Sew in Love {with Fabric}: Folk Art Fantasy by Amanda Murphy

If you've been waiting eagerly to learn more about Amanda's new collection, Folk Art Fantasy, ever since our Quilt Market Recap, you're in luck! Today we're featuring an interview with Amanda and plenty of eye candy--fabric photos plus her new quilt designs! Stop by the rest of the week to see what some designer friends have created using Folk Art Fantasy fabrics!

Folk Art Fantasy by Amanda Murphy:

where modern meets traditional in a fresh palette

What inspired you to design the Folk Art Fantasy collection?

I love folk art in general, and quilts are part of that. I wanted to do something that had the exuberance of folk art design, but not a literal interpretation. So much of the art was limited by what people could make (for example, fewer bright colors to work with). I wanted it to be about making things for the joy of making them, not necessarily the darker palette associated with folk art. It’s looser than a formalized traditional design. I definitely borrowed some folk art motifs, not just from quilting, but from cabinet making, painting and others.

Let’s talk about the palette.

When I was designing my Sewing Room collection, I was intrigued by what would happen with adding even more depth in the same shades. This collection was right for that more contrasted palette. And then I added in the deep blue/purple as well. I wanted the palette to be bright—show off the exuberance of creating folk art, making it more about the feeling. Also, the black and white prints have more prominence, and the other colors have to stand up to that combination.

What’s your favorite print?

The rug print. But I really like the medallion print as well—it offers so many opportunities for fussy cutting.

I think the rug print makes the collection more modern. I see my designs as transitional—more modern, but grounded in traditional. The rugs are all hand drawn, with no perfect circles. They have so much contrast in them, and there’s lots of movement in the pattern.

I think in the same way the rug print makes the collection more modern, the wedding ring print harkens back to more traditional quilting as folk art.

Tell us about a few other prints in the collection.

So many folk art paintings include houses, and many of those houses have an amateur feel, as if perspective was somehow disregarded. That wonkiness was intriguing to me, so I took that style of house and put a very modern background on it. When something pulls traditional, I go modern, and vice versa. It also allows you to mix the fabrics more easily.

The star and horse print uses weathervanes, which are big in folk art, and stars. It actually functions well as a blender.

We’ve drooled over your medallion quilt in every photo of your booth from Quilt Market.

That’s my “Folk Lore” pattern. It’s the quilt that inspired the collection, and vice versa. The whole time I was designing the fabrics, I had the idea for a big medallion quilt with an appliqued border in my head. It has a modern feel because of the scale of the elements and because of how I quilted it. There are no Y seams, and you can purchase SVG files for digital cutting.

Speaking of applique, tell us about your “Folk Garden” trio.

I always like to create a freeform applique piece that isn’t too fussy in placement. And because I’d done the “Folk Lore” border applique on a white background, I used black here to show a different look. Just Another Button Company has a button pack to accompany the design. This pattern has SVG files for cutting as well.

How about your other quilt patterns?

My daughter predicted that “Folk Art Lane” would be the best seller of the bunch. It makes use of the blenders from the collection, and it’s all pieced. You can piece one row for a mini, break it up as a block of the month, or piece the entire quilt.

"Folk Art Flowers" is a one block quilt. It uses just 12 fabrics. I love the dimension in it. All the motifs there are digitized and they’re part of my traditional feathers quilting collection coming soon. The collections are digitized for both embroidery machines and long arms.

I always try to do a beginner quilt, and "All Star" is it. The design is all based off of one block, which is made from half square triangles. The quilt looks more complex because you make the block in different sizes. It’s actually a very simple block. I did it in two color stories—red/blue and periwinkle/green. If you look closely, this quilt offers a good example of the rug print being used as a blender in the star blocks—it’s so much more interesting than a traditional blender!