Jane Sassaman quilt artist, fabric designer, author and teacher

Several weeks ago I received a handful of emails from Denmark and they were all looking for the “Heart” fabric from the Paradise Garden line. What was happening in Denmark that was creating such a demand for a fabric from several seasons back? I finally learned that there is a talented young clothing designer, Celine Hallas, who was featuring the heart on her refreshing series of little girls dresses!

So, her fans were searching all sources to find the illusive fabric. You can see more of her wonderful work at her blog, Strawberry Flavor. You can have Google translate it into English. Not only is the clothing colorful and fun, but the photographs are stunning, as you can see!

I get many requests for fabrics from past lines. Sometimes I have some in my collection to share, but not always. Even I run out of some designs, so if you see something you like on your vendors shelf today, it is best to buy it before it’s too late… and buy lots of it!

But the lack of the “perfect” fabric never stops the creative sewer! It simply forces a new solution. After all, why do we love the old quilts so much? It is because the makers were doing with whatever they had on hand and the results were often odd, but fabulous!

So I decided to play with the heart motif and my current line of fabric, Garden Divas. Each heart is placed on one of the Daisy Check fabrics, since checks are a classic design for children’s clothing and suggests innocence and joy.

I added an extra outline around each heart to add definition and sometimes a little contrast or drama, too.

Each combination has it’s own mood and attitude. But each group is quite feminine and could easily be used for any young girls’s accessories… bedding, curtains, quilts, etc.

I love red, yellow and pink together, so the red checks really speak to me. This combination is especially effective with the repeat of the dragonfly motif in both prints.

Symetrical prints are well suited to the heart shape. I tried to fussy cut the print to echo the movement of the heart. The Lively Silhouette fabric had several design groupings to focus on and the Iris and Bleeding Hearts really fill that space nicely.

The abundance of flowers and critters would also make fitting elements for your Easter decor… table runners, napkins and placematts, too. I hope these hearts have given you a few new ideas for using those “personality” prints.

My sewing machine was just tuned and cleaned and I’m ready to sew! So let’s go!

This entry was posted on Monday, April 4th, 2011 at 5:49 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.