Introducing Amanda Murphy's Winter Games

It's game time! 

Winter Games, that is. 

Amanda Murphy's newest fabric collection, Winter Games, is here for your next snow-themed project. As the name suggests, the fabric line focuses on winter sports, which is perfect with the Olympics coming in February 2018. Here's a quick look: 

We asked Amanda to walk us through the Winter Games fabric collection.

Where did you get the idea for Winter Games?

It was the athletes. I had an idea to do winter sports athletes, and with the Olympics being this winter, it was perfect timing.

I originally called it Nordic Games, as a spinoff of Nordic Holiday, my previous winter collection. If you look at the animals in Nordic Holiday, they’re very graphically treated, and I’d say I did the same thing with the athletes. They’re not pictorial—there are no faces—almost silhouettes except for the clothes.

Do you participate in any winter sports?

I have no athleticism! I was the last kid picked in gym class every time.

Let’s talk about color.

I wanted to do something with the deep gray. There’s more depth and masculinity to this collection. I really like all the different colors of gray. Overall my favorite thing about these fabrics are the colors. There are so many different depths in tonality—from dark gray all the way to white—that it was really easy to design quilts in this collection.

How did you capture the body positions of the athletes?

I took ballet as a kid, so I can draw dancers pretty well. That helped for the skaters. I also looked at photos—for example to see how the skiers bend over the skis (as they jump).

You captured so much detail on the prints.

I couldn’t put every detail in, but started with the main lines—for example, the shape of the ski—and then filled it in however I wanted. I’m not sure if real skis actually look like that. For the ski boots, I looked at photos to get an idea of how the boot fits into the ski, and how the boot closures work, and went with those ideas without copying every detail exactly. But you get the feel of it.

Do you have a favorite print?

I love the text print with all the Olympic sports. I don’t usually do text prints and I had to figure out how to fit in all the Olympic sports. I really like the snowflake too. And the athletes.

Tell us about a few of the other coordinates.

For the latte print, I was thinking what would you do in a ski lodge. My daughter loves coffee drinks. I just thought they were fun.

The silver rings are definitely a nod to the Olympics—the idea of interlocking rings that would tile across. They work well because I needed something rounder. The skis are straight, and I needed a coordinate with circles.

The blizzard print is inspired by machine quilting. It’s an easy fabric to quilt over, especially using swirls. Machine quilting definitely influences what I draw, and I think it’s an incredibly usable print. I really like the dark teal—it has so much depth.

The snowflake print is more traditional—it plays off the more modern feel of the text, the rings, and the ski prints. It’s my favorite type of blender because it has pops of color that you can play off of in other parts of the quilt.

Click here to see the entire Winter Games collection.

Click here to visit Amanda's website.

We're getting into the winter spirit with mug rugs! This week we'll be sharing mug rug tutorials as well as introducing you to Amanda's new patterns featuring the Winter Games fabrics.