The Magic of Hummingbirds

Q. When you see this gorgeous floral stripe, can you name the designer?

A. If you answered Jackie Robinson, you're right! Well known for both her florals and her unique stripe prints, in her Glorious Hummingbirds collection, Jackie has branched out into birds. She combines these tiny creatures and morning glories into a classic line on both black and cream. Take a peek at the fabrics below and then scroll down to find out more about the fabrics!

The focal prints:

The coordinating tonals:

You're so well known for your floral prints…tell us about these hummingbirds.

I've been wanting to do hummingbirds for quite some time. I think they're interesting—they're so tiny—it's amazing what they do. I don't personally have any bird feeders in my yard because I have a cat who is a good hunter and it just wouldn't be fair. We do occasionally see some, and they're fun to watch. I've heard from so many people about how much they love hummingbirds since this fabric line came out.

And how did you choose morning glories to pair with the hummingbirds?

When I wanted to do the hummingbirds the next thing was to see what they liked best, flower-wise. Morning glories aren't the only flowers they like, but I thought they'd have more design capabilities than most of the other options.

How did you come up with the color palette?

The blue that's in the collection is my very favorite blue—close to a robin's egg blue. I like all blues, but this is my favorite, and I wanted to use it in this collection. Pink is the other main color, and then I chose both black and cream for the backgrounds. The cream is very sweet, but to me, the black is dramatic. I like the black the best because it has more punch.

Jackie's quilt, Garden Glories, is featured in the October-November issue of McCall's Quick Quilts magazine.

Garden Glories designed by Jackie Robinson,
pieced by Marilyn Eider, machine quilted by Aimee Mahan;
featured in McCall's Quick Quilts Oct-Nov 2014

What can you tell us about the Garden Glories quilt design?

It's a rail fence block set on point. A lot of my quilt ideas roll through my head before I sit down to design them, and I knew I wanted this to weave. I thought a rail fence block would work to show off the flowers in the stripe in larger pieces. I played with the width of the stripes to see what would work best, and I even tried using yellow and green (instead of the pink and blue), but the pink and blue are the predominant colors in the stripe. Using the different values of pink and blue gives the design more depth.The quilting was done by Amy Mahan of Splendid Stitches. It's what I call light custom quilting—not over the top quilting, but planned within specific areas, like the swirls in the pink and blue pieces.

What do you like best about the quilt?

I think it's just happy. It's smiling at me.

Click here to watch an interview with Jackie where she talks about her Glorious Hummingbirds fabric collection and other quilts she's designed using it.
Click here to see the entire Glorious Hummingbirds collection.
Click here to find the kit for Jackie's quilt (in two colorways!)
Click here to find McCall's Quilt Quilts magazine.