Fabricadabra! (+ hop winners)

Looking at Paula Nadelstern's fabrics is like looking at works of art. And that's before you even use them in a quilt! Quilters everywhere will be thrilled with her new book from C&T Publishing called "Fabricadabra." It's tagline: Simple Quilts, Complex Fabric. Yes! 

Shortly before leaving for Market, Paula shared a bit about her newest work:

What inspired your book, Fabricadabra? 

This book is the result of one of my internalized eurekas. I realized I could, in a word (rare for me), simplify. Take the complex quilts I’ve made and pare them down to their essential bones. Take traditional quilts and gift wrap their simple shapes with intricate fabric.

Why does your fabric, including the similarly named Fabracadabra collection, work so well for this concept? 

Along with design strategies and unique piecing techniques, the book is about exploring the possibilities offered by intricate, charismatic textiles.

What is your favorite thing about the book? 

One of my favorite things about this book is the Introduction titled: Me, Myself and My Process.

It's not until you write about something that you understand it really well. Breaking down your own creative act, first by identifying your personal strategies and then by dividing them into so-called concepts, forces you to reflect on what things aren't as well as what they are. This exploration steers you in lots of valuable directions. In particular, it leads you to the vocabulary needed to articulate your private visual language.

Favorite quilt in the book?

 One of my favorite quilts is An Agreement of Butterflies.

I was waiting to give my lecture to the Prairie Quilt Guild in Wichita, Kansas, when a traditional Butterfly quilt held up during show-and-tell captured my attention. In a flash, I recognized a kindred pattern capable of showcasing a gazillion symmetrical prints all at once. Choosing the fabrics bewitched me into a flow state—my name for those glorious moments when you’re so energized by the task at hand that time seems immaterial. I made many more 5˝ × 5˝ squares than needed.

The collective nouns for various groups of animals and birds amuse me. A shrewdness of apes. A murder of crows. I assumed there’d be one for butterflies, but when I could not find it I made one up. Assembled from 49 different fabrics (plus a common butterfly belly and black background, for a total of 51) from my first thirteen fabric collections for Benartex, these diverse colors and prints seem to be in accord. So color me speechless when I recently searched again, six months after the initial rummage through the Internet, and finally found labels for a multitude of butterflies: a rabble of butterflies, a flutter of butterflies, or (an equally appealing quilt title) a rainbow of butterflies. But the perfect coincidence, the goose bump– laden karmic moment was the phrase “a kaleidoscope of butterflies.” It must be true; I found it on Google!

Click here to order Paula's book or ask for it at your local quilt shop.

Click here to read more of what Paula has to say about the book.  

Click here to see more of Paula's work. 
Click here to read a recent article about Paula's work.

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Congratulations to our winners from last week's Mug Rug Blog Hop:

Day 1 

Sewing Room bundle

Wordy Girl

Day 2 

Wings bundle

Cheri S.

Day 3

Nature's Pearl bundle

Lori S. 

Day 4 

Kitchen Love bundle

Margaret

We'll be contacting you for your mailing addresses! 

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We love tuffets!

Have you seen images of pieced tuffets popping up on social media recently? If you haven't, once you see what we have to show, we're pretty sure you'll be searching out a tuffet pattern for yourself! 

Linda Crouch of Tennessee Quilts used a variety of 2-1/2" wide strips of Paula Nadelstern's fabrics to create this stunner:

It's too pretty to rest your feet (or bottom half!) on!

We definitely recognize some Fabracadabra prints in there--what else do you see?

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Handmade Holiday Winners + Winter Solstice Fun

We hope you enjoyed our Handmade Holiday Blog Hop! All of the giveaways are now closed, and we've randomly selected our winners:

Day 1: Table Runner by Ann Lauer of Grizzly Gulch Gallery featuring Butterfly Forest

Judy F.

Day 2: Nesting Pocket Dolls by Debby Kratovil of Debby Kratovil Quilts featuring Little Katerina 

Sally W.

Day 3: Sew Easy Travel Case featuring Sew Easy

MaryBeth L.

Day 4: Firewood Tote by Mary on Lake Pulaski featuring Shades of Winter

Diane B.

Day 5: Evergreen Pennant by Jessica of Quilty Habit featuring Snow Days

Debby G.

Day 6: Patchwork Apron by Kristen of KD Quilts featuring Frosty Forest

Debra Kay N.

Day 7: Christmas Adorned quilt by Kelly of My Quilt Infatuation featuring Santa's Here

Michelle S.

Congratulations, ladies! If you haven't been contacted yet, please email your mailing address to sewinlovewithfabric (at) gmail.com so we can get your fabric bundles mailed out! 

Also, be sure to head over to Debby Kratovil's blog today! She's put together a post in honor of the Winter Solstice--she's trying to entice the sun to return with some beautiful bright color from Paula Nadelstern's Fabracadabra collection! Don't miss her post here.

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Fabracadabra: In Paula's Words

Yesterday we showed you Paula Nadelstern's latest collection, Fabracadabra, along with the Stained Glass and Ruffles coordinates. Today we're back with Paula herself to offer some background on these fantastic fabrics.

Just how does Paula go from idea to intricate kaleidoscope? How does Paula's art quilt design work play into her fabric design work? Which fabric reminds her of a bathing suit her mother wore in the 1950s? Keep reading to learn the answers to these questions and more, in Paula's own words. And then, go find yourself some Fabracadabra!

Tell us about designing a line like Fabracadabra.

