Cherry Blossom

Cherry Blossoms...pale, delicate flowers that explode into bloom, heralding the spring season. Gorgeous, aren't they?

Image: www.tokyotimes.com

Cherry Blossoms...a delicate, Asian-inspired new fabric line, available in quilt shops now. 

Gorgeous, aren't they?

These fabrics would also work really well in Marinda Stewart's Shimmering Bouquets quilt!

Make Cherry Blossom season last all year long!

• Visit the Brooklyn Botanic Garden website to see a time-lapse video created from over 3000 digital photos (1 every 3 minutes over an 8-day period!) of their Cherry Walk. 
• Visit our website to see the entire Cherry Blossom collection close up and find a shop near you carrying the fabrics!

Or, to see the actual flowers blooming, mark your calendar for next April:
National Cherry Blossom Festival and Parade (Washington, D.C.)
The Bloom of Cherry Blossoms (map of different areas in Japan)
Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival
Cherry Blossom Festival (Macon, GA)

(These are just a few--you can likely find festivals in your area of the country by using your friendly Google search!)

You know you're a quilter when...

You have a decal like one of these on your car!

Bonus points if it's a front license plate!

Now we'd like you to fill in the blank (leave a comment):
You know you're a quilter when ___________________________.
And, even better, if you have a photo to share, email it to us at fabriquiltblog (at) gmail.com and we'll share it here on the blog.

Trompe L'Oeil

Trompe l'oeil: French for "deceive the eye," this is how Marinda Stewart describes her kimono quilt, "Shimmering Kimono," made using the Shimmering Bouquets collection. 

Why? Because the quilt looks like the back of an actual kimono spread out, complete with the illusion of depth and a dimensional folded collar.

"Shimmering Kimono" by Marinda Stewart;
featured in Quilt Trends magazine, Summer 2013 issue

Marinda talked to us about her kimono quilt, a concept that she has used in the past for quilts, and one that we think she employed very successfully here!

Q. What inspired you to make this art quilt?

Marinda: I've always liked a kimono as an art object and I thought it'd be interesting to do what looks like a real kimono hung but is actually a 2-D quilt. It's a fun format to play with—you could do a whole series of kimonos.

Q. Talk to us about the Shimmering Bouquets fabrics.

Marinda: Shimmering Bouquets struck me as being kind of an Asian sensibility. With large-scale prints, the last thing you want to do is cut them up. The line has large tropical florals, and then a print that reminded me of a men's ties. Another print with bias curves reminded me of the work of Koos van den Akker. And then there were tonal florals. The kimono idea seemed like a perfect way to pull these prints together into a cohesive design.

Q. What makes the construction of this quilt unique?

Marinda: I prefer projects without templates. In this project, you're freehand drawing serpentine lines, laying one fabric on top of another, turning it under and topstitching. It looks more complicated than it really is. The hardest part is creating the triangular pieces [the ''front'' edges of the kimono]; you just have to align your edges so it looks like a kimono hung from the back with the front edges showing.

Q. What made you choose yellow as the background color?

Marinda: I've always loved gray and yellow—like pussy willows and forsythia. Or birch bark and daffodils—the cool/warm playoff. The yellow lightens and brightens the quilt up.

Q. How do you envision this quilt being displayed?
Marinda: When I designed it, I thought this quilt could be really handsome. I could see it hung in a very modern room as an art piece with a low table and a single orchid plant in bloom, plus a few pieces of mercury glass.

Find the kit for the project here.

See the entire Shimmering Bouquets collection here.

Find Quilt Trends here.

The Quest for 1 Million

American Patchwork & Quilting's 1 Million Pillowcase Challenge is still going strong, and they're so close to the halfway point! You can find out more about the Challenge here.

Their website has patterns for more than 30 different pillowcase designs, and we thought we'd show you a few of our favorites, made with our fabrics. We've included the links for each featured pattern below the photo so you can pop over to the All People Quilt website, download the pdf, and get sewing!

The Bubbles Applique Band, featuring Calypso Frogs:

 Find the pattern here.

The Spools Pillowcase, featuring Lady in Red:

 Find the pattern here. 

