It always seems like we need at least a week to recover from Quilt Market. The days with hardly any sleep, meeting SO many new people and catching up with old friends… not to mention the quilts! In the next few days we’ll fill in more details of all the exciting things happening in the world of fabric, but I wanted to at least share a few photos of the good stuff we saw that we’ll be bringing into the shop!
As we await the release of our feature in Quilt Sample Magazine (since you asked–it’s out May 8), we are marking our countdown on the 10th of each month and celebrating being named a top 10 quilt shop by sharing a tutorial or pattern. Last month it was our heart bunting, and this month it’s my beloved On Parade Mini Quilt, featuring Sarah Jane’s On Parade embroidery.
We’ve even got kits with everything you’ll need, right down to the floss and the batting. This quilt has made me smile more than most quilts I’ve ever made, and I hope you enjoy it too! View the instructions here.
Well, it’s taken about a week to recover from Quilt Market. During that recovery we chatter a lot about the trends we see at market. There was the first market to showcase organic fabrics, the market we saw SO many owl prints, and this time we predicted lots of butterfly prints (which we did see). But best of all we noticed that hand-stitching is really taking over!
Last market Lizzy House debuted embroidery patterns to coordinate with her Castle Peeps line. And now there’s the increasing success of embroidery artists Aneela Hoey of Comfort Stitching & Alissa Thomas of Penguin & Fish, who both showed new embroidery & fabric lines at market.
Penguin & Fish "Golden" hand embroidery pattern
Then there’s the debut of new artists at quilt market, like Sarah Jane (who we mentioned in previous posts). Her charming embroidery patterns are the perfect complement to her new fabric line Children at Play, really emphasizing the innocence and joy of childhood. (Watch for them here in a month or so!)
Sarah Jane "3 Little Birds" hand embroidery pattern
And of course there’s Anna Maria Horner’s new foray into needleworks, with a range of embroidery floss, Aida cloth, embroidery patterns, and cross-stitch inspired prints coming out this Fall. I covert this dress we posted previously, that has a stunning cross-stitched belt and hand-quilted bodice.
Anna Maria Horner's french knots
Anna Maria Horner's hand embroidery
There is something so appealing about the texture of hand-stitching, and the time and care it takes adds to the lure and impressiveness of each piece. I’m so excited to see a surge in the popularity of hand embroidery, and you can bet you’ll keep seeing more about it here. In the mean time, if you’ve got the urge to stitch something check out our Poppies Embroidery Project.
