched grain lines like you might see on trees. I did add grey piping around the top edge.

To finish it I stitched each side to the top edge starting and stopping 1/4" from the corner and back tacking. The side seams were easier than I thought. I began at the bottom and stitched the seams together ending where the sides meet the top and back tacked.

For the back I cut a square 26".  Then cut it into two pieces diagonally from corner to corner.

 Place the two triangles right sides together and stitch in 1" on each end using a 1/2" seam allowance and back tack. Press the seam open including the unstitched seam allowances across the triangle. Place a zipper under the seam allowances and stitch the zipper tape to the folded fabric.

Open the zipper at least six inches.
Place the right side of the back fabric to the bottom edges of the sides and pin all around. Stitch the back to the sides. Put your hand through the zipper opening and unzip the zipper. Turn the cushion to the right side. Fill with the filling from the purchased cushion. Zip it back up.
This turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would be. The quilting was time consuming but it looks good. You can see the footstool in my new living room.

Send me pictures when you tackle a project like this.
Jean"

I have one of these cushions and I am going to cover it with one of my new Del Hi home dec pieces.

The Tapestry in the teal/eggplant/sage and tan background.......When I get time!!!
I am probably not going to piece my cover but I still like the idea of recovering the cushion. These cushions are great for the living room. The girls love to play on them and I think it is Sophie's favorite napping spot.
Have a great day!!!
XOXO
Valori

After vacation......and so much more.......

Hello - we are back from our annual August Vacation to Berney, California. Every year we visit this amazing cabin that our dear friends so graciously let us use. It is truly a spiritual place......Ross and I went to the cabin on our first vacation and have been every year - well except the years when I was pregnant with the girls. It is one of the few places that I go that I can totally let go of work and just be with my family. No phones, no internet, just us and the woods, and the creek, a perfect escape from the day to day. I always take my old poloroid with paints and paper and make a book out of the funky photos that we shot. This year both of the girls helped me paint. The only sad part was that we had to leave a couple of days early because of two fires in the area it was really smokey. We made the best of it and went back to Ashland - one of our favorite citys to visit. Since we were home early we moved the girls into the same room - it has been a really good transition. They sleep together so well and really have fun sharing a room. Now we just have to get the babies room all done.

When we returned I had my sample yardage of the 6 new home decorator fabrics that should be arriving to a local quilt shop near you........

I did four new colors of Del Hi and two that were in the spirng collection. I am working on a free bag pattern to go with the fabric. I will post soon.......
One of the other projects I am working on is the spring '10 collection of fabric - I took some sneak peak shots of the paintings to share.......not all of the designs are painted but they will be by the end of this week......I want to get everything sent out to Free Spirit by next week.

This week mom and I took my nephew back to Portland after his weekend visit with Meme and Papa and I got to meet my new neice, Samantha.......too cute!!!

Also, on this trip I was lucky enough to meet a gal that I TOTALLY admire - Kara Larson.....Who is Kara Larson? Well, let me tell you......she is an incredible clothing designer from Portland - all of her designs are made in Portland by local sewers. Little did I know that we have been clothing our girls in her designs for years.....I had one of those AAHA moments when I connected her childrens line "Wild Carrots" with her women's line "Kara-Line".  Along with being a talented designer she also has two of my favorite stores in Portland, Grasshopper - the kids store - and Tumbleweed - the woman's store. I am so excited that we are going to work together with some of my fabric and her deisgns......I can't wait to have one of her dresses out of my fabric.

This is one of her dresses, Coco - even fits my 7 months of prego.......the nice thing is that it is a wrap dress and it will fit me when I am not pregnant.........and will be great for nursing.....I also really like the Mae dress and am thinking of getting it......

The girls in two of the Wild Carrots dresses........this was on Friday when Liv had her 4th birthday.

Aren't they too CUTE!!! It has been a busy week home from vacation.....it always seems like you are playing catch up after going on vacation......oh well, worth it.
I must get back to the family.....today is Ross and I's sixth wedding anniversary! We are having a family day and then the girls are staying the night at Mimi and Papa's and we are going out to dinner....I can't remember the last time we had an adults only dinner.....it will be strange not saying, "you need to eat" or "sit down" or "you have to try at least one bite".......but I guarentee that a majority of our conversation will be about them.
Have a great day!!!!
XOXO
Valori

Quilt Show 2009 Part 3.......

The studio is roasting......I have a bunch of fans up there since the girls are coming over tonight for a sew night. Now, I just have to figure out what I am going to work on. I really try to work on fun things when they are over - no work - sew and just have a little girl time. There have been a lot of "softies" books coming into the shop and I have been fascinated by them. I think I might just make one tonight.....an Owl. I just think it would be fun to make some funky softies - maybe the guardians of the studio.....
Ok, totally distracted by that.....what about some more photos of the show. This last series is from walking around town and the teacher tent.
This years Quilt Show Challenge was the Power of Red.....we had some great quilts.

