108 pillows hanging from the clouds

Tré Lilli wears many hats. This summer, we wore the Art Festival hat and we wore the Custom Order hat and I am very happy to announce that I'm practically finished with all of the custom orders from this summer's festival season. It's been quite the learning curve and now I'm trying on a new hat: the Home Furnishings hat. This holiday season, I'm trying my hand at textile and home furnishing design. To begin with, I've designed 48 pillows that will be showcased at a collaborative show with my father the first weekend of December. Our show is titled EnCHANTment and I am very much looking forward to unveiling the latest from the Tré Lilli studio. Until then, here's a little taste of what's to come...

One step closer

It has been my intention since beginning the Inglenook bee with Ms. Annie to create a sewing co-op or a Sew-Op in Woodlawn where members of the community can come and sew. The facility would house around 20 machines that would always be out and available for women to come work on at their leisure. The Sew-Op would provide workshops and classes on quilting and garment-making and eventually would become a sort of cottage-industry sewing factory in Woodlawn. I've been reaching out to all sorts of community leaders as well as writing grants to move this vision along. While we work to have our own home, we've been extremely blessed to find a benefactor in DISCO. The Inglenook bee stopped by yesterday, October 23rd, along with a woman from the quilting class at the YWCA in Woodlawn (a program supported through ArtPlay) and we had our first meeting as Bib & Tucker Sew-Op in our current home at DISCO. It was a wonderful afternoon and we discussed putting together a holiday sale to raise money for our cause. We had so much fun yesterday that we met again today to work on our products for the sale: quilts, aprons, pillows, bags and more. Stay tuned for details on the sale. And what a monumental step we've taken. We have a home, we have a home!

Sharon sewing the sashing onto her squares for her very first quilt.

Sharon's first quilt.

The original three: Ms. Annie, Ms. Carol and Ms. Jearldine (fourth from left) and the "newbie", Sharon (third from left)

It took us no time to get started. We were there for less than a minute before all the materials were out and we were working on our first project.

A teacher at heart: Ms. Carol explains loom knitting to Sharon

Fashion's Night Out, Homewood AL 9/6/12

How cute is Molly Green?

The Workroom, design in action

Molly Green displays are clever and conscientious

Brittany, our fearless leader, striking a pose in the all-new Betty Luxe: a mobile boutique

Anna taking advantage of the empty streets to strike an iconic pose

Designer Lillis Taylor of Tré Lilli with her lovely Fashion's Night Out models

Brittany, Lillis and Anna - smiling from a successful night

Designer Heather Williams (right) with model wearing her necklace

Tré Lilli now offering fabric

Samples from the Adelita Fabric Collection

It's been a dream and wish to design textiles for interior designers, quilters, and crafters since the beginning of Tré Lilli, but for many reasons, we've focused on products here in the workshop. After a fortuitous series of events involving our piles and piles of scraps and a creative bunch from a local sewing bee, we are excited to introduce Tré Lilli's first collections of fabric available through Spoonflower.com. Please visit the shop, and definitely share with your crafty compadres!

Tré Lilli's Spoonflower Shopfront - spread the word!

Inglenook Sewing Bee - Back with a Bang

Ms. Annie with her log-cabin quilt, which she's been working on quietly at home for over a year. The entire quilt is hand-quilted. She is almost finished with the binding and was so excited to show it off when we re-convened.  

From left, Ms. Jeraldine (now the president of our group), Ms. Carol, me and Ms. Annie. This was our first day back and we topics of conversation covered a Birmingham Fredrick's of Hollywood that used to sell women's underthings to a man that hid money from his wife in books in their library and when he passed away, the wife gave away all of the books...

Ever since our inception, we've wanted to make something special for the library to hang as a thank you for being able to meet there weekly. This is the beginning of a wall hanging we are making for Inglenook Library.

We have so much fun and take over the library during our sessions. This library-goer was caught in our hen-talk and laughed under his breath more than a few times.

Fashion's Night Out - It's about local, y'all...

