Like this whole quilting adventure, designing patterns for Hoffman California Fabrics all started with Phoebee!
I first began designing patterns for Hoffman because of the bee quilt that taught me to use both sides of fabric, Phoebee.
An email arrives one day from someone named Sandy. She had seen the original Phoebee on Pinterest and asked if I would be interested in making Phoebee using both beautiful sides of their new line, ” Electric Garden”.
Soon a box of Hoffman California Fabrics landed on my front porch from California. I ripped open the box, took one look at the beautiful digital fabric…and turned them over!
Then it hit me, I’m designing patterns for Hoffman California Fabrics!
Success for this adventure meant the reverses had to work! If you’ve made one of my patterns you know, VALUE is important AND not all fabrics have beautiful reverses! You also know there is one very important step you should not skip – auditioning BOTH the front and back of the fabric!
Make Holly from two fabric panels.
Cut a lovely Christmas tree panel into sparkling holly leaf shapes. Use a fat-quarter panel for backgrounds and accent strips. Two stockings are include on the panel. The second stocking is on the back of the quilt and used as a label.
Next up, both beautiful sides of Floral Rhapsody!
Use only THREE fabrics in each of these designs. The reverse of each is the background fabric for the churn dash and variable star blocks.
Make Tropical Sunset with Meet Me in Paradise fabric!
Thankfully, Sandy is a trusting soul. She knows it’s a bit of a gamble when she sends me new fabrics. It’s important that the reverse side works when you are using both! On the left you see my very rough “sketch” made on my Ipad prior to seeing in of the fabrics myself. Notice the “wallpaper” border around the window frame? It’s a hint of color and a “resting” value. If the reverse side of the border fabric allows the focus to remain on the tropical bouquet in the window.
See Tropical Sunset on YouTube HERE!
Drumroll please…for Dragonfly Pond!
Garden Bliss is a beautiful line of vivid fabrics. In Dragonfly Pond, the dragonflies are “reflected” in the lily pads (reverse). Each ripple of water in the pond is made with the reverse of the fabric below it. Dragonfly Pond is shown here in the Hoffman Projects Catalog.
