quilt market trends: embroidery
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.
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.
Tags: aneela hoey, anna maria horner, penguin & fish, sarah jane