Summer Blush Blog Tour - Week 2

It's week two of the Summer Blush blog tour and today's featured artist is my fellow Riley Blake designer Bev from Flamingo Toes. Bev came up with a brand new quilt pattern to show off the fabrics and I can't be more in love with it! Her photos are absolutely stunning too.

The pattern is called 'Stacking Stars' and is a 10" stacker (aka layer cake) friendly pattern - you can purchase the PDF in Bev's shop. The beautiful long arm quilting was done by Julie's Longarm Quilting Service in Nashville, USA.

Thank you so much Bev for taking part! Here's the blog tour schedule so you can see who else is sewing with Summer Blush - 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!

My New Book: 'Zakka Home'

Those of you following me on Facebook and Instagram would have seen me sharing some sneak peeks from my new book Zakka Home, published by Tuva Publishing. I received my author copies a few days ago and I cannot be more thrilled with it! I'm so, so very proud of this book.

Here's what's on the back cover: 'Zakka is a Japanese design aesthetic that combines usefulness with beauty and style. In this book, Sedef Imer has created a collection of 19 simple, pretty, and handy projects inspired by the art of Zakka to help organize and beautify your home. Suitable for all levels of sewists, you will be inspired by these fun and easy-to-sew projects that will brighten and adorn your home.' 

For those of you not familiar with the term 'Zakka', it's a Japanese word that literally means 'many things', 'sundries', or simply put, 'stuff'! During Japan's post war economic boom it was typically used to describe everyday mundane objects. The use of the phrase has evolved over the decades - today 'Zakka' describes a design style that combines usefulness with beauty. If a mundane, everyday object is made with love and gives you joy and happiness - it's Zakka!

 'Zakka' style has been a huge influence in my sewing journey to date and I was thrilled to have the opportunity to create some pretty AND useful things for the home in this book - I'm a complete homebody and there's nowhere I'm happier than when I'm at home, with my family. So here are some of the projects from the book to give you a glimpse of what's inside.

Zakka Home is currently in distribution and comes out in all major online retailers and quilt stores in October. In the mean time I have a very limited number of signed advance copies available in my shop, if you simply couldn't wait to get your hands on it!

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!