As the Frog Turns
Live Laugh Sew
Mary on Lake Pulaski
Gentle Home
Hiccupings
My Empty Nest Is Full of Cat Hair
Quilty Goodness
ThimbleNest
Karamat Designs
Stacy Stitches
Quilting Barbie
r0ssie
Mom Loves 2 Quilt
Quiet Observations of the Obsessive Mind
Piecelove
Our Busy Little Girls (Aikemas)
Blempgorf
Tara @ Home Again
April
Sadie Fox Favs of 2009
Fabgrandma
Solomon Sewing
WORDS and WORKS (españa)
Fabrics I Love
Biggiwink
My Watercolor Dreams
Splendid Misconduct
Little Miss Shabby
Vicki @ Sew Inspired
~Michelles Musings~
Boston Sewer
Simple Things
Quilt Sandwich
Ericas Essential Suchness
Crafty Natalie
Kitty Kitty Crafts
Tara Lee
Anodyne Design
Corentine a touche from Paris
craftytammie
My Lily Eden
Tobelina’s World
Love Maddy
Pick n Stitch
MeaganGracie
Threads of Conversation
Stitchbirds
Wee Wonderfuls
Craft Mobb
Stitching Pinks
PJs Handmade Blog Tour

… and a handful posted their lists on the True Up Facebook Group.

Thanks, everyone! Let’s do it again next year!

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Tags: favorite fabrics 2009 | Category: Annual Best-Ofs

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2009 was a fabulous year for fabric. I’ve gone on all year about my favorites — now I want to hear about yours. But you know I couldn’t simply launch a meme for its own sake — I had to sweeten the pot a little! We’ll be giving away $25 gift certificates from True Up sponsors to participants every day through January 15.

Knowing what exactly qualifies is tricky, so I’ve tried to make it a little easier. I’ve kept an archive* on Flickr here. (You can also browse True Up posts in the Fabrics 2009 category.) Below, I’ve listed more than 20 categories that you might use:

- Favorite Quilting Weight Cotton Collection
- Favorite Home Decor Weight Fabric or Collection
- Favorite Under the Radar/Sleeper Collection
- Favorite Digitally Printed Fabric
- Favorite Handprinted Fabric
- Favorite Trend (Motifs)
- Favorite Trend (Colors)
- Biggest Fabric World Story/News
- Favorite Overall Designer
- Favorite New Designer
- Favorite Novelty Print
- Favorite Floral Print
- Favorite Geometric Print
- Favorite Print from [Country of Your Choice]
- Favorite Organic Print or Collection
- Favorite Holiday Fabric or Collection
- Favorite Juvenile Print: Boys, Girls
- Favorite Reproduction Print or Collection
- Favorite Solid/Nonprinted
- Favorite Fabric Shop
- Favorite New Fabric You Worked With in 2009
- Wildcard Category

To be eligible to win a gift certificate, simply follow these rules:

1. Pick your favorites in at least 10 categories, and post about them on your blog** by Friday, January 15. The list above is just a suggestion; you’re welcome to make up your own. Do your best to stick to fabrics that were first delivered to shops in 2009 — don’t worry, you won’t be disqualified for being a little off! Feel free to download my images from Flickr — just be sure to attribute the images to the manufacturers.

2. Somewhere in your post, link back here: http://www.trueup.net/?p=8500.

3. Post your link here.

Winners will be chosen randomly from the accumulated entries around lunchtime every day. Anyone in the world can enter. I’ll start picking as soon as the entries start rolling in. Please spread the word, and have fun! I can’t wait to hear about your favorites.

* The selection on Flickr is by no means exhaustive, of course — it sticks to the kind of fabric you typically see featured here, and is limited to commercial quilting, home dec, and apparel collections. Indie designer fabric and digital fabrics are a lot harder to pin down. I hope it’s a good start, though. Please let me know if you notice any glaring omissions.

Oh and, I listed the collections’ names on Flickr but it would have been way too much for little old me to include each individual print’s name and colorway. In most cases, though, that info is but a Google search away.

** Don’t have a blog? Hopefully you are on Facebook, or are willing to join just for this? There will be a place on the True Up Facebook Page to post your list. I’ll make sure your entry is counted.

