Handmade in Georgia

I recently came across the wonderful designs of textile artist Sara Lee Parker and as a bonus discovered she and her husband produce their hand screen-printed textiles in rural Georgia, practically just up the road from our shop!

Sara Lee Parker Textile designs are inspired by traditional textile imagery as well as the natural world. Sara says she loves browsing through the library or walking in the woods to find something that sparks a new design. Screenprinting has a satisfying degree of technical involvement, yet it is a transparent process that she is in love with. When designing a pattern, she usually starts with pencil, brush and ink, or rubylith - an old-school method of making color separations. The marks and gestures from these tools are carried through to the final piece with a tactility that is often absent in modern digital printing.

The prints are transferred to a mid-weight hemp/organic cotton blend, perfect for tea towels, napkins, placemats, pillow covers, quilting ... you name it!

I hope you enjoy our selection from these wonderful prints as much as we do! 

A view inside Sara and Simon's studio.

Sew Easy Pillow Covers

I love how easy it was to give my old couch pillows new life with a bit of gorgeous fabric and a minimal amount of time at the sewing machine. No buttons, no zippers, no fuss!

The pillows shown are 20" square but you can modify the below instructions to fit the size you need (see bottom of post). I used a 7oz twill fabric to cover mine. Any quality heavy-weight muslin or home dec fabric will do. I've posted other fabric options at the bottom of this post (of course!) 

20" Square Pillow Covers with Envelope Closure

Materials Needed 

• 1 - 21" x 21" fabric pieces
• 2 - 21" x 14" fabric pieces
• Heavier weight thread (machine quilting weight worked great for me)
• Iron and ironing board

Assembly Instructions

1. Turn under a long edge of the 21" x 14" fabric 1/2". Press. Turn again to create a hem. Press. 
2. Top stitch pressed edge along the entire length to finish the hem. You will now have a 21" x 13" piece.
3. Repeat for the second piece of 21" x 14" fabric.
4. Place the 21" square fabric right side up on a work surface.
5. Lay one of the 21" x 13" pieces right side down (so right sides are together) Align raw edges. 
6. Lay the second 21" x 13" piece right side down, aligning the exposed raw edges of the bottom square. The two top pieces should overlap by a few inches. Pin all 3 pieces together at edges. See Diagram below.
7. Sew a 1/2" seam around the outside of the square. Be sure and backstitch at the beginning and end to secure the thread.
8. Trim corners to reduce bulk ensuring you don't clip into the seam. Turn and push corners out to get a nice form. Insert old (or new) pillow. 
9. Relax and enjoy!

Assemby Diagram

Size Modifications

You can adjust these directions to cover just about any pillow. Allow enough fabric for a 1/2" seam allowance, so if you're making an 18" square cover, you'll need 19" wide fabric. Adjust the height of the smaller pieces accordingly. You will want the finished pieces to overlap about 4" 

Other Fabric Ideas

Weekend Project (or what to do with a huge expanse of brick wall)

This summer I'm not feeling very motivated to start a big quilt project. The combination of Georgia heat and quilt batting just isn't very appealing to me. But the drive to create things hasn't abated - not one tiny bit!

Our shop is located in an old cotton warehouse at the renovated Porterdale Cotton Mill. The walls are wonderfully rustic brick, 16 feet high, punctuated by the original longleaf pine¹ pillars and beams. We adore this space and the tiny town of Porterdale, replete with it's unattended library and honor-system book borrowing. But what to do with the walls? 

The answer came in the form of a few pieces of 2x2x8 pine lumber from the local hardware store and a couple of yards of fabric. In an afternoon we had three 18" square 'works of art' ready to adorn the walls. This project is wonderfully simple -

For one frame, you will need:

• 1 - 2x2x8 pine board 
• 4 - 2" nails or corner reinforcing brackets with screws
• 1 - 24" x 24" fabric, whole or pieced
• staple gun and staples or upholstery tacks and hammer
• your choice of hanging hardware, if hanging on a wall, or display on a shelf.

 Assembly:

Et, voila! I hung two in our dining room before bringing them to the shop. Not too shabby, eh?

 Whatever you choose to do this weekend, Enjoy!

1 Longleaf pine is a slow-growing, hardwood pine native to the southeast USA. It was a very popular building timber as it is hard wood and long lasting (the beams in this building are over 100 years old). The large-scale timber industry here in the south between 1880 - 1920 devasted the longleaf pine forests. Today they are among the most endangered ecosystems in North America. There are a few virgin stands that remain. I've not visited yet, but understand they are unlike any other ecosystem. If you're interested in learning more this is a good place to start

Countdown to Store Opening

We're closing in all the final details and should be ready to (quietly) open our doors in the next few days. I can't believe how much work has gone into the endevour and I'm loving every minute of it!

As part of our launch we're offering up a chance to win a pillow kit made from organic cotton fabric from the Alergria collection from Cloud9 Fabrics. As much as we've tried, our photos don't do the fabric justice. It is absolutely gorgeous and buttery soft. Combine it with a kapok filled pillow insert and pattern instructions and the lucky winner will have themselves a beautiful home accessory in the form of a cozy pillow.

All you need to do is join our mailing list and you'll automatically be entered for you chance to win. The winner will be selected at random on June 22, 2012. 

Click here to join and good luck!

Surprise delivery by Royal Mail

I recently subscribed to Modern Quilting Magazine, a new UK publication that aims to be at the cutting edge of quilting fashion and design. While anxiously awaiting my first issue I received a surpise via Royal Mail the other day - a sample of 6 Monaco fabrics by Monaluna. How wonderful! These fabrics were just calling out to me to cut and stitch, so away I went. I love the quality and feel; they seemed extra forgiving of my sometimes not-quite-1/4" seam allowances.

Here is the result of last night's spur of the moment project - I rather like it!