All About Texture

Some quilts are all about color; others depend on texture to enhance the design. The Earthenware Tiles quilt, designed by Lisa Bassett, focuses on the patterns and textures of our Elemental Lines collection for interest. What a great design for the fall issue of Easy Quilts magazine--autumn is right around the corner and this quilt is sure to get you in the mood! We love how the earthy tones pop against the red wall in the photo from Easy Quilts below; the muted palette and eye-catching design would make a beautiful wall hanging in any home. 

"Earthenware Tiles" designed by Lisa Bassett and made/machine quilted by Heather Porter;
featured in Easy Quilts Fall 2014

Q. What attracted you to the Elemental Lines collection? Do you have a favorite print within the collection?

Lisa: I'm usually attracted to very bright colors, so I wanted to mix it up and work with a collection that is outside my preferred color palette. I think my favorite piece is 120-0251. I absolutely love the texture those spiky flowers create.

Q. Can you talk about how you came up with the quilt design?

Lisa: Our signature, if you will, is making quilt designs that look harder than they are. I started with an idea of a basic shape (in this case a square in a square) and played with ways to make a simple block look dynamic. Turning every other block gives the quilt nice movement. Plus, I included a little piecing trick in the pattern that makes it easy to sew two square-in-a-square blocks together without the usual bulk in the seams.

Q. Did you find it challenging to work in a muted palette? How did you make the palette work?

Lisa: As I said, I love working with bright and bold fabrics, so this was a bit of a challenge. Working on this pattern, I really had to focus on using the different textures to provide contrast in the quilt. Where I usually use colors to provide contrast (yellow and blue together, for example) I focused more on the different textures of tans and browns in the fabric. I did love having that nice black as the background, it really makes the lighter fabrics in the quilt pop. In the end I really enjoyed the neutral tones.

Q.  What do you like best about the quilt?

Lisa:  I love the way I pieced the square blocks together. Not to make it sound like bragging, I'm sure I'm not the first! I had fun putting this quilt together, it went together very quickly and easily.

Q. Can you talk about the machine quilting? 

Lisa: The quilt is very angular, so I liked the idea of using a quilting design that had some curves in it, to provide a little variation and movement. I decided to use an all over design to continue with the theme of a quick and easy quilt.

Q. What do you envision the quilt being used for? 

Lisa: Since it is a small quilt, I think it would look great being used as a large wall hanging. 

Find the entire Elemental Lines collection here.

Learn more about Relatively Creative Patterns designers Lisa Bassett and Heather Porter here.

Purchase the kit for Earthenware Tiles here.

Find Easy Quilts magazine here.

At the Farmer's Market: Mouthwatering Desserts!

Labor Day weekend is right around the corner, and farmer's market and local farm stands are overflowing with fresh produce. That creates a "perfect storm" situation--use the long weekend as an excuse to entertain family and friends, and use some of that gorgeous, mouth-watering fresh fruit to make a dessert for your get-together!

Inspired by the fruit prints in our latest Farmer John collection, we've compiled a to-do list of desserts ideas from around the web for you. Let us know if you try one--each looks better than the previous one and we'd like to make one of each!

Cherries

Photo credit

Find Robin's recipe (from Add a Pinch) for Cherry Cobbler here.

Peaches

Photo credit

Find Ree's recipe (from The Pioneer Woman) for Peach Crisp with Maple Cream Sauce here.

Blueberries

Photo credit

Find Natasha's recipe (from Natasha's Kitchen) for Blueberry Crumble here.

Apples

Photo credit

Find the recipe (from Moms Who Think) for Apple Pie here.

Strawberries

Photo credit

Find the recipe (from CHOW) for Strawberry Shortcake here.

Farmer John prints aren't just fruits that inspire delicious desserts...check out the entire fabric collection here!

Pillowcase Wrap Up

Have you browsed through American Patchwork & Quilting's 1 Million Pillowcase Challenge blog hop pillowcases? All of the hop participants posted their pillowcases last Friday--such a fantastic collection to go toward various charities as part of the push to donate 1,000,000 pillowcases! 

In case you missed the hop, we thought we'd show our contributions in today's post. You can also revisit last Friday's post for links to the entire hop.

Linda Carlson used her 

Imagine This

 fabrics to make this eye-catching red, black, gray and white pillowcase using pattern #25.

Find her post about her pillowcase here.

Heidi Pridemore used the 

Tweet

 collection to make this whimsical checkerboard cuff pillowcase using pattern #6.

Find her post about her pillowcase here.