A collection may start with a Grand Idea – for instance a trip to Barcelona or Abu Dubai. “Start” is the operative word, because those first ideas can end up – 4 months later --completely discarded or morphed into an altered, unrecognizable state. I am very flexible and not at all concerned about sticking to a theme because my ultimate goal is designs that tickle my imagination.

Over the years, I’ve developed a vocabulary to describe the personality and function of the fabrics I design. This personal lexicon divides fabric into two main categories: prima donnas and allovers. Each collection needs both.

Prima donnas are powerful design elements. Simultaneously temperamental and charismatic, they are the divas that give a design its distinctive voice. Any fabric that is composed of motifs that are the exact duplicates of one another is a prima donna. Mirror imaging patterns are my signature style and I make sure every collection has three of these.

Examples:

Tangles

Wings

Allovers play a vital supporting role. Compared with the fussy prima donna, they are versatile and forgiving. The nondirectional design of the allover looks the same from any angle because there is no implicit top, bottom

Examples:

Stained Glass

Ruffles

As I’m coloring, I’m aware that I can cause different color ways of the same design to function in diverse ways. This concept fascinates me and it’s hard to put into words; it’s something I’ve learned by coloring collections over many years and critiquing the finished products. In one colorway, a contrasting motif might pop and create a visual line when it connects to its repeats. In another the same motif may be colored in a hue that softens it so it recedes or perhaps it connects to a neighboring motif rather than standing out on its own.  Some of this is serendipity, some contrived by me but ultimately it means I have a bigger “vocabulary” of Skus to work with.

I don’t want the prints in the Red group to work only with the Red group, the Lime with the Lime. I want as many skus as possible to intermingle harmoniously with the entire collection and also with patterns from my previous collections. 

Do you have a favorite print and/or color combination in the collection?

Keep in mind, I’m not only a designer, I’m also an art quilter who uses fabric in her own series of kaleidoscopic quilts and I’m a teacher whose students’ success often relies on fabric that can mirror image. When I’m designing, I’m balancing these three aesthetics.

I always like some color combos better than others. Sometimes simply because I l think the relationship of color and design is so beautiful, it gives my heart a little tug of affection every time I see. Sorry if it sounds schmaltzy but sometimes I can’t believe this charismatic design exists and I’m the one responsible.

4310 Wings Pink Orange is an example. 

It reminds me of a bathing suit with a matching jacket my mother had in the 50’s. I’ll never know why. 

For quiltmaking, I generally like the “Multi’s” – meaning, a print not just various shades of greens and blues. For my kaleidoscope technique, I need hyperabundant groupings because a fabric that is shades of green and blues AND pinks and reds will let me lead the audience’s eye seamlessly into other patches that are either in the blue family or toward reds and oranges. A Multi is more versatile, elastic and adaptable than a single family group.

In my collections you’ll find Multi’s that are labeled Multi’s, like this one:

And also skus that aren’t labeled as such but function as a Multi. 

A Multi is harder to print on fabric accurately. Printing on paper is a completely different process and I am very grateful that the studio team I work with understands there is a method to my color madness and use their incredible skills to achieve my vision, no matter how long it takes (within reason). 

Can you talk about the Cascade design?
I view Cascade as a directional – which means you can use it to slide the eye from here to there. Its detail and delicacy delights and amazes me. So do the miraculous odd combos of overlapping colors groups, almost all Multis, courtesy of a very skilled team and a cooperative mill.

It vibrates as the peppered texture of skinny slivers and sprinkles project the sense they will fade to nothing in the next instant, referring a kaleidoscope in motion. It’s not a perfect mirror image but can used as a pseudo symmetrical fabric.

What prompted you to design Stained Glass & Ruffles? 

Both Ruffles and Stained Glass are all overs. Stained Glass is a simplification of an idea I will continue to pursue referencing the idiosyncratic shards seen Gaudi architecture in Barcelona. Gaudi mosaics are randomly cracked pieces of patterned pottery, not shaded in similar colors.

I will always try to create the perfect deep rich Reads-Like-a-Solid black. Ruffles is this year’s vehicle toward this goal. I may rarely use the Alabaster color in a Kaleidoscope quilts but I just love this elegant mélange of hues. 

Click here to see more of Paula's work and get inspired to make a kaleidoscope quilt like she does. 
Click here to see yesterday's post on Paula's fabrics.

Cick here to see the entire Fabracadabra collection.

Click here to see the entire Ruffles and Stained Glass collection.

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Fabracadabra: Graphic Impact

Some fabric designers are recognizable simply by seeing one piece of their fabric. Paula Nadelstern is one of those talented people. Her latest collection, Fabracadabra, features her signature kaleidoscope motifs as a focal print in several colorways, as well as an intriguing set of coordinates--both "prima donnas," as Paula calls them, and "allovers."

Introducing your first fabric must-haves of 2015.

Three of a Kind:

Cascade:

Tangles:

Wings:

Ruffles:

Stained Glass:

Ready to get started using these gorgeous prints? 

We've got two free patterns on our website.

Seeing Double by Stitched Together Studios

Stained Glass View by Stitched Together Studios

Click here to download the free quilt patterns.

Click here to see more of Paula's work and get inspired to make a kaleidoscope quilt like she does. 

Cick here to see the entire Fabracadabra collection.

Click here to see the entire Ruffles and Stained Glass collection.

Click here to learn about Paula's design process and what else she has to say about her prima donna and allover fabrics.

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