Bari J.

There once was a very fickle decorator...

Not so long ago I begged Super Husband to hang a rod over the buffet in our kitchen... so I could stage a quilt for a pattern cover. 

Super Husband doesn't really take well to "knocking holes in the wall" because I need to take a photo for a single pattern cover. He also doesn't take well to rearranging furniture and stuff like that ... This is what he says, "If I knock holes in the walls every time you have take a photo there would be thousands of nail holes in every wall of this house.".

To which I say, "But how am I supposed to stage this quilt and get a beautiful pattern cover? I NEED you to hang a curtain rod over the buffet!". Or "I need you to hang this coat rail in the living room!"

The bottom line here is, the rod over the buffet in the kitchen? And the coat rail in the living room? They are "permanant". Super Husband is "Not. Moving. Them. Again.".

Which means there must always be a quilt hanging above the buffet and in the living room. And the problem with this is that not every quilt I need to take a photo of is always going to look fantabulous with my decor at any given moment. Know what I mean? 

Especially since I may or may not be prone to changing curtains and pillows every five to ten minutes... Um. I mean months. It *apparently* *seems* as though I change curtains and pillows every five to ten minutes. Apparently I am very fickle with the decor in this house.

Whatever.

When there's new fabric, there's new pillows. And there are new curtains. Duh.

The only obvious solution is I also need to keep making new quilts to go in these places that go with the curtains and pillows and all the other changes I make every five to ten minutes.

Which is a very long story to tell you the reason for my presto-chango-quilt-o-rama this weekend. Here's the latest "over the buffet" quilt rendition... I'm loving this new one. If you are wondering, the fabric is my Paris Apartment mixed with Atsuko Matusuyama's Fruit Flower Garden printed by YUMA (the seed packets and the border prints). I am thrilled with it's off-centered-ness and somewhat planned scrappy look. And you may or may not notice... I was extremely reserved with color/pattern here... Um. For me, that is.

It took every single ounce of will power I had not to add in one more print or one more color. I was like crazy uber disciplined. 

 

 

 

 

I told ya' I'd get it done! For your stitching pleasure, the PDF pattern for "Sister Friend" embroidery is now available in my shop!

Summer has started, and I'm happily stitching away here in Bari-land... Last night I made this little cutie. I like little patterns you can do in an evening. Especially when my attention span is grossly compromised, like it has been lately. I also like to stitch in the evenings because otherwise I'd be rifling through the fridge looking for something to chow down on. Busy hands = no time to pop chocolate in my mouth.

This is the second Paris Apartment Stitchery Pattern... Fabric Junkie. It features the dress form from my fabric line. I know some of you were worried about doing some of the stitches. So I stayed away from the more difficult stuff. This one would be considered a beginner pattern. It's stitches are back stitch, French knots (limited doses) and a lazy daisy. 

You can get the pattern on my website (scroll to bottom) or on patternspot.com.

Secretly... ok not so secretly... my goal is to get everyone embroidering this summer. I'm telling you. It's easy. 

I can make it even easier on you: If you'd like to see a demonstration video on the stitches, click here to see my mini-class in C&T publishing's digital lounge.

Grab a hoop, grab some floss and get stitching, people. You're gonna love it. 

 

 

The original of this piece was made for an auction in SIsters, OR this summer where I'm teaching at The Quilter's Affair. So if you're going to be there come and bid high for a good cause!

But if not... I wouldn't want to leave you out. I've made it into a PDF pattern. And, not to leave you hanging if you don't already know the the stitches... there are 7 embroidery stitches included with detailed instructions and illustrations. Never you mind you'll only use five of them in this pattern. Two are just for fun! 

This pattern is based on my Paris Apartment fabric line, and will be one in a series of patterns.

You can get this pattern, here, on PatternSpot.com OR on my website (scroll to bottom).

Happy stitching!

I'm so excited to be able to finally tell you this. I have a really fun new product coming out. I am working with Melanie Royals of Royal Design Studio on a new venture... stencils. The kind you paint on your walls. Melanie is expert extraordinaire in this field. I've loved her work for a long while and I'm so thrilled to be working with her.

The Bari J. Collection is coming soon! Here's a little tiny taste of what's in store:

copyright Bari J. 2011 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 

My mommy is in town for a visit. And she found the unfinished version of this pillow which I made in July for a class sample. It's a project in Inspired to Sew and this one is an UFO I'd entirely forgotten about. Mom wanted it and that was just the excuse I needed to divert my attention from what I was doing and make it into a pillow for her. Glad it's finished and has a new owner.

I did manage to finished up two of the Slice Fabrique projects and sent them off to Utah for photographs before I got distracted. Of course I took a few of my own before they left.

And in other news, my studio appears in the newest edition of Studios magazine with the one an only Ty Pennington on the cover!

And look! We're BFF's in the table of contents... Yup. That's my studio pictured right beneath his. 

Ty Pennington. Bari J. Ackerman. BFFs. 

I'll be getting a few copies in stock soon if anyone wants one. 

 

 

Covering a chair is actually easier than you might think. I'll be recovering another chair just like the one I did for market. I will do an in depth tutorial with pictures of each step when I do that, but for now, this is a brief explanation of how I made this simple cover. The fabrics I used for this are from my Country Lane collection, and I used the curtains from my booth (which is Kona Crush in Natural from Robert Kaufman) as both the skirt for the chair and the skirt on the table. 

This is an office chair from Target. I just treated it as if it were a regular chair, ignoring where the seat curved in toward the back (see bottom of post for before photo). In other words, for the back of the seat, I used the same measurement as the width of the top of the chair even though the seat actually curves inward and is narrower.