Tammy Silvers used the 

Vibe

 collection to make this cheery yellow and blue pillowcase using the basic roll pattern.

Find her post about her pillowcase here.

Thanks so much, ladies, for participating! 

And then, with a look ahead to Christmas, we used the Christmas Flannels collection to make a cozy red and green pillow using pattern #6.

Find our post here. 

Find out more about the 1 Million Pillowcase Challenge, including the scheduled September Sew-a-thon, 

here.

And check out all 43 free pillowcase patterns from AP&Q here.

1 Million Pillowcase Challenge, Holiday-Style

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas...

in August?!

With American Patchwork & Quilting holding a blog hop to promote the 1 Million Pillowcase Challenge (568,000+ and counting donated!), we wanted to be part of the fun! We're proud to be a sponsor of this initiative, and proud to donate pillowcases to help those in need and get the Challenge closer to the one million pillowcase goal.

Three of our favorite designers and bloggers are officially part of the hop sharing pillowcases they've made using our fabric lines:

Heidi Pridemore (http://heidipridemore.blogspot.com) with Tweet

Linda Carlson (www.lindacarlsonquilts.com) with Imagine This

Tammy Silvers (http://www.tamarinis.typepad.com) with Vibe

We're excited to see what these designers have created, but here at Inspired by Fabric we wanted to join in as well, sharing a holiday-themed flannel case made using our 

Christmas Flannels. 

We used the Checkerboard Band pattern (No. 6), which can be found here--a classic that goes together quickly with strip piecing, and perfect for showing off two contrasting flannels on the cuff!

AP&Q currently has 43 free pillowcase patterns on their website; you can find them all here--with so many choices, it's hard to choose just one!

(Of course, we feel the same way about our Christmas Flannels--how can you choose just one (or three) to use?!)

Find all of our cozy Christmas Flannels here.


Make sure you check out everyone participating in today's Pillowcase Challenge Blog Hop!

·    Alison Glass (http://alisonglass.com/blog)

·    American Patchwork & Quilting (www.allpeoplequilt.com/blog)

·    Barb and Mary of Me and My Sister Designs (http://www.meandmysisterdesigns.com/blog/)

·    The Benartex Design Team: Sew in Love with Fabric (http://www.sewinlovewithfabric.blogspot.com)

·    Debby Kratovil (http://debbykratovilquilts.blogspot.com/)

·    Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts (http://www.laundrybasketquilts.net/blog/)

·    Heidi Pridemore (http://heidipridemore.blogspot.com)

·    How To Sew (www.howtosew.com)

·    Jennifer Paganelli of Sis Boom (http://www.sisboom.com/blog/)

·    Joanna Figueroa of Fig Tree Quilts (http://figtreequilts.typepad.com/my_weblog/)

·    Karrie Winters of Freckled Whimsy (http://www.freckledwhimsy.com/)

·    Kelle Boyd of Ann Kelle (http://www.annkelle.com/category/blog/)

·    Linda Carlson (www.lindacarlsonquilts.com)

·    Lori Mason (http://www.lorimasondesign.com/news/)

·    Modern Quilt Studio (http://craftnectar.com/)

·    Nicole Daksiewicz of Modern Handcraft (http://modernhandcraft.com/)

·    Northcott: Patti’s Patchwork (www.pattispatchwork.com)

·    Shannon Fabrics: My Cuddle Corner (http://shannonfabrics.com/blog/index/)

·    Tammy Silvers (http://www.tamarinis.typepad.com)

·    Timeless Treasures: Sew Timeless (http://www.ttfabrics.com/blog/)

·    Valori Wells (http://www.valoriwells.com/blog/)

·    Verna Mosquera of The Vintage Spool (http://freespiritfabric.blogspot.com/)

·    Wendy Sheppard of Ivory Spring (http://ivoryspring.wordpress.com/)

FInd out more about the 1 Million Pillowcase Challenge, the September 24-hour Sew-a-thon to make more pillowcases (what could be more fun that a sewing sleepover with your friends? Think how many pillowcases you could make in your pajamas!), and how you can participate here.

Warm or Cool?

Sometimes fabric collections are short but sweet, just a few key prints that call your name.
That's definitely how we'd describe Cassandra, a four-print leaf and paisley collection that comes in both warm and cool colorways.

We've paired each colorway with some richly textured tonals to show you how you can expand a few favorite prints with some classic favorites.

For the cool colors, we grabbed five Marblehead prints:

See all our Marblehead prints by Ro Gregg here.

For the warm colors, we chose five bold batiks:

See all of our Batiks here and here.

What grabs you, the cool or the warm colorway? 

