National Sewing Month Featuring Anna Maria Horner

Anna Maria Horner shares her earliest sewing memory for National Sewing Month!

I was so lucky that my mother let me at the sewing machine at the very young age of 7.  This was after standing next to her and watching her sew my clothes for as far back as I can remember.  I found the sewing machine to be a miracle and a bit dangerous, so I pleaded until she finally gave in.  Prior to that I was hand sewing dresses for my Barbie Doll, and I've since heard from so many others that they began the same way.  Perhaps Barbie's biggest contribution to future quilters is it got us thinking in scraps from day one!  So a big thanks to my mom for believing I was capable.  I haven't stopped trying to prove I can do it!

Make sure to sign up for a chance to win fabric from Anna Maria Horner along with our Coats Quilt+ thread! You will also be entered for a chance to win our Grand Prize giveaway featuring SEW many goodies including a Janome AMH-100 Machine!

ENTER TO WIN HERE!

FreeSpirit Presents Juliana Horner Our NEWEST Designer!

FreeSpirit is proud to introduce our newest designer, Juliana Horner. Juliana Horner is an artist based in Nashville, Tennessee. The oldest of seven children and daughter to textile designer Anna Maria Horner, Juliana grew up in a largely creative household. She graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in fashion design at Pratt Institute in 2014, and has since been broadening and refining her creative skills in many areas including illustration, textile and garment design. Living in both Nashville's musically-enriched culture and the artistic capitol that is New York has helped cultivate Juliana's multifaceted approach to creating. She finds the energy to design fabric lying in between spastic episodes of drawing, playing various instruments strangely, going on hikes and browsing untouched corners of antique stores. 

 Juliana's art could quickly be described as cute and ethereal with an unexpected depth. She cycles between flowers, faces, objects and amorphous shapes with an expressive style. Stream-of-consciousness doodling fades in and out of realistic depictions and scenes. She is interested in illustrating both clear human connectivity as well as the changing colors, shapes and thoughts that live in the recesses of our minds which we can't logically make sense of. By combining these two ideas, she hopes to convey a beautiful truth. 

Juliana gave some insight on how her creative process flows at this years QuiltCon in Pasadena, CA. She shared snapshots of her artwork as well as a sneak peek at her debut collection. 

Here is a look at her debut collection "Fast Friends" shipping to stores in August 2016!

Visit us at the International Spring Quilt Market in Salt Lake City, UT!

Spring Quilt Market is in Salt Lake City, Utah this year and FreeSpirit is excited to present our designer's newest collections that will begin shipping in the coming months. As always, we will be showcasing beautiful quilts, apparel, accessories and more featuring designs from your favorite fabric designers!

Our newest designer Juliana Horner, daughter of Anna Maria Horner, will be at the show presenting her first FreeSpirit collection, Fast Friends. And many of our designers are participating in the schoolhouse sessions - be sure to come to room 255E to hear them share all the details behind their newest collections. Featured speakers are Amy Butler, Anna Maria Horner, Joel Dewberry, Kathy Daughty, Tula Pink, and Juliana Horner.

We are honored to be a part of Tula Pink's 20th Collection celebration featuring 'Slow & Steady' shipping to stores in September of this year. The collection features Tula's favorite animal features, this time including the story of the 'Tortoise and the Hare'.  Keep an eye out in the coming weeks for more around this wonderful celebration and if you are lucky enough to be visiting us at Quilt Market be sure to swing by the our booth for a chance to win special bundles of Tula fabric!

Amy Butler and David Butler will be in their own booth, #2717, located near the FreeSpirit booth. Amy is hosting a book signing on Friday May 20th at 2:00pm for her newest book 'Piece Keeping' as well as Blossom.

Be sure to visit our booth (2701 & 2709) for more details on everything you've read about here. And, if you can't make it Market, don't worry, we will be sharing pictures on social media so you can feel like you're a part of all the fun!

Electric Quilt Company 25th Anniversary Giveaway!

Congratulations to our winner Sonia Brathwaite!
Don't forget to check Electric Quilts BLOG to see if you won their prize as well! Thanks to everyone for participating!