A cute Appliqued Train pillowcase pattern, done up here in Calypso Frogs.

Find the pattern here. 

A Log Cabin Band done in Marblehead prints.

Find the pattern here.

A Four-patch band featuring Peggy Sue:

 Find the pattern here.

A Cottage in the Forest applique, done in Garden Whimsy.

Find the pattern here.

A Churn Dash Band, also featuring Garden Whimsy:

Find the pattern here.

Have you made a pillowcase for the Challenge? Let us know!

Friends of Fabri-Quilt: Shortcuts with Marblehead

Are you thinking about what do sew for the Marblehead Challenge? Today we're serving up some more inspiration, courtesy of Will Simpson from the quilt shop Quilting Around in Weatherford, TX. 

Will used the "Walk About" pattern by Ann Lauer of Grizzly Gulch Gallery to showcase the pre-printed Marblehead blocks, and then used one of the smaller Marblehead prints in the border. Quick work with great results!  

Will says: "The pre-printed tile squares add interest without the 'trouble' of applique. Picking the red to contrast was easy--it matches the tiles perfectly. I just love this pattern for the ease; I'm all about easy quilts that have nice visual impact!"

The two main prints Will used:

And a few close-ups of the quilt, machine quilted with a Celtic Knot design:

Here are a couple more Marblehead quilts Will has made, both using pre-printed strip yardage. 

Red, black and white, using the Marblehead stripe featured in the Fashionista collection.

The pre-printed stripe:

Pieced blocks with minimal piecing!

And the earth-tone pre-printed stripe from the original Marblehead collection. 

Made from this:

Thanks so much to Will for sharing his quilts!

What could you do with Marblehead? 

Shimmering Bouquets

One constant around here at Fabri-Quilt/Paintbrush Studio is our love of Asian-themed collections, and we think Shimmering Bouquets is a beauty!

What sets it apart? 

For one, the use of gray as the neutral color. It creates a fresh, clean palette base the compliments the reds, greens and golds.

Look at the "swirl" that winds through several of the prints--beautiful!

The layering of the colors and patterns in this print makes it look almost like a batik. 

Quite possibly the neatest print in the collection! It has a crazy quilt or stained glass look with swirly dividers. Perfect for a quilt back or pillowcases--how could you bear to cut it up?!

Some great texture, again keeping in the swirl style.

Ask for Shimmering Bouquets in your local quilt shop! 

You'll also find it featured in a unique wall hanging in a summer issue of a quilting magazine; we'll keep you posted when it comes out!

It started with an elephant...

Designing the booth for Quilt Market is one of the really fun parts of the job. 

Last week, we offered a sneak peek at one of our new fabric lines debuting at Market, Mystic Forest, and some of the decorations for the booth that it inspired. Today, we'll give you the whole booth tour.

The booth featured Mystic Forest in its three different colorways/themes:

• Elephants in orange, magenta, pink and lime
• Monkeys in blue, pink, purple and lime
• Bears in blue, yellow, orange and lime

As well as some fun quilts and projects featuring Marblehead Global Brights and Pleasing Pastels.

Now on to your tour!

The front of the booth, with a cool purple tree growing circular Marblehead "leaves," and plenty of projects made from the bear colorway of Mystic Forest. Do you recognize Jessica Toye's Sunset Boulevard Marblehead quilt hanging from a branch? 

A closer look--check out that beehive! We love the huge flower floor pillow too.

On to the elephant corner:

"Pinwheels and Pachyderms" designed by Sue Harvey and Sandy Boobar of Pine Tree Country Quilts, accompanied by a coordinated painted elephant.  

"Elephant Parade," also by Sue and Sandy

  Don't you love how these fabrics look in children's clothes and accessories?

Two quilts from the monkey colorway:

"Block Party Chenille" by Judy Hansen
We'll have more on this quilt later in the year...mod chenille...

Did you have (or make) a yo-yo clown when you were a child? We had a few Marblehead Global Brights yo-yo figures in the booth.

And there's our booth! Please leave a comment if you have a question about any of the patterns you see in these photos. You'll definitely be seeing some of them again, and we'll let you know where and when!