If you’d like, you can grab the image at the top of this post. Here are some smaller sizes too:

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Tags: best of 2009, meme | Category: Annual Best-Ofs, Giveaways

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Favorite Blue Fabric: Blythe 27256-1 by Anna Griffin for Windham

Favorite Floral Collection: Robert Kaufman‘s Sofia pictured: Eggplant (above), Harvest (below)

Favorite Vintage Reproduction Collection: Come Quilt With Me by Pat Yamin for Marcus Brothers (ed. note: me too!)

Favorite 2008 Design (probably very inspired by an antique print): Kaffe Fassett’s Heraldic (above: Heraldic in the Ochre colorway). All the colorways are equally beautiful. So nice to see elaborate prints in the era of Illustrator and the like.

Favorite Under the Radar / Fabric for Boys: This race car print from Kei Fabrics

Favorite Detective Work by a Fabric Lover: My friend Mary’s discovery of this image from the NYPL Digital Gallery:

– an obvious source for this fabric, Rhapsody, from Baum Textiles.

{ Thank you so much, Rosa, and once again to all the Best of 2008 contributors! }

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Tags: best of 2008, retrosaria, rosa pomar | Category: Annual Best-Ofs

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Joelle Hoverson: Cake Rock Beach for Moda: I love the subtlety and quietness of this collection. The Net of Jewels solids, which use different colored yarns warpwise and weftwise, are wonderfully deep and saturated and happen to come in all my favorite colors. (previously blogged)

These sewing prints from Kei Fabrics and Kokka. I only ever saw these at Retrosaria — I would have thought these would be a HUGE hit and be more widely available!

Best Geometrics

One of my favorite developments in the fabric world in ’08 was the proliferation of basic geometric designs (polka dots, stripes, checks). It was great to see Lecien’s Color Basic and Kokka’s Putite Ecore Coordinates (multi-patterned geometric yardage) coming onto the market — now I just have to find shops that carry the Color Basics! I also loved the dots and net patterns in Joelle Hoverson’s Cake Rock Beach collection.

My favorite higher-end geometric print was the loop-de-looping Aspire from organic fabric company Mod Green Pod.

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Tags: best of 2008 | Category: Annual Best-Ofs

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My two favorite juvenile collections last year both did “gender neutral” in unique ways. Jackie Shapiro’s Sweetpea line for Windham used bold graphics in yellow (the traditional go-to gender neutral color) with orange, green, and red, and touches of pink and gray. There is enough variety in the collection to go completely neutral or skew to boy or girl.

Heather Ross‘ Rabbits and Race Cars was a small collection for Kokka printed on decor-weight cotton, with girl-leaning dancing animal and meadow prints, and boy-leaning car prints (the best car prints ever in the history of car prints, I might add). previously blogged)

Best Home Decor Collection

The quilting cotton industry is starting to recognize that sewists are using quilting cottons for far more than quilting. Westminster has led the way, rebranding themselves as “Lifestyle Fabrics” and producing a number of collections using heavier weight cottons and sateens for use in home decor, accessories, and even quilts and apparel. 2008 saw Anna Maria Horner’s Drawing Room, Amy Butler’s August Fields, Denyse Schmidt’s County Fair, and Joel Dewberry’s Ginseng, which were all spectacular. Alexander Henry also introduced some wonderful prints in their Fashion for Home collection: I flipped for Carolina and Heath.

However, my personal favorite is Jessica Jones’ Amusement Park for J.Caroline Creative (previously blogged), just because the simple graphics and colors exactly my style (plus, I have to hand it to any upstart indie fabric company!)

more 2008 best-ofs here.

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Tags: best of 2008, heather ross, home decor fabric, j. caroline creative, jackie shapiro, jessica jones, juvenile, westminster, windham | Category: Annual Best-Ofs

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Here’s my year-in-review of fabric news:

Amazon buys Fabric.com — I thought this would be a big deal, but nothing much changed as far as I can tell … Fabric.com has grown and you can buy some of their inventory through Amazon.

Westminster Adopting MAP Policy — the effects won’t be felt till next month, but the policy was announced late last year. Retailers are polarized. We’re still waiting for more details on how it will all work.

Spoonflower, Bonbon Kakku, and Ink and Spindle Launch — If you’re a fabric fan, you’ve no doubt dreamt up your own designs. 2008 saw the launch of three services that allow aspiring designers worldwide to realize their visions on fabric. Spoonflower, based in North Carolina, and Bonbon Kakku, based in Finland, offer digital printing, which allows unlimited color and scale options. Ink & Spindle (Australia) is an upstart fabric screenprinting studio. I&S is only producing and selling their own designs for the moment, but I think the plan for the future is to print other peoples’ designs as well. There are other digital fabric printers and screenprinters out there, but never before have they come from within, or are marketing specifically to, the online crafting community.

