Kayla Irene Designs

06/04/2026

05/22/2026

Friday. The studio is open 12 - 5 today & Saturday. Sunday 10 - 2. Closed Monday & Tuesday. The plant sale trailer for LAFR is always open! Stop in and see what's new.

This week I worked on getting the porch ready for barn quilt painting. There are thousands of patterns to be found online with the ability to adjust the colours to suit your own home. Ask about painting one for your home! Bring a friend! https://wiltsecreekstudio.ca/painting-classes

I spent two mornings working with someone on a 4 x 4 foot barn quilt. She purchased a pattern for a specific 2 x 4 foot design on Etsy and we customized it to to fit onto a 4 x 4 foot support. When she left yesterday afternoon, there was paint around the border and four areas taped off with their first coat of paint on. With 4 x 4 feet pieces I have room for only one person at a time to paint. Today, someone else is coming to design their 4 x 4 foot barn quilt and I'll schedule the women to come on different dates and times to work on their pieces.

I have a table of my own to work on my own projects. Currently it has a wooden bench that my hubby picked up for me at a yard sale last year that I'm giving a fresh coat of paint. I have the garden totem that I had started mid February on the table to finish up with a base to support it and a topper that will support a solar light with a first coat of paint on one side only. I have a 9 pane window with hardboard panels that I thought I had ready to paint but I discovered that I did not measure all the windows and only assumed they were all the same size so I need to recut 6 panels that are 1/2 an inch too short, two large conches (mushrooms) that are now primed and ready to paint and finally, one window that has a darling little latch that will be beautiful with a stained glass painting on it that is currently filthy and needs a good scrubbing which I will do to when I scrub the 3 log chairs I received recently to refinish and reseat.

Inside the house I have one rush chair that I will finish this morning and a large sign for a business that I'm working on.

It's good to have multiple projects on the go - there is no time for life to ever get boring!

enjoy this day

05/15/2026

Friday. The studio is open from 12 - 5 today Saturday & Sunday! Earlier and later by chance or appointment.

I have not gotten outside much this spring - too many indoor jobs to be done but today, if I can find it, I'm setting up my old pop up tent & hanging the screen around it so that I can work outdoors by the studio without getting too buggy. I have a table full of potential toad house/ bird house material that I would love to get working on and I have yet to finish cleaning off the table on the porch.

Yesterday Kayla & I worked on some rush chairs. She has the pattern nailed but it takes lots of practice to make your hands and fingers do all the things they need to do at one time but it looks terrific. One of these chairs is part of a set of 4 so I have 3 more to work on in the next week.

enjoy this day

05/06/2026

Look at this beautiful barn quilt!!

Wednesday. The studio is open by chance or appointment today.

I have been approached a couple of times to recreate the barn quilt at the boathouse in the Outlet but it was a collaborative design for LAFR and I won't make an exact copy of it This one is similar in design and will be the second and last time I use this heron pattern. This one has more detail in the heron & rushes than the original one in the Outlet, something my customer desired and has waterlilies in the foreground. The one thing I could not switch, though I did try, was to swap the dark purple "land mass" for a dark green but it just didn't work for me. I have one small touch up to do before I sign it this morning then I can go ahead and varnish it.

This week I have another sign to work on for a local business but more importantly, it's time to get the porch cleaned up for summer. It's not quite warm enough to paint out there yet and in fact, I was hoping I would be done with the wood stove but I think it's going to be too damp this week. There is always that time of year when you go cold turkey and put on a sweater until the house heats up during the day from the sun but I think without a couple of wood fires this week I'll be the only cold turkey in this house.

Today will be a shifting day. The Blue Heron barn quilt can go to the table to varnish with table cloths on the floor to protect it from varnish spills and the maple leaf barn quilt from last week can go on the kitchen island to get varnished. Chairs to refinish and reseat that are on the porch can be moved to the big workshop and yard sale stuff on the porch can go to my car since I cannot wait for the June 6 Treasure Hunt to get rid of them. I want to cut some wood pieces to finish the garden totem I started a few weeks ago before I start sanding the chairs that need refinishing and I need an hour somewhere to steam clean a couple of chairs if I can yank out my domestic goddess personal for long enough to do the job.

There are always so may jobs but it's never overwhelming because every one is something that I don't do every day, unlike trying to come up with something fresh and interesting for supper for the twelve thousand one hundred and forty sixth time.

enjoy this day!

05/02/2026

Learn from my mistake lol

I consider myself to be very careful when working with wire, and everything has been fine... until today!
Mistakes happen, and they happen fast! Before I knew it, my hand is applying pressure to my eye on the way to a mirror to see what the damage was lol. Luckly it was a quick scratch, no wire stuck in the eyeball itself, Thank God!!

Going forward, I will alwaysssss be wearing safety glasses and I hope you consider it too!