A little embroidery...

Hello Friends....

I love embroidery. Over the years I have embroidered bits and pieces of my fabric designs. Adding stitching to quilts, bags, and pillows whatever I can think of that will add a little more texture and color to a project. My flora design in Mystic is perfect for embroidery.

I like to make something for my mom at Christmas and this year at the last minute I decided to embroidery on the grey canvas Flora to make into a pillow for her. It is perfect colors for her house. This is the modern canvas from Robert Kaufman so it is light weight compared to traditional canvas. It is perfect for pillows and bags...

I added some gold piping which worked really well at accenting the gold in the embroidery. The great thing about taking a printed fabric and adding embroidery is that you don't have to embroider the entire pillow. Just add to the design of the fabric. My mom loved it...

She has now started one for a friend of hers.... it is in progress so I thought I would show you how easy it is to embroider a little fabric and make something...

Here we go in progress. I use three strands of the Aurifil embroidery floss. Tie a knot in one end and use the design printed on the fabric as your guide.

It is that simple.... I like to use a couple of colors in the flower. But it is up to you... maybe an variegated thread. There are so many great fabrics out there that would be perfect for this technique.

I have to share a few photos of Morocco that inspired this new design Flora, from Mystic. It is not a specific flower but the essence of the flora in Morocco...created into a stencil like design....something simple but dramatic.

The roses at Peacock Pavilions were amazing...

The stenciled door in our house at Peacock Pavilions....

And a little henna to round it out.....

The winner of the Gypsum blog bundle giveaway is..... Robin (you have been emailed).

I have more fabric to give away... and with this bundle I am going to include some of the canvas.. just leave a comment to be entered to win. Winner announced on the next blog post this Friday....

Have a great day!!!

xoxox

Valori

Just in case you would like to come to Morocco and do a little creating and exploring... YA SALAM

 Amy Butler’s Ya Salam Exotic Getaway! Marrakesh Morocco
November 5 - 12 2016

Join Amy and David Butler and creative guru Val Wells for an exciting inspiration expedition exploring Marrakesh and all of it’s exotic inspirations!
Our week together will be filled with creative workshops mixed with day trips that take us to fascinating, colorful locals! We’ll scour the souks, visit
historic sites in Marrakesh and have a full day in the Atlas Mountains taking in the natural beauty and tour the rural Berber villages. Our home base
is the gorgeous Peacock Pavilions.  Many of our meals and events will take place at the Pavilions including our creative
workshop sessions. You are in for a treat!

Color of the Week... GIVEAWAY!!!!!

Color of the Week started with my collection of fabric, Blueprint Basics, and the desire to share my color inspiration through photography. I mixed in some Kona Cotton Solids to complete the color spectrum. The 52 weeks were split into the four seasons...

Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter....

I designed a quilt for each season ending with a trip around the world quilt, Celebration, that uses all 52 pieces.

All of these quilts are free pattern downloads on Robert Kaufman...(left to right: Winter, Spring, Celebration, Summer, Autumn)

To Celebrate the Color of the Week I have 12 of these babies to give away, 52 fat 1/4's in each bundle....

To be entered in the giveaway just tell me what your favorite Color of the Week was? I will close the giveaway next Sunday night and pick 12 winners next Monday.

Thanks for your support!

XOXO

Valori

Colored Happy....

I am very excited to introduce you to Colored Happy... My quilt for the Kona 30th Anniversay.

I absolutely LOVE this quilt. Several years ago I found this magazine clipping of pillows that I thought would make a great quilt. The images has been tacked to my inspiration board ever since.

With all the 303 Kona Colors this was th perfect design to play with color. I fell in love with the new Kona solids and used them as my starting off point. The block itself is very easy to construct. It was a matter of playing with color. I choose 8 different color stories for the 25 blocks. This meant one of the color stories would have 3 blocks. I felt like this would set the balance of color just perfectly. (and I have a thing for odd numbers)

My biggest challenge Colored Happy was the quilting.....it is one of my favorite parts of the quilting process. There are times I run into a wall on what designs to quilt. I wanted to have the quilting add to the color and design of the quilt but not take over. With the variety of colors in the quilt how could I just pick one color to quilt with....I couldn't, so there are lots of colors in the quilting. The quilting designs are a mixture of "pebbles", curved organic shapes, and funky flowers.