We are excited to partner with the Electric Quilt Company for one of their giveaways to celebrate 25 years! We want to give you a chance to win an EQ7 (valued at $189.95)! Submit your email below for a TWO chances to win and to add ONE more chance you can also follow us on Pinterest by clicking that link below as well!  If you want to win even more, check out their blog post for a chance to win FIVE FreeSpirit bundles of our True Colors fabrics by Amy Butler, Anna Maria Horner, Joel Dewberry, Tula Pink, and Heather Bailey! Hurry the contest ends May 25th!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

FreeSpirit and Coats are excited to be Platinum Sponsors of QuiltCon 2016 in Pasadena, California. Presented by the Modern Quilt Guild, QuiltCon is the largest modern quilting show of its kind featuring hundreds of modern quilts, dozens of lectures and workshops by leading modern quilters, shopping and more!

FreeSpirit brings together a global portfolio of leading fabric designers from Amy Butler and Anna Maria Horner to Denyse Schmidt, Tula Pink and Joel Dewberry (just to name a few!). Our fabrics are as diverse and expressive as the artists themselves – perfect for your next modern sewing project.

Visit us in booth #622 for giveaways (FREE FABRIC!) and fun make and take projects!

While you’re at the show you can purchase FreeSpirit fabrics in the following booths:

Island Quilter #311 
Needle in a Fabric Stash #228 
Momen + #528 
Bungalow Quilting & Yarn #114 
Cotton & Chocolate Quilt Co. #130 
Elkhorn Quilt Co. #531 
CraftSouth #516 (Be sure to stop in and say “Hi” to Anna Maria Horner and Juliana Horner!) 
New Moon Textiles # 426 
The Quilt Loft #306 
The Sew N Sew 
Sew Modern #215

QuiltCon 2015 Wrap Up

The FreeSpirit team is back from QuiltCon 2015 and since we’ve just finished digging out of our inboxes we thought you might like an update on what we saw at QuiltCon in sunny and warm Austin, Texas.

We were so pleased with the attendance at this show and hope it will get better every year. This year there were attendees from 48 states, 15 countries and 109 modern quilt guilds – amazing! If you know someone from North Dakota and Wyoming tell them about QuiltCon 2016 so that all 50 states can show us what modern quilting means to them!

The show kicked off with the award ceremony honoring 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd place winners in 16 categories ranging from Applique to Improvisation (sponsored by FreeSpirit), and Group quilts to Youth quilts. Each winner had their quilt marked with beautiful handmade ribbons.

First place in Improvisation went to Nydia Kehnle from Monroe, New York with The Rabbit Hole by Nydia Kehnle. Her quilt started as a writer’s block exercise but once she saw the blocks on the wall she loved how beautiful they all looked together and then proceeded into “The Rabbit Hole.” Nydia was at the show and we just loved getting the chance to congratulate her in person for her amazing quilt. Just look at all the great texture that her matchstick quilting gives it!

Second place in Improvisation went to Serena Brooks from Los Angeles, California with Aleph Bet.

Third place in Improvisation was awarded to Tricia Royal from Chicago, Illinois with This Way.

The Quilting Excellence award, sponsored by Make it Coats was presented to Marla Varner from Sequim, Washington with Coral Reef. Varner says, “The vibrant colors of this bicolor quilt were the perfect canvas for dense hand quilting. The quilting is improvisational, with each block inviting me to play with unique designs featuring multiple thread weights and colors.”

After the awards ceremony it was off to peruse the show floor, attend panels, and participate in workshops and demonstrations. It’s obvious to us that the quilting community is hungry to learn more because each panel, workshop, lecture and demonstration that we saw was packed. We even had a chance to catch up with a few of our FreeSpirit designers in attendance including Anna Maria Horner and Denyse Schmidt!

Denyse was spreading her modern goodness by visiting with you, true FreeSpirits, in some of our retailers’ booths. And Anna Maria Horner kept busy with her creative workshops – spreading the love of quilting. 

Our own Nancy Jewell hosted a demonstration about using contemporary fabrics in modern quilts and had plenty of examples on hand for the audience to see up close and in person. You can check out an overview of her full presentation here. One of our favorite points in her presentation was that while there are rules that define “modern quilting” you shouldn’t be afraid to do what feels good to you – and that prints (both large and small) have a place in modern quilting, too.

We also took the opportunity to sneak away from the show for a bit to visit some local shops (when in Rome, right?). Shout out to Valli & Kim in Dripping Springs and to Stitch Lab in Austin for humoring us while we poked around for the afternoon. Both shops have so much character and absolutely beautiful fabrics.

