Sew in Love {with Fabric}: A Mum for a Mum

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

A Mum for a Mum

Jackie Robinson's newest collection, A Mum for a Mum has what you might expect--a beautiful floral stripe, her favorite blue and yellow colorway, and a wide range of tonal coordinate values, perfect for making Log Cabin designs.

But it also has a bit of the unexpected: a rich, dramatic plum colorway, and huge, gorgeous spider mum blooms, plus a little William Morris influence. We bet you'll have a hard time choosing which colorway you like better!

Keep reading: Jackie talked to us about her latest line and some of the quilts she has designed with it.

A closer look at the stripe:

Where did this collection begin?

The spider mum started it all. Back in my day, mums were the flower of choice for corsages for homecoming. Gold, blue, sometimes partially dipped. Mums are always so pretty, and I think the spider mums are super cool.

Tell us about the color palette you used.

I was working with a color palette that was a little bit more “autumn”—using a rust color. While tweaking it, we tried plum and said “oh wow!” It changed the whole game. And the blue and yellow, of course—I always love blue. The dark backgrounds are intentional—they allow the punch of the bright, light colors of the mums.

Do you have a favorite print here?

The mega mums are probably the most fun to work with—fussy cutting into 7", 7-1/2” 8” squares, big chunks.

But I really love the allover mum print. There’s a lot of William Morris influence throughout the collection, but especially in this print. It’s a William Morris lookalike. When I was done designing this collection, I looked at the furniture in our living room and realized that the upholstery was very William Morris in style. No wonder I like this stuff—I live with it every day! I picked out the upholstery without being tuned into what it was.

Tell us about the coordinates.

There are four different blender prints. I choose four on purpose for making Log Cabin blocks. Often times you need four values for those, and I do like making Log Cabins, like my Eureka quilt, shown here in the plum, green and cream—gorgeous!