The Kona 30th Anniversary Look Book....

 

Check out all of the beautiful quilts made by fabulous designers for the Kona 30th Anniversary Celebration.

The folks at Robert Kaufman are generously giving away Kona Charm pack with each blog posting over the 30 days. I picked the packet of new colors to give away to some lucky reader. Just leave a comment and you will go into a drawing to win this beauty....A great start to making Colored Happy. Colored Happy is a free pattern that can be downloaded from Robert Kaufman. (the give away is open for 24 hours starting at 10 a.m. pacific time Wednesday, November 19, 2014)

Have a great day!!!

XO

Valori

Color of the Week... Pink Nectar

 

 

Pink Nectar

 

 Pink Nectar.... I always think of spring when I see this color. The pink blossoms are an invitation to daydream of Summer and my garden in bloom.

 

   

   

  

  

 

Enjoy your spring day!

 I have some beautiful bundles of Blueprint Basics from Robert Kaufman looking for a good home.....

Leave a comment on this blog and you could win....

XOXO

Have a great day!

Valori

Drawings.... coming.... soon....

Hello my friends.... I am home sick with a cold.Kids are better but me not so much!

Oh well.... Just wanted to update the drawing will be held on Friday for Novella and Cocoon collections. I am excited to cut and make bundles....and Friday is Winter Solstice... (and to some the end of the world - I don't believe it is the end of the world) I think it is a great day to give away fabric...

Have a great day! 

Valori

Wrenly's Christmas.....

Hello my friends.....I have missed a week of Christmas so today I have two wonderful things to show you.... Last week I finished up a marathon of photo shoots for my new collection of fabric coming out this fall, Novella.

On Saturday night we did a photo shoot called Indigo Nights.....based on the palette in Novella called Indigo. I had all my wonderful friends come over to my assistant, Sondy's, house for an evening to remember. It was amazing and I will give more details when I can share the photos.....now the reason I was telling you this is because I made my Roasted Butternut Squash soup.....there were lots of requests for the recipe.

I decided it was the perfect recipe to share in Wrenly's Christmas......

This is a great soup for any occasion. I also have changed it slightly when I took out the butternut squash, added a couple more potatoes and broccoli. It makes a yummy broccoli potato soup. I don't roast the broccoli but put it in the last 15 minutes before you blend it. Sprinkle with some cheddar cheese and it is ready to go.

For your holiday needs you might want to include the Wrenly Christmas Table runner.....

This table runner came from one of my sewing cards....

Along with the table runner you can always use napkins. I have the perfect simple napkin pattern for you. Not sure I would call it a pattern but a project. Take a fat 1/4, 18" x 22" and square it up to 18" x 18". Then pull the strings from the edges until you get about a 1/4" of fringe around the entire napkin. Clean up the edges with scissors or a rotary cutter and WA-LA! Napkin......they wash up great and don't continue to fray. Wonderful!!!

Great gift too!!! They are time consuming but worth it.

Tomorrow is Teagues's 3rd birthday....Poor guy is fighting a bad cold too! If he is still sick tomorrow I am going to have to cancel his little party. I am hoping that after his nap today he will feel better.

Hopefully next week I will not have as many issues and can actually get to posting on Friday for Wrenly's Christmas.....I am going to be sending out 6 bundles of Wrenly's Christmas on Friday.....so get your comments in. And  not to worry there will be 6 more bundles in November.....

XO

Valori

Simply Made Summer from the Oregon Coast....

Hello all.....enjoying a little vacation from the hub bub at the beach with my family...It was wonderful weather the last two days and today is a little wet and cloudy. Typical Oregon Coast.....

We make an annual trip to the beach in between Rodeo and Quilt Show.....kind of a mental break for all of us. We are just missing my brother's family but they went to Hawaii instead. Yeah, don't feel bad for him at all!!!!

So, this week I wanted to share my Rosalie quilt.....it is a Hexagon quilt (my mom tells me that hexagons are really big right now). The best part o the sewing card is that there are two sizes with the same layout but just different size hexagons. You can make a queen or a throw.

