jcaroline's blog

Alan's Room Design

Another Glamour Giveaway winner is getting their goodies!

Fresh Nest Design worked with Alan to rearrange his existing pieces and integrate the two new chairs that he won.  Here is what they envisioned:

And here is what it looks like:

I have never noticed the brown version of the Ikea Poang Chair and I love it, especially against the linen cushion.  And I love green, so of course I like the citron and apple green pillows and I think the chocolate cording provides a nice accent on the pillows.

Thankfully, I had an assistant to help test the sitting power of the chair.  And by the way, the linen we use is a rayon/cotton blend, so it has the look of linen, but wears better, has more body, and doesn't wrinkle!

City Quilts by Cherri House

I think I've told you before how much I like Amazon's preorder feature.  If you know a book is coming out, you can order it and voila!  one day it appears on your doorstep.  Cherri was celebrating the release of her book at Quilt Market and I got a sneak peek of it there.  But this weekend I sat down and read it.

 

This is Cherri House at Quilt Market with her talented daughter, Lizzy, designer of Castle Peeps fabric for Andover.  It appears she is telling her to take a hike, though I don't believe that was the case.  I've only met three members of the House family, but they are all wildly talented.  And if you read City Quilts, you'll see where it came from.  I'm not a quilter-- I don't even play one on TV.  However, I love color and I love graphics and this book is perfect eye candy for that.

Cherri is a self-taught quilter and her book has great information on color selection, piecing and quilting.  I accosted her at Quilt Market and asked her some of her quilting tips.  The most valuable was fusible batting.  No more pinning and fighting the layers.  Done.  Her second most valuable tip was thread selection.  Silk thread is very fine and "dissolves" into the fabric so the fabric stands out.  If you want a "chunkier" look, use a heavier weight thread.  Done.

I love how her books shows the visual inspiration for the final quilts and how subtle changes in color can make a big difference.  It also reinforces that there are no "mistakes", just different color choices.  So if you like it, it isn't wrong.  I love how she takes a traditional quilt block (the Nine Patch) and by changing the colors turns into a 3-dimensional explosion of color (on the City Play quilt shown below).

My favorite quilt in the book is City Lot, which was displayed at Quilt Market.

Something about that brown background and the colors intrigues me. 

The other inspiring thing I learned from Cherri is that she machine quilts most of her quilts on her home sewing machine.  Yes, she has a Bernina with a stitch regulator for free motion quilting, but it is a home sewing machine.  So armed with fusible batting and a sewing machine, I think I could do this.

So would you like yourself a copy of this book?  Well, comment here by Monday, June 6 at noon.  Tell me if you have actually 1) made a quilt, 2) have just talked about it and if you've just talked about it, what held you back?

Stephanie's Room Redo

You may remember, oh, about half a year ago, I teamed with Deb and Erin at Fresh Nest Design and Flor Carpet Tiles to do Glamour Giveaway.  The winners were given two chairs, four throw pillows, one large floor pillow and one large ottoman from jcaroline home.  Flor Carpet Tiles provided a 5" x 7" area rug.  Well, the winners were notified in March and Deb and Erin asked the winners questions about their spaces and their decorating styles and then recommended what items they should put in their existing spaces.

Fresh Nest designed Stephanie's living room/dining room around a cool piece of art she already had.  Here is what Fresh Nest mocked up for Stephanie.

 

You want to see what it looks like "in real life"?

I adore Jessica Jones fabric (obviously!), and I didn't expect this combination to be so awesome.  I'm quite smitten with this group.

What to see it a little closer?

 

I thought you might. 

And this exercise with the Glamour winners has convinced me that I have been unfair.  I have not treated solids as equal to prints, and I apologize.  I just assume everyone is like me and wants 85 prints in their room, but that, apparently, is not that case.  So I've moved solids up to their rightful place in jcaroline home, where they can be used as the base for any of our chair covers or pillows.

More Mad Design Skilz

Jenean Morrison shows us how she developed a design in Illustrator based on an Art Brush she created.

Tula Pink shows us how she developed a design in Illustrator for her Plume fabric collection for Moda.  This woman has some serious Illustrator skills.  The detail on her design is incredible. 

 

And Patricia of A Little Hut shows us how she developed a leaf graphic and a logo-like graphic in Illustrator from a sketch.

 
Michelle Engel Bencsko of Cicada Studio shows her work on a deer print.

 
And finally, Jezze, a block printer, shows us how she digitally prepared a design rather than cutting a block and doing the layout on fabric like she usually does.  Her results are pretty stellar as well.

 

And ages ago (like June of 2008!) Jessica Jones gave us a slight peek into how she goes from a sketch to a digital print layout.

I LOVE these process posts.  First, it is giving me such insight into Illustrator which I think may be the most difficult program to master in the world.  Secondly, I love how different the designs are, but they all tend to follow a very similar process-- a rough idea that is manipulated until it becomes an ah-ha! pattern.

Notecards from Brand Bird

Look at these cute notecards Jules from BrandBird sent me!  She is a graphic designer specializing in surface pattern design and branding.  I love her portfolio of surface designs. 

If I had buckets of money (instead of only one very small bucket of money) I would put all her designs on fabric, but alas....

Anyway, her package was a pleasant surprise mixed in with the mail this afternoon.