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!

Well, I guess it is inevitable but the spring changes are beginning to appear. This is the same enthusiastic crowd of little snowdrops that herald the new season every year. We even have some tulips and daffodils stretching their pointy little fingers toward the sun.

I continued to do a little more play with the kaleidoscope pattern and the Garden Divas fabrics. You can refer to the previous blog for the basics, if you missed them. This tine I used the Spring Wreath fabric for the central star and the border. The Wreath fabric is so busy that the emptiness of the Willow Wands fabric give the quilt top  some needed breathing space.

Here I have digitally added black borders which give the composition some muscle and punch. This would be my preference. The black outline defines and focuses the wild prints.

Again we have the exact same diamond and border fabrics, but we have switched out the corner squares
and triangles (surrounding the star) for the Iris and Bleeding Heart fabric. This substitution added some extra movement by suggesting circles of bleeding hearts. Pretty interesting.

So now we have added the black borders again. It is amazing what those borders do! Again it tames the business and focuses the best parts of the composition. This has been an entertaining experiment, but so far I have just used fabrics with black backgrounds, which always makes thing rich. Next I am going to try some pastels and see what happens!

Well, I guess it is inevitable but the spring changes are beginning to appear. This is the same enthusiastic crowd of little snowdrops that herald the new season every year. We even have some tulips and daffodils stretching their pointy little fingers toward the sun.

I continued to do a little more play with the kaleidoscope pattern and the Garden Divas fabrics. You can refer to the previous blog for the basics, if you missed them. This tine I used the Spring Wreath fabric for the central star and the border. The Wreath fabric is so busy that the emptiness of the Willow Wands fabric give the quilt top  some needed breathing space.

Here I have digitally added black borders which give the composition some muscle and punch. This would be my preference. The black outline defines and focuses the wild prints.

Again we have the exact same diamond and border fabrics, but we have switched out the corner squares
and triangles (surrounding the star) for the Iris and Bleeding Heart fabric. This substitution added some extra movement by suggesting circles of bleeding hearts. Pretty interesting.

So now we have added the black borders again. It is amazing what those borders do! Again it tames the business and focuses the best parts of the composition. This has been an entertaining experiment, but so far I have just used fabrics with black backgrounds, which always makes thing rich. Next I am going to try some pastels and see what happens!

The new year seems to inspire everyone to regroup and get organized and I am definitely in that phase this week. Greg varnished and installed the new shelves and I filled them with fabric. Then my assistant, Susan, began to cut yards of fabric for kits and bundles to take to class. I have divided the studio into task areas, including a specific space for shipping and packing.

But in the mean time my Garden Divas fabric is taunting me into some fabric action. In this restructuring
period, I don’t want to get distracted by a large quilt project. But, heck, a “little” quilt diversion could be OK. Right?

So I got out my favorite template, the Fast 2 Cut Fussy Cutter Diamond ruler designed by Jan Krentz.  This ruler is the greatest for symmetrical prints and I always know something wonderful will evolve. That’s why I’ve used it for almost every collection!

And, of course, it did the trick, again! This is the same quilt with a simple substitution of Garden Divas fabric. In the top quilt you can easily see the shapes that make up the design… a large diamond, a 9″ square, the half square triangle of that square and a border. This interpretation reminds me of the freshness of Delft ceramics.

The second quilt top is exactly the same, except that the squares and triangles have been substituted with a different fabric and the look has radically changed. Now we have a complicated kaleidoscope of interweaving colors and textures. The structural building blocks have meshed and blended together.

This has been an exercise worth repeating and I’d like to carry on with some other coloreways next week.

The new year seems to inspire everyone to regroup and get organized and I am definitely in that phase this week. Greg varnished and installed the new shelves and I filled them with fabric. Then my assistant, Susan, began to cut yards of fabric for kits and bundles to take to class. I have divided the studio into task areas, including a specific space for shipping and packing.

But in the mean time my Garden Divas fabric is taunting me into some fabric action. In this restructuring
period, I don’t want to get distracted by a large quilt project. But, heck, a “little” quilt diversion could be OK. Right?

So I got out my favorite template, the Fast 2 Cut Fussy Cutter Diamond ruler designed by Jan Krentz.  This ruler is the greatest for symmetrical prints and I always know something wonderful will evolve. That’s why I’ve used it for almost every collection!

And, of course, it did the trick, again! This is the same quilt with a simple substitution of Garden Divas fabric. In the top quilt you can easily see the shapes that make up the design… a large diamond, a 9″ square, the half square triangle of that square and a border. This interpretation reminds me of the freshness of Delft ceramics.

The second quilt top is exactly the same, except that the squares and triangles have been substituted with a different fabric and the look has radically changed. Now we have a complicated kaleidoscope of interweaving colors and textures. The structural building blocks have meshed and blended together.

This has been an exercise worth repeating and I’d like to carry on with some other coloreways next week.