Sharing

I can't say how happy it makes me that my collaboration with my friend Natalie & and the team at Alabama Chanin continues. It was several months ago that I first shared our work together, which is so small in comparison to the great expanse of her beautiful collection, but I beam with pride to see the gorgeous garments, knowing that so many hands stitched each and every little delicate flower so intently.  It all feels so good and fortified, especially since I have had the pleasure of wearing a piece myself (which continues to stretch as needed around my belly) for months.



And now, in classic Alabama kindness, she shares with all of us the opportunity to bypass the investment of many dollars and instead invest much love and work into a piece of our own making and design-but with so much inspiration to get started!  The Little Folks and Little Flowers Stencils are now available in our very own shop as a starting point to any number creative journeys- these are the very same large and durable stencils that the team at AC use to create their garments.  She has also just posted one of her intriguing stitch maps for tips on creating a very embellished landscape of beauty!  (Although I can't get the thought out of my head to use them on a nursery wall!)

Finally, I am honored that the Alabama Chanin Journal has (and will be) focused on our collaboration all week, sharing a little something different everyday- today there is even a Greek recipe in my family's honor (blush + yum!).  I was meant to be farther South with them in the studio this week, but life had other plans for us.  We resorted to emails, and some very in depth text messages while she traveled from LA to home, and I cared for some sick kids.  Both of us pontificating on the finer points of keeping things running as moms, and designers.  She is such good company to my heart when we get the chance, and I do soon hope to cook the next Greek studio meal myself for her, perhaps with a baby on the hip.

happy Spring friends!!! xoxoAM

Breaking

The middle four are all home for two weeks of Spring Break.  I have been coming and going, starting and stopping, planning then rearranging plans.  I traveled to my parents house last week to spend some time with them before they headed to Houston to investigate new treatment options for my mama.  My brother and my sister came to do the same.  I think we figured out that it has been about 20+ years since our little Demacopoulos family of 5 has been together - only us together - in one house.  And even longer since the 5 of us have packed into the car to make the drive out to Big Ed's Pizza, where daddy now carefully guards the red pepper shaker to prevent my brother from covertly unscrewing the lid.  It was so good to be together.  So, so good.  Much laughing, card playing, handwork and smokey scotch too.  You can likely sort out who did what.  This week my Eleni, Roman and I are getting over a little bug which put us all in bed with fevers and yuckies.  It didn't keep me down too long, but you know how your brain frets a little when you take away a few days from plans you had made.

Walking down the hall to check on snoozing Eleni yesterday I was ushered by the lazy sounds of a radio playing softly. Arrived to catch this glimpse of Isabela stretched across her bed managing the perfect Spring Break afternoon with a ziploc of potato chips, a sketchbook, markers, and pajama pants.  Her little sister heavy breathing through some much needed sleep in the next bed.  I aspire to have such simplicity, and to remember to just take what's right there in front of you and mess around in it.  Loving it.  Later that night I read Twelve Dancing Princesses to Eleni while she took another rest in the living room.  I have forgotten that I can still read to her now that she is such a good reader herself.  Why did I forget?  We both loved it so much.

back with more going-ons tomorrow, xoxoAnna

Patchwork for Breakfast

I haven't shot Isabela's quilt up on the design wall yet because I am still working on some significant applique elements that will contribute a lot to the final look of the composition.  And also it's been dang dark and cold around here, with almost constant cloud cover. (Where are you Spring?  It's safe to some out now.)

So rather I've been spreading this out on the dining room table to finish up those elements each morning after the house gets quiet.  As you can see above, the fabric assortment is almost identical to Eleni's, and there are several "orphan" blocks used as well.  While it's not on a grid like Eleni's is, it does employ lots of squarish details, so it calls on a different sense of order than Nicolas's does even though they are both mostly improv. (You might just spy a bit of my upcoming Linen collection up there!)

For Isabela, my old soul, I decided to dig into my stash of vintage scraps.  Several years ago I bought a bunch of ziplocs filled with unsewn quilt pieces from the flea market.  I've used some semi-finished Dresden plates from them in other projects, but (above) I finally made use of these tiny 2 1/4" squares that were cut and pinned together by print when I bought them.  Oh, they are so sweet- those tiny prints!  So a 25-patch was born out of them and wrapped with some borders of Denyse's fabrics.

From this side you can see a bit more of the "open fields" of larger more subtle blocks that I used to provide a background for a group of growing stemmed flowers.  I am using vintage half Dresden plates as the flower petals- the real reason that I only used half to begin with, is because the hand piecing on them was imperfect enough that they just wouldn't lay flat.  So separating them allowed them to lay however they needed to lay to be flat, whether it was a perfect semi-circle not. 

Here you can see the one that is not on a stem, but peeking sideways out from behind another piece.  To go ahead and include this to-be-appliqued piece into the patchwork, I simple turned the edges of the applique towards their wrong side by 1/4" only where they are included in the patchwork seam.  So the straight patchwork seam is the only thing holding it in place until I have the applique finished.

For the stemmed flowers, I cut long 1 1/2" wide strips of bias and pinned them in place taking some subtle curves with just a gentle stretch.  Then I machine baste them down 1/4" from their edges.  This prevents me from having to use any pins during the applique process, and the piece stays entirely secure as I only clip out a few inches of basting at a time right before I turn the edge down and applique in place.  And an additional bonus to this process is that the basting provides a lovely perforation of needle holes in both the applique piece and the foundation, so that you can see just where to fold it under and just where to sew it onto the foundation.  You can see above that the left side of the stem is already appliqued while the right side is waiting to have the basting clipped and its edge turned under and sewn in place.

So that's where this one is.  It's been fun to dissect them with you.  It feels a bit like being in front of a classroom rambling on about my process, which has really become a favorite thing to do- especially when I see more nodding heads than confused looks.

Nodding with me?
I'll share the finished top soon. xoxoAnna