Summer Blush Blog Tour - Week 1

Today we are kicking off the blog tour for my new range 'Summer Blush' with the lovely Saija, a very talented quilter from Finland! Saija makes the most incredible modern quilts that truly stand out with their bold pattern and colour combinations. If you don't believe me just check out her Instagram feed - so quilty, so modern, so colourful, and just so, so very lovely.

She made this stunning quilt using a pattern by Emily Dennis called 'Cross Tile' - you can purchase it here. How great does the scrappy binding look?!! I really need to use it more often in my own quilts.

Saija also made a cute little frame purse using the red and white prints from the range. Functional AND sweet!

Summer Blush is now available in the US and about to arrive in Europe and Australia - stockist info here. Here's the blog tour schedule so you can see what's yet to come - I'll be sharing some of my own makes as well as a freebie (or two!) on the last day of the tour!

Aug 31 - Saija Kiiskinen, Pomada, @saija_elina
Sep 7 - Beverly McCullough, Flamingo Toes, @flamingotoes
Sep 14 - Christopher Thompson, The Tattooed Quilter, @the_tattooed_quilter
Sep 21 - Sedef Imer, Down Grapevine Lane, @downgrapevinelane 

Thank you for visiting and have a lovely day!

'Meet the Makers' Quilt Along

Riley Blake Designs have just kicked off a new quilt-along to make this delicious quilt, featuring Riley Blake Confetti Cottons - I love the pops of colour!

If you would like to make the quilt in the same colours, quilt kits are available at Riley Blake stockists worldwide. Each week Riley Blake will be featuring one block from the quilt, including a video tutorial that will walk you through the steps of each block. Block 1 instructions are now up on the Riley Blake blog!

I will be sewing along with my Summer Blush fabrics - here's my first block! I'm using Riley Blake Confetti Cottons in 'Ballerina' for the background - such a delicious soft pink that works really well with Summer Blush.

If you decide to join the sew along, please use the tags #meetthemakersquilt #meetthemakers #RBDmaker on your social media posts so we can see what you are making and follow your progress!

'Summer Blush' Overview & Stockists

My new fabric collection Summer Blush has started arriving at stores in the US! Won't be long before it reaches European and Australian shores. I wanted to take the opportunity to show you some photos of the different prints and colorways in this range, and also share my inspiration behind it and give you a little peek into my fabric design process.

When I design a fabric range my starting point is always an inspiration board. It depicts a vision and a mood that helps unify the collection and I pull the colour palette and design elements from it. This was my inspiration board for Summer Blush (all images are from Pinterest). I wanted the collection to have this 'vibe' - vibrant, summery, and delicious - reminiscent of summer garden parties! The colours are inspired by summer fruits - watermelon and strawberry shades, apricot and peach, and juicy green grapes.

There are three colorways in the full collection - here's the pink/red colorway:

The apricot/peach colorway:

And the green colorway:

In terms of the prints there are four different floral prints - because like Monet, 'I must have flowers, always, and always'. There's also a scattered leaf print, and two geometric blenders including my favourite for binding - bias stripes.

I've started compiling a list of stockists who are (or will soon be) carrying this range. If you are aware of any shops that I've missed out please do let me know (especially any in Europe and Canada, as I have a lot of people asking me)! I will keep updating this list over the course of the next few months.

SUMMER BLUSH STOCKISTS

United States:

My Heritage Fabrics
Fat Quarter Shop
Fabric.com
The Cotton Patch
Corn Wagon Quilts
Redlands Sewing Center
Fabric Depot
Huckleberry Quilting
Stacks of Stash
Quilter's Cupboard
Quilter's Dream
Grome's
Alfa Star
Crimson Confection
Cooper Stitches
Heart & Hand Dry Goods
Catching Stitches
Tillalilli
International Sewing Supply
Fabric Farm
Quilt Etc
Simple Stitches Sewing School

Australia: 

Fabric Pixie
Kornacraft
The Quilter's Closet

I hope you like 'Summer Blush' as much as I do! Thanks for visiting and have a lovely day!

Friendship Quilt Along

Life has been such a huge juggling act for me the last few months - what with finishing a new book, designing a new fabric line, promotions for my new collection that's hitting stores any day now, and the usual commitments that come with running a house with two young kids (and a third much older one :-p ) I've been in headless chicken mode! I'm sooo looking forward to things returning back to a normal level of 'crazy busy' soon - I mean let's face it, it's never really quiet and peaceful when you have two young kids and a farm to run, is it?

Despite all this busy-ness I simply had to join in on a lovely quilt along that's taking place right now. It's called 'Friendship' and is hosted by the lovely Amanda Herring, a fellow fabric designer for Riley Blake. I wish I had the time to take the whole quilt (which is gorgeous! You can see it here.) But I only had enough time to make this block, which is called 'Empathetic' - it's an applique block and one of my faves in the whole quilt. The sweet florals I used are from my new range Summer Blush.

I confess I struggled to make the stem as per the pattern instructions - mine turned out quite wonky. So I just cut a stem piece slightly larger than finished size (which I worked out from the pattern), backed it with fusible web, cut it to down to the precise stem size, and machine appliqued it on - so essentially the same method that I used for the leaves.

 I love the concept of this quilt-along, which is all about attributes of friendship and bringing friends together in a project of love. Isn’t that what the quilting community is all about?  To find out more about the quilt along and get the templates go to Amanda's blog. Thanks for visiting today!

Strawberry Pincushions in 'Summer Blush'

We're literally counting down the days before my new collection Summer Blush starts shipping to stores - and I couldn't be any more excited! The last few days I've been busy making two new quilts featuring this collection (which I can't yet share) and using the precious scraps to make strawberry pincushions (which I can!).

I used my free strawberry pincushion tutorial to make these sweeties - I thought strawberries would be a lovely fit with these fabrics given that summer fruit (peaches, apricots, watermelon and of course strawberries) was a major inspiration for this collection!

Summer Blush will be available in local quilt shops and fabric stores from August - ask for it at your local shop if you would like to get your hands on some!