QuiltCon really energized our spirit to create - we had a great time and hope you did too. We loved meeting everyone and hope that in 2016 we’ll get to meet even more of you! If you’re hungry to see all of the winners and find out more about the show you can find a full list on the Modern Quilt Guild blog.

Now, tell us – did you go to QuiltCon? If not, are you thinking about attending in 2016 or 2017? What is your favorite modern quilt?

Did You Know… 10 Facts about Anna Maria Horner

Tell us if you share any of these facts with Anna to be entered into win 10 yards of fabric from her new Folk Song collection!

Congratulations to Jessica who also shares the love of coffee with Anna!  Stay tuned for more great giveaways from our other amazing FreeSpirit designers!

Designer Spotlight - Anna Maria Horner Folk Song Collection & FREE projects

Anna Maria Horner shares in her own words her inspiration behind her newest collection Folk Song.

Answering some very earnest enthusiasm for two beloved collections, I am so pleased to re-introduce favorite prints from Good Folks and Little Folks in an assortment that I named Folk Song. The harmonious gathering of these two print collections also inspired a reworking of the Square Dance panel print into a new feature floral called Minor Chords. Folk Song is an essential fourteen-piece collection all printed on FreeSpirit's smooth and illustrative quilting cotton- a very exciting change for the Little Folks prints that were originally available only as cotton voile. The color-saturated yet sweet style of this group is punctuated with my signature palette and hand-drawn style, making these prints a keepsake ingredient in endless handmade items for generations to come. - Anna Maria Horner

Visit our site to view the entire Folk Song collection

Patchwork Carryall

Sweet Medley Folk Song Quilt

Folk Dance Quilt

Designer Spotlight - Anna Maria Horner on YouTube!

Learn more about Anna Maria Horner as she shares her inspiration and insights into her fabric collections!

Designer Spotlight - Anna Maria Horner

NEW from FreeSpirit!  Each month we will be highlighting one of our amazing FreeSpirit designers using video, photography, infographs and a profile that includes our “Did You Know… 10 Facts about our FreeSpirit Designer”.  This month we are celebrating Anna Maria Horner!  Anna's newest collection, Folk Song, is hitting stores this month!  

To many the Anna Maria brand means color & inspiration in the form of craft, sewing, 

needlework, books, and friendly how-to. Since 2006 her ever-growing library of fabrics has delighted and adorned creative souls around the globe. She has been the face (or rather the hands as she likes to think) of Janome Sewing Machines since 2011.  As of 2014 Anna Maria is also the founder and proprietor of Nashville's Craft South.  Craft South will open the doors to its permanent location in the Spring of 2015.

There have been varied stops on her path to here, but a common element in all of her work, whether fashion, quilting or fine art, is a passion for the language of color. She continued to realize her point of view in many disciplines and they began to form a dialogue, one bettering the other- promoting growth in her design range. Somewhere around 2001, her fascination with taking an idea through all the necessary steps from her sketchbook to a store shelf sparked the momentum to create a brand. Anna Maria's fresh perspectives within traditional markets and her vision of being surrounded by the work of her own hands has led her to partnering with dozens of manufacturers to design homewares, gift items, textiles, authoring three sewing books, and publishing a continuing collection of sewing and needlework patterns. In recent years her focus has intensified in the craft and creative industry where her heart has always been.

Anna Maria and her husband, Jeff, make their home on a rambling and not overly maintained two acres of happiness in Nashville. Their seven children range in age from 19mos to 23. Together they embrace both the charming wonders and the imperfect moments of raising a large family. She is inspired daily by the spontaneity and tempo of it all.

Share with us what you love about Anna Maria Horner!

Watch as FreeSpirit Fashion Fabrics come to life!

Embrace a personal fashion style with fabrics by three fabulous FreeSpirit designers. If you haven’t transitioned to sewing clothing yet, now is the time to create something wonderful to wear!

Zandra Rhodes’ distinctive cotton fabrics reflect her memories with frilly flowers, zigzag stars and meandering wiggles that can be magically sewn together in a myriad of ways.

Anna Maria Horner inspires us with beautiful voiles, rayons and knits in prints that are a balm for the soul. There is something for everyone, from sweet to sophisticated.

And Heather Bailey offers rayons and voiles that allow you to make a statement with a vintage vibe. Her modern colors and prints combine for easy, confident style.

Click here for the projects featured in this video.  Visit the Discover section for loads of more free projects and patterns featuring our FreeSpirit designer
s and fabrics!

