Last friday there was exactly one month left of summer, till the September equinox marks the beginning of Autumn.  It was a good day to celebrate summer by having a visit from Julie Popa, the designer behind the Sunshine Serenade fabric collection, Sunflower Hill Designs patterns, and books such as Young at Heart Quilts and A Fresh Look at Seasonal Quilts.  Our customers were able to have a little discussion session with Julie and her fabulous mom Yvonne, where we learned all about Julie’s design process, her inspirations, and her future plans.  Their big task for the day was choosing a winner of our block contest in which local quilters made blocks using Sunshine Serenade fabric.  Glory and prizes went to Loenza for her basket block!

Though not usually a fan of baskets, Loenza thought the fabric called for it, and Julie & Yvonne agreed.  They loved the stripes, the engaging effect of the yo-yo flowers and leaves, and thought the 3-D appliqued butterfly gave it the fun the fabric was meant to inspire.  (It’s not obvious in the photo, but the butterfly is attached as though it was a real butterfly landing on the basket.)  We were truly impressed with the creativity of all the block contest entries and are so proud of our imaginative customers!  And we are especially lucky to have Julie and her talent nearby to encourage us in our drive to create. Thanks to everyone for making it a great day!

Working with new sewists is one of the most exciting things we get to do at Suppose.  Evelyn recently taught a youth beginning sewing class and by the time they were done the girls had nearly all finished their own quilts! Check out these proud little darlings.

It was so much fun to have Kelly, Kayla, Kristin, and Anna-Marie in the classroom.  These girls are on their way to great things!

Some really amazing fabric collections have been coming in lately, especially The Morris Workshop by Barbara Brackman for Moda.  Being fans of great design in every form, whether it be textiles, architecture, fashion, interiors, print, or whatever, we were anxious to get these William Morris reproduction prints.  William Morris played a large part in the the Arts & Crafts movement in the late 1800s, which continues to influence all areas of design today.

Moda gives us a little more background on WM and this fabric collection:

William Morris had great influence on late-19th century design.  He and his circle of poets, architects, and painters sought a pre-Renaissance or “Pre-Raphaelite” aesthetic inspired by a simpler past.  Inspirations included Celtic manuscript illustration, Arabic architecture, medieval tapestries, and at the very heart–a reverence for nature.

In flat yet complicated pattern Morris hoped to interpret the flowers and birds in his garden with “force, purity, and elegance of the silhouette.”  Scornful of the industrial revolution and England’s factories, he created a firm based on the old-fashioned workshop in which men and women hand-crafted embroidery, tapestries and fabric in traditional vegetable dyes such as indigo and madder.

The designs in our second collection of Morris reproductions were originally meant for wallpapers, book bindings, and woven fabrics as well as printed cottons.  Morris designed several himself.  One is from the hand of Kate Faulkner who worked with Morris in the firm’s early years, the 1870s.  Two were by his major design partner, John Henry Dearle, who began as an assistant when he was a boy and took over the firm’s art direction after Morris’ death in 1896.

“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”  William Morris, 1882.

William Morris wrote, illustrated and printed books for his Kelmscott Press.  This wood-block print by his close friend Edward Burne-Jones for Morris’ poem The Earthly Paradise appears to represent trading fabric for treasure, an age-old exchange.

Here you can see, side-by-side, Morris’ original Acanthus wallpaper from 1875, and the Acanthus print from the 2009 Moda collection.  Quilt historian and designer has done amazingly with this collection.

Jennifer has an intricate appliqued pillow in the works with this collection, and we’re all just slobbering over the bolts coming up with ideas for them. These are a couple of my favorite prints. The colors in this collection mimic the natural dyes Morris used, and the prints have the scrolling lines and nature’s creatures that are typical of classic Morris wallpapers.  See the entire collection here.

What would you make out these?

I think we are finally recovered from the excitement of Preston’s rodeo weekend.  We had a blast seeing old friends and family and meeting so many visitors.  During each of the three nights of rodeo there is a parade, for which we had grand schemes of constructing a ginormous sewing machine, but we ran into a few obstacles along the way.  At least we had our adorable cowgirl and cowboy representing us in the parade.  Sienna and Quinn are grandkids of our dear staff member Deonna. Can you even handle how cute they are on their horses with custom saddle blankets and rump banners from Suppose fabric?

We just couldn’t get enough of these cute kids.  They are just 5 and 10 and watching them handle those large horses was pretty impressive.  They even did a hat trick as they rode! We used Blue Ikat from Westrade on Quinn’s horse and Houndstooth in Black and Nosegay in Lime from Summer Soiree for Sienna’s horse.

Rodeo was also the perfect time to show off the Cowbaby Quilt, as it has been dubbed.

Staff member Jennifer made this quilt with vintage style cowboy prints and 1800s reproduction shirtings. Her mother Evelyn, who is also part of the Suppose staff family, quilted it with a rope-like pattern that reminds us of lassos.  The pattern is from the Material Obsession and we are antsy to make more quilts from this killer book!