Phyllis Johnson was our Featured Quilter this year. She is local and makes her quilts for her family - mostly the grand kids. They are very beautiful quilts.

Here are some of the quilts in the Teacher tent.....unfortunately I do not know everyone's quilt or did I get a photo of all of them.....sorry.

The final quilt......it was a great year with over 1300 beautiful quilts. I am off to tidy up the studio and plan something to sew on.....
Have a great day!
XO
Valori

Quilt Show 2009 Part 2.......

Well, last week sure did fly by.....I so thought that I would get some more photos of the show up. AAHHH, life gets in the way. Maybe not in the way but consuming.....Sunday was my birthday.....36. Part of me can't believe that I am 36. Not sure how to explain the feeling. Just seems like time is flying by......We had a great day - went to breakfast in town and then went out to Camp Sherman where we have a family cabin on the Metolious River. It was so beautiful.......we pulled out the kiddy pool and I brought some painting. I was so excited when Ross told me to take some painting. I brought the one that I have been working on for mom and John's new house. I think it will be awhile until it is done. What a blast sitting out in the sun painting with the girls running around in the pool........couldn't of asked for a better day! What a great husband I have.

Now onto more Quilt Show photos......I am going to warn you I have a lot. There will be a third instalment to come. First, I have to show you my favorite quilt for this year.....it was based on Charley Harper birds. I love his work......you will have to bear with me but I shot a bunch of them, the quilting was beautiful and I was just so impressed with the interpretation of his work.

This year we had a very special Inspirational Instructor - our very own Lawry Thorn. She has taught for years and is our go to gal for beginners.......LOVE HER! Here are some of her quilts.

This is Lawry with Carolyn....we did a bunch of interviews that day - Miss Carolyn is starting to show her little baby belly. We just found out this week that she is having a boy!! OH so excited!! We are going to have too much fun with our little guys.

This is how most of the Quilters see Lawry and her daughter Mindi - being the tallest they get the honor of holding quilts during lectures and the Picnic in the Park.

Lawry started working for my mom when I was six. Mindi and I have grown up together......

The two pregos and Mindi......don't we have cool shirts!

One of our interviews was with a friend of mine, Sierra Hummel. She is a great quilter and only 12. She made her fifth quilt (might be more) for her mom for Mother's day so I had to get some photo of her and her quilt.

Now, just some images that I took in the morning as I walked through town with Mom and Carolyn.

These are a couple of my friends that come to Quilt Show, Katie and Kim.....they are sisters and this is their Sister trip! It is very fun to see them. The quilt behind us is one that they made together, Kim lives in California and Katie in Washington. They each made blocks in their prespective states and then got together to finish the quilt.

Look at these.....they had too much time on their hands and had way too much fun.

One of my good friends, Rob Appell, came to teach for the first time and we had a special exhibit of his quilts. He was also one of our interview victims.......

I didn't get as many photos of his quilts as I thought I did......
So, this is it for tonight but there will be more tomorrow......my studio gets so hot in the afternoon and it is hard for me to work. We are having days of high 90's.....not that I am complaining because it doesn't last long and it is nice to have summer. Since our weather is only that hot for a couple of weeks we don't have AC, the studio is a sauna by 3pm.......no more painting for me in the heat. I can't concentrate. That is when I make the trip downstairs and work on my computer. 
Have a great night!!
XO
Valori

Quilt Show 2009 Part 1........

So many photos so little time. I really want to give you a good selection of photos so I have been spending time resizing and organizing......this will be the first series......had to get at least a few up for you. Here we go....starting with Friday night. For the shop and Quilter's Affair Friday Night Picnic in the Park is the finale to our week of classes and lectures. This year Freddy Moran and Gwen Marston gave the lecture. We actually have about 800 picnicees (is that even a word) in our Village Green Park and others can come and picnic on their own to see the lecture. The High School Jazz Band plays music, the track team and rally squad serve dinner. We could not do it without the kids and their parents help. It is amazing how the community comes together to create such a great event. For the kids it is a great fundraiser and for us we don't have the stress of making sure everyone gets their food and water and is taken care of. At the picnic we always show our Employee Challenge quilts - this year the challenge was to be inspired by the Gee's Bend Quilters. The Gee's Bend ladies also sung at the picnic....it was wonderful! What a great night!

The crowd.....after dinner.

Singing.......

Hanging out with the ladies of Gee's Bend......