To create a pattern for the back (which is plastic and therefore, I couldn't just pin fabric on it) I literally placed the chair with it's back down on my desk on top of a large piece of paper. Starting in the middle of the back, I traced the curve of the top of the chair to it's end and around the curve. I then folded the paper in half and cut along the line to get the shape and added the length from the top of the chair to the seat. Then I added seam allowances of 1/2" to the pattern piece. I cut two for the back and front of the chair. I made ties for the back of the chair so that when you sit on it, it doesn't slip forward too much. Then I sewed the front and back pieces together with the ties sandwiched in the seams.

For the seat, I pinned the fabric onto the chair, nicely centered on the grain with the pins where a seam would go. I then traced the seat shape adding 1/2" seam allowance with chalk and cut out the pattern piece. Then I sewed the seat piece to the front of the chair back piece. 

For the skirt, I measured around the seat front pattern piece and the back piece and added the numbers together. Then I added nearly half of that number so I could gather it.

After gathering the top of the skirt, I pinned it onto the chair top, leaving half inch at each end. I started sewing and finished sewing around the skirt at those half inch marks and then simply sewed the seam shut using a 1/2" seam allowance. Then I sewed trim on.

That was it. Pretty simple and much prettier than the ugly green chair this was ... eeew. 

Stay tuned for another tutorial coming soon which will include draping the fabric on an upholstered chair and putting in a zipper. 

 

I've been wanting to do this forever! 

What I don't know (is under there) won't hurt me.

When it takes you all day to make one placemat, does that count as "getting stuff done"? Why, yes.

Because I did get some panels for a sample bag for quilt market done last night too... I'm counting last night as part of today. It's all running together anyways.

Nothing earthshaking to report today, but I am enjoying the sight of my new pin board wreath. A lot of people have been making these for their doors, but I thought I'd use mine to pin goodies and inspiration on. The yarn had been sitting there since April when I planned on a pretty spring wreath for the front door. I got it about 1/4 wrapped around and gave up. I'm not sure who has the patience for that.

In the end I finished mine in front of the T.V.. Which is what I should have done in the first place.

You can see I didn't manage to go one pretty wrap at a time, but rather willy-nilly... I didn't have the patience. That's all part of my theory that random is better.

As you might know from my previous post, my family has been in need of a little of this. Thank goodness it comes in many kinds... we could use all the therapeutic treatments we could find... My sister and I found some of it when I visited her this weekend in Arizona. One of which was getting some blond highlights in her hair by a super fantastic hair "therapist". I have to say, Lara looked amazing, as did our mom. She needed a little treatment too.

I am relatively scared of hair color and thank goodness, I unbelievably haven't but a few stray grays. Plus, I actually like my hair color (hmmm... now that's unusual. I said aloud that I liked my hair.) Which makes me think... why didn't I go get the alternative and much-needed nail therapy? I shall indulge later this week, me-thinks.

In addition to beautification therapy, we also spent time getting some of our most favorite therapy of all... retail therapy as it is commonly known.

Amazingly enough, we didn't indulge in food therapy because we figured that would have been therapy that eventually would have made us feel worse. Plus, of course, the thought of weighing in at WW and weighing more is enough to scare me straight any day... Good girls...

The retail therapy was as expected very, very satisfying.

Below... a goodie from that part of our adventure... at Paris Envy, a shop in Phoenix that carries my bags... and btw, is undeniably "Wow.". I'm not just sayin' so because my bags are there either, it really really is. And the prices are reasonable too which I'm finding unusual (someone remind me later to show you the little spread about it that was in the Arizona Republic a couple weeks ago... it looked incredible).

There is also Puppy Therapy ... Lara has much of this... Roxy, our girl, will not leave her side and barks at anyone who comes near Lara these days. Amazing how animals know when we are vulnerable, isn't it? I threatened to take this cute potato home with me... She's the most amazing rescue dog ever. We think she had been abandoned... who in the world could abandon this???

Then all said and done I came home tonight finding the squeezing of my little peeps and Super Husband quite therapeutic as well... Then, unexpectedly... an added bonus... my own personal form of therapy... my Very Own Fabric Therapy... it arrived while I was away. I did really cry too. Very, very good therapy.

My most favorite therapy of all however... My Family. Seeing my Lara, hugging her and knowing that everything will be alright. There really is something to be said about the connections that siblings have. The shared experiences, all the ups and downs. I'll never know anyone like I know my sisters and brother. They are undeniably the best friends I'll ever have.

We have our mother to thank for that. She has always said, "I always wanted four kids, because I wanted you all to always have each other." And we do (she said through happy sad, sad happy tears.). Thanks, Mom.

Awww... darn. That was a sort of emotional post. Off to hug the squeezy girls some more!
Thanks for listening... Hmmmm... blog therapy too! Good stuff!
XO,

Weekend synopsis:

When there wasn't some of this...

Or some of this...

or this...

There was some of this...

And I loved this...

And I know I promised you some of this...

I'm in love love love...

All from Brocade Home. Yum-delish!

The incredible Heather Bullard came up with this idea... And I just love it! Pieces I used: vintage frame, velvet ribbon, millinery, a nest and enamel pin.

BTW, I did not put any nails in the door. Those nifty removable double stick hangers are all you need. And to keep the frame from bouncing up and down on the door every time you open and close it, use double stick foam tape. Hurray for 3M. I've used these products on my door before and they really don't leave a mark.