Friends of Fabri-Quilt Gallery

Give It A Swing

Patricia Lackey transforms Ro Gregg's fabrics into wearable works of art. ''Fabric inspires me,'' Patricia says. ''When I saw this fabric, I immediately knew what I was going to do with it. The fabric just started talking."

In this case, the fabric that ''talked'' to Patricia was Ro Gregg's Marblehead stripe, with 2-1/2'' wide printed strips of different colors.

Enter, the Swing Jacket. 

Patricia first made the jacket out of the brown Marblehead stripe, and after rave reviews, remade the jacket in the red, gold and green Marblehead Xmas so that she could write the pattern. The jacket uses five different fabrics, with the stripe playing center stage on the swinging, pleated back.

''I've had all different sizes of people try [the jacket] on and everyone loves it. It has that little bit of snap to it. I really like pleats, tiny details; I like surprises in my design."

See the Marblehead Metallic Xmas fabrics here.

Purchase the pattern for Patricia's jacket here. 

More Show and Tell

Joanne Dubnicka, one of the quilters who helped sew pillowcases for the Million Pillowcase Challenge, put pillowcase scraps to good use. She used leftover Orleans prints to stitch one of her favorite patterns, the Barbados bag from Pink Sand Beach Designs. ''To me, the fabrics and the bag just say summer,'' Joanne says. ''I love the blue large print with the white and yellow flowers."  What a great use of leftovers!

See the Orleans fabrics here.

Purchase the pattern for the bag here.

Joanne also used leftover prints from the Melrose collection to make a magazine bag for her mother-in-law.

Thanks for sharing!