A week from today, downtown Homewood, AL is having a block party. We're gonna celebrate all things local, all things beautiful, all things charitable and we're gonna look good while we do it. Leading up to Birmingham's own Fashion's Night Out, I've been working with some of the students from this summer's art camp in Woodlawn to create an image of fashion that resonates with them. The sketch was the only thing provided and from there, the students have spent several afternoons with me in the DISCO space in Woodlawn, working on their mural. As the days have passed, I've watched them take ownership of their design. They began by owning small portions of the canvas, feeling shy about moving away from their one "corner", but as the days have gone by, the image has become more cohesive, with portions being painted over, sometimes by the original artist, sometimes not. 

As of yesterday, the students had mostly completed the garments and were working on their idea for the environment surrounding their icon of style. What began as a prodding from me a week ago: "Where IS this girl?! What is she doing?" has turned into a discussion among the artists. 

"I think she's in heaven" says E.
"Just because she's in a bunch of color? Or are you gonna draw heaven?" says M.
"I don't believe in heaven, or well, my friend says hell is on earth and there isn't a heaven. I don't think that, but I don't know about heaven" says E.

Silence while E puts yellow paint on her large brush and begins to block out a sky at the top of the mural. Below E, M and A (who are in a couple) sit at the base of the mural, working on a mix of light blue, white and purple. They decide, for today, that their icon of style is in the sky, perhaps in heaven, perhaps just soaring above the chaos of the city. It might change completely next week. Regardless, you have one chance to see their completed mural: Sept. 6th from 6-9pm in Homewood.

A wonderful place to work: DISCO space in Woodlawn

Woodlawn students and their icon of style

Synchronicity in research

Photo of Bacardi Cube (left) by saikofish; Photo of Bacardi Tower (right) by Bob B. Brown 

I love when I'm minding my own business, driven to pursue a thought, an idea along a path of research and a delicious synchronicity appears to urge me along.

It is a time of unbridled creativity here in the studio, and I find myself out of training to keep up. One the one hand, there are many, many practical orders that need filling, yet the creative spirit is running wild and I must daily give that spirit free reign to research, play, create as she sees fit.

I received two orders of fabric this morning and after picking up a few books-on-tape from the library, I was ready, scissors in hand to dive deeply into sewing and listening. Next thing I know, I'm under-stitching a facing while listening to the history of cancer. Did you know that there are paleontologist-pathologists? One in particular who found the oldest known proof of the existence of cancer after conducting autopsies on thousand-yr-old bodies atop a Peruvian tundra??

So I found myself, after a few hours of sewing and the completion of one petal top, needing a bit of a change. I felt very weak and realized it had a lot to do with the graphic description of early aggressive surgeries and radiation therapies gone wrong. Lord, humans are a wily set. I shifted to the computer and began work on a digital inspiration board for a new project I'm working on that will have its debut in December.

When I'm not listening to books, I like listening to music and have recently discovered Pandora (I know, I know...I also do not have an iPhone...). So HOW COOL is Pandora?!? I mean, they don't always have it spot on, but it's a pretty close. When I need to rock while sewing, I listen to a station made up of the following seeds: Violent Femmes, Hole and Ween. A random, quirky, edgy little mix and yet just as I returned to the station this afternoon, ready to get busy with my research, A Day in the Life by the Beatles came through the queue...it seemed an odd choice given what usually plays on this station, but a good song nonetheless.

As the orchestra began its ascent, I typed, "Miami Architecture" into google and the first thing that caught my attention was an image of the building on the right in the above photo. I clicked on the image and learned that the Bacardi Building tower was designed by Enrique Guitierrez and built in 1964, followed in 1973 by the Bacardi cube (building on left in above photo), which was designed by Ignacio Carrera-Justiz. Intrigued and excited by both buildings, I continued my research and came across this article by Robin Hill, an architectural photographer based in Miami. If you don't care to read the article - though you'll be missing a delightful bit of writing - I will leave you with this: as the strains of "A Day in the Life" reached their zenith, I read the following sentence in Hill's article:

If the Bacardi buildings were a song, they might be that famous Lennon and McCartney recording, "A Day in the Life" from the 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

My father and I share an awe for experiences such as these, though this might be my first experience with a synchronized soundtrack.

While the Miami project remains semi-veiled, here are a few warm-up designs from a brainstorming session yesterday. The veils will be drawn as the days grow short.