We're so excited to share our two newest fabric collections, Aurora and Sunset! This beautiful muted rainbow medley of fabrics was designed by Deb for Island Batik by Lumin fabrics. Why two collections? Because when we received the fabrics to make our selections, we couldn't decide on just one! We'll talk more about that in a bit.
What can you expect over the next couple of weeks? Gorgeous projects from our Certified Instructors, brand new patterns written just for these collections, and old favorites reimagined to inspire you.
How do we come up with a fabric collection? It starts with Deb deciding on colors that inspire her. We also create tjaps, the prints that are on the fabrics, that we feel work with the colors she's chosen. We send our proposal to Island batik, who turns our ideas into strike offs. These are small sections of fabric dyed with our colors and stamped with the tjaps. From those strike offs we choose our collection.
As you can see here, there are hundreds of fabrics that we have to narrow down to just twenty-two choices!
Once we started going through the strike offs for this collection we noticed we were pulling both warm and cool choices. Two separate and distinct collections began to emerge.
We ended up with Aurora, cool blues greens, and purples, and Sunset, warmer pinks, reds, yellows, and oranges. We were thrilled when Island Batik accepted both collections to be produced!
Let's take a look at some of the old favorites we remade in Aurora. Links was originally published in 2014 with traditional colors. It uses the Rapid Fire® Lemoyne Star, Tucker Trimmer® III, and Wing Clipper® I tools. Here it is in Aurora, a brand new look for a classic pattern.
Smooth Jazz is a beloved quilt that uses Banded Lemoyne Stars in a unique and unusual way. Half of the banded points are reversed to come up with this spiky star that is simple and stunning. This quilt requires the Rapid Fire® Lemoyne Star and Tucker Trimmer® III tools.
For Sunset we went with one of our most popular patterns, Switchback. This braided style bed or table runner is easily made with the Tucker Trimmer® I and Wing Clipper® I tools.
Spinning Pinwheels, written for the Tucker Trimmer® I, gets a sophisticated upgrade in Sunset. Originally made in pretty pastels, the warm tones of Sunset with a dark background elevate this beautiful quilt.
When we set out to make this collection, we were going for a muted rainbow, but two distinct collections developed. And we think if you combine them together you'll have a stunning array of fabrics perfect for any project!
That was the challenge we gave to our Certified Instructors for this blog hop. We asked them to choose a BlockBuster block and make one version in Aurora, and the other in Sunset. Some of the CIs also combined the two collections in a third block for inspiration. We can't wait for you to see what they came up with!
Be sure to follow along throughout the next couple of weeks to see everything we have to share with you for Aurora and Sunset!
Friday September 19th: Studio 180 Design Kickoff
Monday September 22nd: Tracey Stinger of The Busy Bee Quilter
Tuesday September 23rd: Virginia Gibbons of Fabric, Thread, and Stitches
Wednesday September 24th: Terrie Welch of Quilter's Journey
Thursday September 25th: Zhi Jones of Jolly Jones Quilts
Friday September 26th: Becky Malarski of Sew Wise Quilter
Monday September 29th: Kathy Tucker of K&S Quilt Artistry
Tuesday September 30th: Tina Dillard of Quilting Affection Designs
Wednesday October 1st: Diana Mann of Murgaboo Quilts
Thursday October 2nd: Studio 180 Design Wrap Up
We will be posting projects daily on Facebook and Instagram. Like and follow so you don't miss any of the upcoming projects and quilts! Aurora and Sunset are arriving in shops now.