A Few Good Flannels

Let's face it--finding great flannels can be tricky. You want them to be cute, in colors you like (especially for baby or kids' quilts), and you definitely want them to be high quality--soft to the touch. 

We've got 31 answers to your flannel search with our new Cuddle Prints.

First, it's all about dots:

Who doesn't love a good dot? The Cuddle Print Flannels include tonal pin dots, multicolor confetti dots, and larger white dots, all in a variety of bright candy colors. The hardest part? Narrowing down which ones to use!

For a little more variety, add in some novelty flannels: farm animals, oh-so-trendy owls, construction equipment, and friendly cats. Pair them with the dotted flannels for a full palette.

Try these prints out in our free Baby Talk quilt pattern, which you can find here.

See the entire Cuddle Print Flannel collection here and ask for these soft prints at your local quilt shop.

Perfect Precuts: Snack Packs

We've been mentioning Snack Packs a lot recently on the blog but haven't really officially introduced them to you. We're very excited about them--there's nothing like precut fabric strips to make a quick project even quicker! All bundled up in one handy package--just grab, go, and sew! 

Our snack packs contain forty-two 2-1/2" wide strips of fabric from a particular collection. While there are plenty of patterns for precut strips available either online, in quilt shops, in magazines, or in books, we've got a nice little collection of free downloadable pdfs here on the blog as well. 

See the tab above that says "Free Quilt Patterns"? That's where you'll find our Snack Pack quilt patterns and other freebies, and we'll be adding to it periodically.

If your local quilt shops isn't carrying our Snack Packs, ask them to so you can get started!


Here's a list of some of our fabric collections currently available in Snack Packs:

Autumn in the Forest

Baby Talk

Bella by Ro Gregg

Bella Casa

Black, White and Neutral  (Tone on Tone)

Christmas Basics

Leather

Marblehead by Ro Gregg

Marblehead Pleasing Pastels by Ro Gregg

Old Glory (Tone on Tone)

Season's Greetings

Vibe by Ro Gregg

Ode to Paisley

Paisley is so easy to love, isn't it?!

Here are two odes to paisley, one by Patti Masterman and featured on Poemhunter.com, 

and another (a little more tongue-in-cheek) by us.

Paisley World

by Patti Masterman

We can live in a paisley world,
Of colors, all mixed up in swirls.
We can hide in the subterfuge,
Blend in with the curling hues.

For some reverse and some contain
Patterns, to confound the brain.
Some double back, the very same way,
And some are mute, and some delayed.

We won't talk so they won't hear
Words between us, that make clear
A paisley world is best for us;
But plaid works just as well, I trust. 

(Source: Poemhunter.com)

And our attempt:

Paisley, a traditional beauty with classic lines!

From your rounded body to your pointy tail, 

overlapping with curlicues and leaves, 

how we love thee! 

 All that poetry to introduce classic soon-to-be-favorite fabric collection, Lauren. 

In all seriousness, though, we do love a good paisley pattern, and we think you'll love this new line with paisleys and more!

Deep greens and rich reds play together in paisleys and coordinating prints, perfect for your next project. 

A spotlight on a few of our particular favorites:

See close-ups of all the fabrics in this collection here.

We have two free quilt patterns featuring Lauren to share with you:

Download a free pattern for Sue Harvey and Sandy Boobar's Lauren quilt here on our website.

Are 2-1/2" wide strip quilt patterns more your style? You're in luck! We have one of those too, called Paisley Peaks, also by Sue and Sandy, using the Lauren Snack Pack: forty-two 2-1/2" wide strips from this gorgeous collection. Click here to download the free pattern. (You'll find additional Snack Pack quilt patterns on this page too!)

Shadow Play

Ask any quilter--you can never have too many blender fabrics. And even better? Blenders with rich texture and depth, which will add interest to your project. 

We're excited to share our new Shadows collection, comprised of 40 different prints. 

That's 10 different colors x 4 patterns for so much variety that you won't know where to start!

Each of the patterns has a leafy, organic feel to it and layers several values of color. We've divided them out by pattern to show you:

In addition to being fantastic blender options to go with your favorite focal prints, you can use the Shadow collection on its own. 

Choose all 4 prints from one colorway to play with value, like these blue and orange swatches below:

Or use many of the colors in the various patterns to create a rainbow beauty, like this Monkey Wrenches pattern from Airborne Heirlooms. 

Find this free downloadable pattern, which uses the Shadows Snack Pack (2-1/2" wide pre-cut strips of each color), here.

See the entire Shadows collection here.