The CPSIA — I haven’t covered it much on this blog because it’s being done so well elsewhere: the Handmade Toy Alliance, Fashion Incubator, Etsy’s the Storque and forums, HarmonyArt, and many others. In short, if this legislation isn’t changed, it will kill hundreds if not thousands of small businesses that make children’s products, and the impact will absolutely be felt in the fabric world. This will certainly be the biggest story of 2009 too.

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Best Quilting Weight Cotton Collection — I absolutely am in love with Heather Ross’ Mendocino collection for FreeSpirit. I am an ocean gal myself and the “under-the-sea” motifs make me feel like a kid every time I see it. (Which is also why I’m so excited for Neptune by Tula Pink from Moda.) Bold colors, and unique color combinations really attract me, and this line really fit the bill. While I am not at all a quilter, when I do have moments of temporary insanity in which I think I might sew a quilt, I also think it will be out of Mendocino. (Then I come to my senses and realize it’ll never happen — I just can’t commit to a quilt.)

Joel Dewberry’s Ginseng in the Mulberry colorway

Best Home Decor Weight Collection: Hands-down Joel Dewberry’s Ginseng collection rocked my world in 2008. This year we saw lots of faux bois, birds and branches in textiles, and as a design element in general, but Joel really made it different, with rich, bold colors, stronger graphics and subtle aestheic that I think of as “Asian Fusion” — you know, like the restaurant trend. The canvas sateen from Westminster is a dream to work with as well. Joel is a designer who has delivered really amazing work in a very short period — I’m very excited to see what his next line will bring.

Best Under the Radar/Sleeper Collection: I am bummed that your first respondent beat me to the punch with Lush by Erin Michael. It is knock-your-socks off fun, and the colors are per-fect. It started appearing around here very late in the year, so I am guessing that more people will find out about with great line relatively quickly. I wonder, is this the elk/deer/wildlife trend that’s so big in Japan finally reaching American designers? If so, RAD! (Seriously, I am a sucker for whimsical wildlife images … )

Best Trend: As a garment sewer, I am thrilled to see more and more fabrics available that work for garments. For a long while it seemed like quilting fabric dominated the markets, and many of these were simply not appropriate for clothing. Now, it seems, many lines will work for a number of applications. For example this summer I made a tuxedo-style/pintucked shirt for Josh using a quilting fabric from Heather Ross‘ Lightning Bugs line. The tiny floral stripe worked beautifully for a shirt, and the quality of the fabric was as good as any shirting material out there. I am also excited to see loads more all-natural knits hitting the marketplace — at least here in Portland. Just a little over a year ago we searched high and low for a red jersey made from all-natural material (i.e. cotton, bamboo), and couldn’t find a yard in the entire city. Now every fabric store in town has multiple options. It’s great to see companies experimenting to create some wonderful knit — I’m particularly excited about soy jersey, as it feels very similar to silk and takes colors brilliantly.

Sugar Snap on the line by yummygoods, on Flickr

Best New Designer: Melissa Averinos, who created a fun, funky and feminine line of fabric for FreeSpirit called Sugar Snap. I can’t wait to see what else she develops, I feel like she has a youthful perspective on fabric design that is very refreshing.

Best Floral Print: I am LOVING Anna Maria Horner‘s “Sketchbook” and really regret not making something from it this year. I love the hand-drawn details of the flowers in combination with the birds. (I have a feeling the birds are going to continue as a big trend in textiles for 2009. They were everywhere this past year.) Anna Maria is a fine artist by training, and it shows through in this particular fabric more so than anything else I’ve seen. Sketchbook is a beautiful enough floral to forego sewing at all and mount a pattern repeat or two on the wall to enjoy for its own sake.

Best Japanese Print: Etsuko Furuya “Leopard” print from the Echino collection is one of the most captivating prints I saw all year. Captivating is a strange word to use, but it’s true — there’s something about this design that I felt compelled to study each time I saw it. The colors were bold, the fabric textured, the design intriguing. I would definitely label this fabric not only as my favorite Japanese Print, but also one of my top five prints in general for 2008.