Miss Vi dancing to the music......

Can't help but put a few photos of my cute girlie's......My friend Laura made these dresses for the girls. So nice!!!


I have to give props to Grandma Jo.....I couldn't do Quilt Show and Quilter's Affair week without her help. She comes and stays at the house and helps with the girls. Next year she might need some help with three of them. We are so blessed to have our family around to be with our children.

The quilt hangers.....

......the first quilt to be hung......our favorite firemen on the side of the shop!!



They get a lot of help from the ground.......


This is Lawry's Gees's Bend Inspired Quilt - so different for her.

Mom's quilt.....

My quilt......I actually made one! It has been years since I have had the time (or made the time) to make a quilt for the employee challenge. It is hard to fit it in with market and then getting ready for the show but this year I was inspired. I love the quilts from Gee's Bend and I needed to make something for the baby. Not that he needs something but I needed the bonding experience that happens when you make something for someone. Especially that connection that happens when you make something for your baby. When I started we did not know what we were having. I love how it turned out and I am going to base the rest of his room around the colors in the quilt.

As the firemen finished hanging the quilts we were getting a photo of them and the Gee's Bend ladies showed up and wanted to be in the photo.

Some of the Gee's Bend quilts.

I don't get photos of mom much.....so I take them when I can.

Gwen and Freddy......they had a special exhibit at the show here are some of their quilts.






This is the last photo for today.....but there will be more tomorrow. Today is Miss Vi's 2nd birthday so we are going to have a little picnic party at the house for her tonight. We don't really do a party for 1 or 2, just us and mom and John. Next year we will do a party for her with her friends. I know I say this every year but wow I can't believe that she is 2, this year went so fast.
I am off to painting my spring collection (2010) I want to get it all done by mid August so that I can have baby thoughts rather than a deadline looming over my head. Then I can start working on next fall....it it fun to think up new ideas. I used to get so scared after I turned in a collection that I wouldn't have any new ideas but now I embrace the challenge. Getting older and wiser - I guess!
Have a great day!!!!
XOXO
Valori

A new girl to the family......

No, I am not having twins......my brother and sister-in-law had their little girl, Samantha, last night. It is very exciting for them and the whole family. I made a quilt for her and sent it off without taking any photos so I had my brother take a few. Thought I would share........

They painted her room with lime green and turquoise so the butterflies from Del Hi were perfect for her room.

I hope to see her wrapped up in it soon........I think it would be great out of other fabrics......maybe a pattern someday. I am thinking that solids would make a great contemporary version with some cool stitching.......so many ideas so little time. Isn't that always the case. I have been feeling very creative these days. A combination of not getting to be creative and being surrounded by creativity with the Quilter's Affair and Quilt Show.

As you know we just got done with Quilt Show on Saturday.......whew! I am tired this year....but I did get a lot of photos and once they are downloaded and sized (this week) I will post....it was a great year.  As usual the weather was good and everyone was in great spirits.
Happy day.......
XOXO
Valori

The Bird Paintings........

I have been meaning to post the recent and earlier this year bird paintings. I finally got some decent photos of them to put on my website when the shopping cart is finished. Not sure where my obsession with the birds have come from but I am OBSESSED!!!! Next springs fabric collection that I am working on has birds.....
It is interesting how much I notice birds now - their shapes, colors, positions they sit in, or perch in, how they look when they fly........ I am not very good a photographing them the way I want, the little buggers move to fast! I think I just need practice, flowers don't move nearly as fast.
Here you go......

Ruby - the latest......

Three Little Birds.....this little guy came from a photo that mom took of a cute little bird in on her trip to Italy - he was all puffy and kinda looks like an owl.

Tweet......my mom recently purchased this one from me. My first sale of a painting......funny it was my mom!! She liked it because it is five birds and she is going to have 5 grandkids......my brother and sister-in-law are due any day with a baby girl and then with my little guy that will make five. Didn't even think of that when I painted it. I don't think I was even pregnant. Odd numbers seem to be my thing......Ross thinks it is "odd".

Scarlet - this one and the next two are small paintings 10" and 8" as the others are at least 24". I am not as comfortable working small.....as you know from my fabric....but think it is a good idea to push myself and I really like little paintings so I am trying to paint little paintings.

Tango.....

Last but not least - Violet. When I brought the paintings back from hanging in Bend at NorthSoles, my Violette picked up this painting and says to me, "Mine". How did she know?!?!? Although she says anything is hers...."mine" is one of the favorite words.
Well, I am back to work.....we are almost set up for quilt show and I need to get a posting on our Stitchin' Post blog.....I have been TOTALLY slacking on that one.
Have a great day!!!
XOXO
Valori