FLoral Fantasy Begins

This is the working title for my next Kawandi Inspired project. Last year when Tara Faughnan started talking about her new fabric collection with Windham Fabrics I was very excited. Yarn dyed fabrics curated by Tara Faughnan? Yes, please. I absolutely adore her eye for color. I let Tara know I was interested in making a quilt to promote her fabrics. She was very sweet when she responded, but did not send me fabrics. This is because me and everyone else on the planet wants it. Fair.

I marinated on design, and something finally came to me. My Alison Glass Kawandi Inspired quilt was very successful. My vision came together as planned, and I want to do that again. As is usual, I was working on other stuff and the vision came to me. I’ve put together two online summit classes this spring - one for Kawandi and one for free-form florals. They started whispering to me, and my vision came together. A Kawandi with some free-form floral panels, ala Margaret Fabrizio.

Actual journal sketch

My drawings are often very, very rough.

Margaret often has centerpieces on her projects, and scatters other little bits around. She gives us permission to listen to the ideas and make what I want. I did a little sketch, and it made me happy. So, I reached out to Windham with my pitch - send me the fabric and I’ll make the quilt and absolutely bombard my followers with the fabric. They said yes! This is probably my most brazen ask, and I’m quite proud of myself.

As a side note - I’ve worked on building my following for a long time, and it is for exactly this. If I want to partner with companies I have to bring something to the table other than my enthusiasm. What I bring is you!

The fabric arrived, and it is glorious. I’m missing 7 skus, because the fabric industry is a busy place. It is throwing me off a hair, but I’ll get them when they release to stores, even if I have to buy them myself (gasp.)

My first step - after shooting a goofy unboxing video - was to sort the fabrics by color. It is far from perfect, but it doesn’t need to be. I just want to get a feel for what I have to work with. We’re a little light on the darker purple range for my taste, but that’s okay. Of course I will give feedback to the fabric company at some point. I don’t think my opinion will change things, but if I don’t ask for what I want they won’t make it.

If you watch my unboxing/sorting video you might notice that I go pretty fast for most of it. What the fabric “reads as” first is good enough. I don’t need to agonize. I can, and do, for some, but for the most part a quick sort works best. Then I move them around within their groups, then set up the spectrum. Placement isn’t permanent, and it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a good way to look at the colors. And it looks pretty. Plus, I leave room for conversation. Do you agree with my sorting, or would you do it differently?

Once I had the fabric in hand I opened up Adobe Illustrator and created a more formal sketch, to see what my close friends thought of my plans.

This image makes me feel very vulnerable. I’m not great at drawing on my computer, and I get bored. I’d rather be playing with fabric. But, now I have a pretty clear roadmap for myself. My appliqué panels will be the highlight. I will do some tiny piecing of strips to do the L-shaped highlights often seen in traditional Kawandi. Because I liked the little rainbows, I put them around the center panel, to repeat the motif and bring things together. Finally, the colors start as pastel on the edges, and darken towards the center.

I spent like 24 hours mulling before cutting into the fabrics. It is super important for me to start cutting quickly. This fabric is precious, but it wasn’t given to me to make my shelf look pretty.

I’ll be sharing more soon. I’m hoping that this project gets me back into the practice of blogging.

Tempted to get started on your own Kawandi project? Check out my on-demand class.