Valori Wells

Tomorrow Morning.....

I am up in Portland today staying at my brothers house because tomorrow I get to be a guest judge on a Portland tv station - KATU -  that is doing a "Project Runway" type of show.

The Design Challenge is going to be a 6 week long competition between four designers from the Art Institute of Portland. This week is the first week and Westminster / Free Spirit is the featured fabric company and they asked me to be a guest judge! HEHE.....I think it will be so fun!

On Monday they introduced the designers and had a HUGE stack of my Karavan Knits on the table....I feel a little giddy when I see that...makes me feel like a kid that just got an A on a spelling test!

In case you were wondering we do have the knits in the shop....we are hoping the patterns for the Isabelle skirt and Sondy top will be done soon.....patterns can take longer than you think sometimes. Totally annoying but a fact that I just have to get used to. Try to get used to!

Well, I'm off to hang out with my family...don't get to see them much so it is fun to chat!

Have a great night!

XO

Valori

January 20, 2012....

I find that when I go through change I retreat, into myself, into my studio, but that is when my best growth comes out of me. I can honestly say I have changed so much over my 38 years. Or maybe change is not all that has gone on, I have discovered so much about myself, who I am and who I want to be. Not always an easy road for me.

Recently I have been wanting to get my tattoo for Teague. And the only person I want to do it is a old college friend, Cheyenne Sawyer. He gave me my arm band in college…. I love that piece no matter how simple it is. I think about who I was in college….I was….uummm, in my 20’s and still trying to find myself. I was a bit of a basket case at times and I really went through a ton of growth in college. But I am so different now than then.  Really only recently can I say I have  truly found myself….REALLY….38 and finally feeling secure in who I am, loving who I am. Finding my balance and feeling grounded. And with this new found confidence my creativity has soared.

I have been in a “retreat” mode for several months…..thinking…….but still trying to get work done. As I come out of my cave I realize how much I have neglected my blog and my photography, my art, painting etc….just been off. Time to rectify that….

Step One - start blogging again rather than just thinking about blogging and then not making the time for it just do it!

Step Two - Find your love of Photography and Painting again.

To accomplish both of these Ross and I have gone away for the weekend....we find ourselves in Portland. We are sitting 7 stories up at the Vintage Plaza on the corner of Washington and Broadway. Working….Yes, working. I have a fabric deadline and worked this morning on them but this afternoon feel the need to blog. Show some of the cool city shots I have taken with the new addition to my family….the PEN.

My new camera.....LOVE!! It is compact but packs a punch - the Oympus Pen E-P3.

Our drive over Mount Hood. We traveled over this pass because there was a landslide on Hwy 20 - Santiam Pass.  Nice to have a change of scenery.

Yep - THE STAG.....we were so tempted to stop!

Of course there are some Hipstamatic images included...just can't help myself!!!

Foggy, rainy, beautiful Portland! I really do love this city!

Mother's Cafe is one our favorite places to eat. We decided we would sit in the bar because we don't get to do that much...I didn't have to ask for a booster seat and I got to enjoy my meal with out scolding a child. We are on vacation!!! WOO HOO!

My beautiful, wonderful sister-in-law, Stephanie got us a suite at the Vintage Plaza downtown. WOW! Love!

Our View.....

I love the grey light of the city in the winter...sounds funny but the color is amazing and the rain can be great to shoot in. I don't miss living in the rain but LOVE to visit.

I find the city to be a new source of inspiration one that I haven't explored in a long time.

See Ross worked! I swear he is not on Facebook!

This is what I worked on......

Then we had afternoon cocktails.....

So I will leave you heading up the spiral staircase to get dressed for dinner in the city.....

with thoughts of water named FRED......and....

little metal moose on the wall......

Sweet Dreams!

XOXO
Valori

Karavan Photo Shot

We had a photo shot this morning with some of the "Girlfriend" series of patterns made out of Karavan jersey knit. It was Too fun to shot with my girlfriends!!! Sondy and Trea are sisters and great friends and I'm honored to call them my friends. They have all been so awesome helping me get ready for market.
Have a great evening!
XO
Valori

Time to myself...

