ABOUT LOCAL COLOR

I'm Whitney Arlene Crispell, and I founded Local Color,  a quilting and home textile studio, in 2017.

My handmade work is crafted slowly, with extreme attention to detail, and inspired by my love of my community and color. I love to play with contrast, patterns, tone-on-tones, and making rainbows with fabric.

When I married my husband in 2011, dear friends of ours gathered secretly to make us a wedding quilt (see some photos from that sweet moment below). It is my most treasured possession. Shortly after, I began creating other quilts with these same friends, and my love for the quilting tradition grew.

In a culture that increasingly values throwaway or one-use items, handmade quilts feel subversive. Depending on size or complexity, I spend anywhere from 10-40+ hours creating each quilt. I use a variety of hand-dyed, up-cycled, vintage, and modern textiles in my pieces.

I love what my quilting work brings to my life: intention, patience, and color. It would be an honor to share my handmade, heirloom quilts with you, and inspire the same. 

Read more about my creative process and work at my DIY Network Creative Genius feature.

The portraits featured throughout this site were captured by the fabulous City Lights Studio, and the wedding photos above were taken by Brandon Lata Photography. 

Follow my recent work @localcolorquilts on instagram.

View fullsize My kids are in summer camp this week, and I made a promise to myself that I would do my own “camp” for at least an hour a day. I started with some intro to gouache classes on @creativebug, which I’ve always wanted to do and never ma
View fullsize My first Irish Chain quilt top is done, and it will not be my last. Can’t believe I haven’t whipped up a ton of these before! #irishchain #memoryquilt
View fullsize Best sewing spot, even if I’m using my back up machine ☀️🌿
View fullsize It grows 🌱
View fullsize New WIP, a single Irish chain memory quilt using four men’s dress shirts and @carolynfriedlander widescreen as background fabric. Loving the effect of flipping the striped fabric in different directions. Have you ever made an Irish chain? This
View fullsize Done with machine quilting and now onto binding decisions and a new-to-me technique for finishing: ties!
View fullsize Yesterday, the idea for a baby quilt I needed to make finally came together. I was stuck on a few details but after doing a fabric pull, it clicked. So while my kids had the day off from school and were playing so well together, I became obsessed and
View fullsize Miraculously found 20 minutes in the studio this morning before breakfast/school and I decided to play around with these vintage fabrics. My dad found the cut squares at a garage sale and gave them to me a few years back. The fabric is old and delica
View fullsize “I know that it's hard to believe that the people you look to for safety and security are the same people who are causing us so much harm. But I'm not lying and I'm not delusional. I am scared and I am hurting and we are dying. And I really, re
View fullsize Shared more on the experimenting I did this morning in my studio in my stories (saved under the “memory” highlight). I’m trying to decide on a pattern for the second memory quilt in a series of three. Loving these stripes.
View fullsize First quilt top finish in quite a while. I’ve been sewing but it’s all been small projects or still in progress. Feels so good!
View fullsize Can’t stop making headbands. These are for my daughters and nieces. 🤷🏼‍♀️ Also because someone will probably ask, fabric from left to right: Heather Ross, Cotton + Steel, AGF, vintage, Heather Ross.