Spring Quilt Market 2011: More Michael Miller
In addition to its own prints, Michael Miller also has a number of designers working with them, both old favorites and some new additions.
First up, two beachy collections.
Mark Hordyszynski, a prolific fabric designer and author, showed his new marine animal and hula girl collection. The collection includes both fabric and embroidery patterns and will be out at the end of summer/early fall.
Given the recent discussions on diversity in quilting fabric, it was wonderful to see these little hula girls in whole range of skin tones:
Emily of Crazy Old Ladies debuted her first collection for Michael Miller called Going Coastal. Emily, who is neither crazy, nor old, won first place for a single booth! While sitting in Emily’s booth I could swear I could feel the salty ocean spray of the beach house she recreated.
Going Coastal will be arriving in stores later this summer and you can see the whole collection here.
After leaving Emily’s beach house, I wandered over to Patty Young‘s Grand Bazaar. Patty (of ModKid fame) has a new collection of 26 new prints in vibrant jewel tones. The fabric is a premium cotton shirting fabric and is unbelievably soft.
Patty also introduced a collection of jacquard ribbons that coordinate with the fabrics in “Grand Bazaar.”
You can view the whole fabric line here and the coordinating ribbons here.
Sandi Henderson had a gorgeous booth featuring her new collection Secret Garden, which comes in three colorways, Tea Time Garden, Sunset Garden, and Midnight Garden.
Here is a snippet of Tea Time Garden. I adore the key print in these greys and greens.
Here is the whole collection:
And a shot of Sandi’s inviting booth:
You can find swatches of the whole collection on Sandi’s site.
Next to Sandi was Sarah Jane, who also was showing her first fabric collection with Michael Miller at this market. Sarah, a complete doll, is a talented illustrator who sells prints, embroidery patterns, and paper dolls in her Etsy store.
Sarah’s work was new to me, but I bet many of you are familiar with her illustrations, which capture the everyday joys of being a little kid. Sarah’s collection, Children at Play, similarly focuses on these moments and is quite simply, too cute for words. There are bicycles, and hopscotch, and graph paper, and rockets.
You can see the whole collection on Sarah Jane’s blog.
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Thanks for all the roundups! One thing I noticed is the scale of some of these big prints – a lot of Sandi Henderson’s and Patty Young’s seem bigger than I expected from other online glimpses.
Hooray for the Hula girls!
What an amazing collection of fabrics you have here. All sorts of colours, and styles. Brilliant!
I’d love to know more about the discussion of diversity in quilting. Do you have any links?
I love all the collections you share.
I’m curious how an individual can find out the type of cotton a design is printed on. I love that Patty Young’s new line is on a shirting fabric, that will be perfect for the dresses I sew. How do I find out which other designers offer lines on similar fabrics? There are so many great fabrics out there but my local shop is small so I end up ordering online. That means I can’t feel the fabrics prior to purchasing.
Rachel- I am sure Kim will have additional thoughts on this question, but here is my two cents. The manufacturer’s websites are chock full of information about the different substrates that a line will be printed on. Often you can find a “line sheet” that has a list of all the prints and the fabrics they are printed on. The designers themselves are also a great resource for this information. Many of the designers have been pushing for additional fabric choices, so you will see them emphasizing the availability of voile, oilcloth, quilter cotton, etc. Finally, on many of the bigger fabric shop websites you can sort by fabric type. I agree though, that it can be hard to know exactly what you are getting with a particular substrate when you shop on line. I am in the same boat as you. You may want to call a store and ask them to send you a swatch so you can feel prior to purchasing. Many stores will do this for a small charge (or no charge) and it may help you end up with what you actually want.