This is the queen version using all of the Cocoon cottons..... I love the way it turned out.

I was out shooting some quilts for our summer postcard and I had to take Rosalie.....

Such a perfect spot to take photos.....it is SO Sisters.

To go with this beautiful quilt......a easy project for anyone - fabric gift box!

So easy to  make......

This will give you the instructions and one of the box templates....the download will have the full size template in two different sizes. Perfect hostess gift for the summer party. Download FabricGiftBoxes-web-1   Download FabricGiftBoxes-web-2

I like the inside of my box to be interesting also, so I printed on the inside.....you can stamp or put another piece of fabric on the inside.

Well off to hang with the family on this rainy beach day.....

XO

Valori

And the Winner(s) are.....

Good Morning.....Wow, I had a great turn out on comments for the We Love Color book....104! Since I have two girls and so many comments I decided that I would pick two winners one will get the We Love Color book from C&T and the other will get some of my new Cocoon fabric.

Vivi picked first....for the Book....

The winner is......Adele....I will be emailing you!

Olivia's pick.....for Cocoon Fabric....

And the winner is.....Debbie....I will be eamiling you!

Thanks again to all of you that commented! Keep looking back at my blog....more give aways this summer!!!

XO

Valori

Purging....

Purging..... As a VERY sentimental person and avid collector purging is hard! Ross and I have been working on the house. Just feeling like less is more! It is a process especially for me. The house is starting to feel so good, so light.

I felt like my studio has been weighting me down. I keep having dreams about packing and cleaning. It is amazing all of the anxiety I feel in the dream and then when I wake up. Conclusion..... I am purging my studio. Trying to get rid of things I don't need and packing up some of the sentimental objects the are cluttering my space. It is a process and I have such a short attention span (no wonder my kids are that way) that I get bored easy.... Find myself doing other things. Like blogging! I look around and even the places that I have purged and cleaned still feel full. Frustrating! I am just trying to work my way through the space then go back if I need to. Oy Vey!

Now back to cleaning.... And PURGING!!! That needs to be the key word!
XO
Valori

Thanksgiving......and giving.....

Thanksgiving my favorite holiday......I love getting to see my family, cooking, eating, enjoying time together. We tend to spend Christmas just us so Thanksgiving is when we see everyone. I love it. The kids had so much fun together.....mom and John hosted their first big family gathering in the new house  it was perfect....now getting out of our house was an ordeal. Three kids....sometimes I just can't believe it.

Here are some of our Thanksgiving moments.......

 

 

Ross got a hold of the camera....here are some of his photos.

 

 

 

Now for the giving part......I have some sample yardage that is waiting for a good home.....Della Flannel, Del Hi Home Dec, even a little Della Fleece.........

 

Since it is the giving time of year......I will collect emails  (you have to send me an email) for the next week. The drawing will commence Monday, December 7th....once the girls get home from daycare. They love to do the picking. I will send out the winners an email on Tuesday.

Have a  great day!!!
XOXO

Valori

Urban Flannels have arrived.......

I have been meaning to tell you that Urban Flannels finally arrived in the shop. Carolyn did a great display with the fabric. Come check them out in the shop - even in the snow it is a great way to get you out and about. I say this as it is snowing - Love it!!!!

So in the spirit of Christmas I am going to be giving away some bundles of Urban Flannels. I am going to take e-mails over the next week and then pick out of the e-mails the fabric winners. So send me your e-mails.....I will pick on the 26th of December.
Have a great Day!!
Valori

All gone......

Ok you guys are so quick......I think that I got my first response with in 15 minutes.....Thanks so much! So the give away is closed for the time being but as you know I have new fabric coming out soon........and I can't resist giving some of it away!!! Keep in touch!
Thanks again Carmen!!!
Have a great day.....
Valori

Cool necklaces from Carmen......

So my weekend got away with me and I didn't get this posted so here we go.......

I have 5 of these gorgeous necklaces to give away......if you don't make the first 5 to EMAIL me then check out Miss Carmen's Etsy page to buy your own.......love her stuff....Love her!! THANKS CARMEN!!!
Have a great day........
Valori