Wow a few hours to myself on the weekend. I was going to take a nap but after chatting with Lilly Bean (the cat). She convinced me to go into the studio and play with this bag idea I have to use with my silk screens.
The studio is messy. I swear it has been for the entire summer. Just can't seem to keep up with it. Anyway I was cleaning off the cutting board area and I came across a LOVE note from Olivia.
It made me smile. I'm happy to be in the studio for a bit. Surrounded by things I love.
Enjoy your day!
XO
Valori

Wrenly and the Soul Sista...

I've been silkscreening t-shirts in the studio today, Wrenly and the Soul Sista... Coming to market with me. I love silkscreening!!! So glad I did so much of it in college!
Well I'm off to meet Carolyn to work on our power point for a lecture at market! We are meeting at the wine bar.... Is that bad?!? Nope a glass of wine can get the creative juices flowing...besides just plugging in pictures, we already know what were talking about. Yes, I am totally justifying the wine!!!
XxOo
Val

Jenaveve photo shot day 1...

I'm sitting in Salt Lake City airport waiting to go home from market and I thought I would share our photo shot we did last week with Jenaveve. As you might remember I received the fabric on Monday.

The lovely, colorful box from Korea....it is so fun to open up the sample yardage boxes and see your hard work come to life in fabric.

Tuesday morning.....

Three Creeks lake the location for Jenaveve photo shot. It is so beautiful at the lake that day. Knowing that we only had a couple of days before the weather turned.....No one was at the lake and the water was perfectly still, clear, and cold.

Mom, Carolyn and I started scouting out the beach area for photo opportunities....

Mom decided since she had her camera that she would take "behind the scenes" photos....kinda fun, huh?

We laid out all 15 pieces of lovely cotton linen....oh so soft and yummy! I envisioned (with some help of Carolyn's brilliant mind) a clothes line of the fabric blowing in the wind.....now to find the trees to tie the rope onto.

It took some time to get all of the fabric on the rope....I didn't realize how heavy the fabric would be it really weighted down the line. But we did conquer it!

This was the final outcome...there were tons of photos taken but this is my favorite. As we were scouting out the area we noticed so many great possibilities for photos with the fabric.....the colors of the area were perfectly neutral. Does that make sense?

 

I love using my LenseBaby....it creates the soft affect on the edges. You can move and tilt the lense to pick your sweet spot. Too much fun!

The greens.....

Teal and grey.....

This print is the Tribal Floral...I just love it. I'm thinking that some pillows need to happen or maybe a chair...just have to find a chair to cover. Not like we have a lot of room for another chair....maybe something small. Anyway, I digress...

The reds......isn't it just perfect with the red of the stump?

There are a lot of rock "studies" going on up at the lake....I love taking photos of what others have left.

Around 2 p.m. we decided that to sew up as much of the projects on the list as we could knowing that Wednesday was going to be beautiful. Carolyn and I heading to my studio to make a skirt, quilt, bag and some pillows. Mom would come by later and pick up some of what we couldn't get done.....it was going to be fast and furious.

Carolyn and I had so much fun sewing and getting time to just be together. We hadn't spent time like this in ages....did I mention that we recently adopted two kittens and a puppy. Yep, chaos in the Kennedy house. But fun all the same....Carolyn had a heck of a time getting the skirt cut out with Lilly attacking the tissue.....

The final result for the postcard for Market ended like this.....

The back had swatches of all the designs and then we stapled a swatch of the fabric to the card. I thought that it would be good to have the fabric on the card. We are such a tactile group of people once you feel the fabric you will want it!

Tomorrow I will share the photos we shot with all of the projects...yep we even got them all done! Giving ourselves a big pat on the back......

Now I must catch a plane home. I can't wait to see the family!! YEAH!
XOXO

Valori

 

Jenaveve....

Just a little tease of my new fabric...Jenaveve. It is cotton linen blend and oh so lovely! We just did an amazing photo shot yesterday at Three Creeks Lake. There will be more photos to come soon!
XO
Valori

Sample yardage...

My sample yardage for the new Bliss fleece arrived today. The girls are having a blast playing with it.
Now I have to make something.....hhhmmmm What to do??
XO
Val

Had to add a cute photo of the boy!

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

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