{Thank you so much, Sarah!}

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Tags: best of 2008, sewer-sewist | Category: Annual Best-Ofs

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“Trio” from Timeless Treasures’ Taxi collection

Best Quilting Collection
Timeless Treasures’ Taxi line mixes scales and popular patterns like brocades, birds, and branches in a pared-down but striking color scheme of black, white, and yellow. It doesn’t have a big designer name attached, but it has to get my vote just because I bought nearly every print!

Birds print from Soirée by RJR Fabrics

Best Under-the-Radar Collection
Birds and foliage in a sophisticated palette of red, grey, and black, with gold thrown into the coordinating floral, make RJR’s Soirée one of my favorites.

Best Home Decor Weight Print
Anna Maria Horner’s Volumes makes her Drawing Room collection the standout for me. Bookish but not fusty, it’s a cheerful abstraction.

Roses in green from Valori Wells’ Urban Flannel collection

Best Flannel Collection
Valori Wells‘ lines always have a nice combination of stand-out prints and more subtle ones. Her Urban Flannels make me wish I had more reason to sew flannel!

Four prints from Morning Call by Hoodie for Blank Quilting

Best Trend
Retro kitchenware is cropping up in the coffee pots and cutlery of Blank Quilting’s Morning Call and of course in the plates and such of Elizabeth House’s new LizzyDish. These prints beg to be made into placemats, kitchen curtains, and teatowels, though they seem equally tasty for quilts.

Best Japanese Print
Trèfle Farmland by Kokka (lovely in both pink and blue) has it all — fruit, flowers, mushrooms, livestock, cars, windmills, birds …

Best Reproduction Print
OK, this isn’t what repro prints mean to most people, but Classic Cottons turned wallpaper from the Fifties into this cityscape for their Posy Party line.

Best Juvenile Print
With Alien Visitors, Timeless Treasures put together quite the lineup of extraterrestrial freaks and geeks.

{Thanks, Mr. Feed Dog!}

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Tags: best of 2008, feed dog | Category: Annual Best-Ofs

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Best Trend: DIY fabric design, from Spoonflower to small-scale Etsy screen-printers to homemade prints a la the Lotta Jansdotter and Lena Corwin books.

Best Spoonflower Designs:

Persimmon by juneprints

Various swatches by dozidesign (web)

and Wood by troismiettes.

Best Japanese: I really like the new Kokka collection. These big graphic trees in particular just cry out to be appliqued to something.

Best Linens for Repurposing: Close between Anthropologie, Urban Outfitters, and IKEA, but the edge probably goes to IKEA for more reasonable prices. Just this year, I made a tote bag from a tablecloth, a bag from a tapestry, a holiday garland and a necklace from a pillowcase, a skirt using a sheet, and a baby quilt using a curtain.

Best Solid: The increasing availability (in the U.S., anyway) of luscious thick felt

Best Reproduction Line: Come Quilt With Me (by designer Pat Yamin). The aqua/gold/orange/brown color scheme is a classic.

Best Under the Radar: Add another puzzled vote for Lush! The possibility that woodgrain and paint-by-number deer might not be a sure thing proves the existence of an alternate crafting universe outside the web.

Best Novelty: I love this Japanese pattern from Yuwa of blueprints for a house, which includes plans for a delightful-sounding “relaxing room.”

Favorite Designer: Skinny laMinx. Not a fabric designer, per se, but I love her papercut art and how that translates to fabric.

{Thank you so much, Maitreya!}

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Tags: best of 2008, craftlog | Category: Annual Best-Ofs

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“Bloom” by Kalla

Best Handprinted Fabric: Kalla, especially the Bloom print. Limited color palette + strong one-color designs and clear photography. It catches my eye every time.

hand batiked yardage in cranberry and aqua by Margot Bianca

Close second place: Margot Bianca. I’ve taken some batik classes and have a huge appreciation for her artisanship and skill level.

Best Trend: Companies that will offer small-run fabric printing services to the general public (finally!): Ink and Spindle (screenprinters in Australia), Spoonflower (digital printers in USA).

Charlotte by Jan Dicinto (Daisy Janie)

Best New Designer: Jan Dicintio popped on my radar for the first time this year. She has a great eye for color combinations and I like that her blog offers a peek at her creative process.

Best Solid/Nonprinted: Filzfelt. Such a simple product but their photography and graphic design just pulls me in. I would love to upholster a little something with this wool.

{Thanks, Shannon!}

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Tags: batik, daisy janie, etsy, ink & spindle, kalla, margot bianca, rifferaff, screenprinting, shannon riffe, spoonflower | Category: Annual Best-Ofs

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