Tips for Sewing with Knits from FreeSpirit

Anna Maria Knits!

 

As the name might imply, Anna Maria Knits, is an essential grouping of color and form that perfectly suits the style and function afforded by the versatile jersey cloth. Each of the designs was derived from various collections, but all re-imagined as a group to offer a little something for everyone, ranging from sweet to sophisticated. Some of the simplest and most stylish fashion forms are created from jersey knit, and Anna Maria Knits provides a diverse group of designs well suited for casual tees, sassy leggings, charming dresses, inventive skirts, and more. Each of the three colorways inspires multiple mix and  match opportunities and gives the modern sewist confident choices to easily translate her favorite looks into home sewn projects.

Both Knit dresses are Anna's own pattern - Lemon Drop Dress (PTAH22)

 

Pretty Potent Museum Tunic

 

Pretty Potent Museum Tunic made in Voile from Anna Maria Horner's new Pretty Potent collection!

This a pattern from Anna's blog.

I’ve always considered sitting in front of a plant with a pencil and paper the best drawing class you can take. Looking to nature for inspiration and instruction on beauty is an old and welcome practice in all forms of making art. Using the natural world for healing is perhaps even an older practice. In my Pretty Potent collection, I drew inspiration specifically from plants and flowers that are often used for healing. While they possess properties to heal our physical bodies, the very beauty of the plants themselves seems intended to be a balm for the soul. Potent and pretty. The duality enchanted me. The three palettes of quilting cotton carry a healthy dose of color and the flannels, voiles and rayons are all colored specific to their many uses.

Pretty Potent Rayon Dress

The Socialite Dress made with Rayon fabric from Anna Maria Horner's new Pretty Potent fabric collection.  This is a pattern from Anna Maria Horner (PTAH01).

I’ve always considered sitting in front of a plant with a pencil and paper the best drawing class you can take. Looking to nature for inspiration and instruction on beauty is an old and welcome practice in all forms of making art. Using the natural world for healing is perhaps even an older practice. In my Pretty Potent collection, I drew inspiration specifically from plants and flowers that are often used for healing. While they possess properties to heal our physical bodies, the very beauty of the plants themselves seems intended to be a balm for the soul. Potent and pretty. The duality enchanted me. The three palettes of quilting cotton carry a healthy dose of color and the flannels, voiles and rayons are all colored specific to their many uses.

Pretty Potent Flannel Pajama Set

 

From Anna Maria Horner's new collection Pretty Potent... Pretty Potent Flannel Pajama Set!

Simplicity 1504

I’ve always considered sitting in front of a plant with a pencil and paper the best drawing class you can take. Looking to nature for inspiration and instruction on beauty is an old and welcome practice in all forms of making art. Using the natural world for healing is perhaps even an older practice. In my Pretty Potent collection, I drew inspiration specifically from plants and flowers that are often used for healing. While they possess properties to heal our physical bodies, the very beauty of the plants themselves seems intended to be a balm for the soul. Potent and pretty. The duality enchanted me. The three palettes of quilting cotton carry a healthy dose of color and the flannels, voiles and rayons are all colored specific to their many uses.

 

New FASHION fabrics from FreeSpirit!

The first Fashion fabric collections launching is Pretty Potent & Anna Maria Knits from the very talented Anna Maria Horner!

 

 

Pretty Potent features Rayon, Voile and Flannel

Anna Maria Knits features Knit

 

 

Two beautiful pieces made by Anna using her new fashion fabrics!  Stay tuned for more project and pattern ideas from FreeSpirit and Anna.

 

Get Into Fashion with FreeSpirit

 

 

“Fashion is not necessarily about labels.  It’s about something else that comes from within you”

– Ralph Lauren

Anna Maria Horner - Available July 2014
Zandra Rhodes - Available August 2014
Heather Bailey - Available September 2014

Something special coming soon from FreeSpirit

 

 

“Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening”
– Coco Chanel

 

 

Something special coming soon from FreeSpirit, Anna Maria Horner, Heather Bailey and introducing Zandra Rhodes...

 

 

 

 

Inspirtation behind Anna Maria Horner's Pretty Potent Collection

 

I’ve always considered sitting in front of a plant with a pencil and paper the best drawing class you can take. Looking to nature for inspiration and instruction on beauty is an old and welcome practice in all forms of making art. Using the natural world for healing is perhaps even an older practice. In my Pretty Potent collection, I drew inspiration specifically from plants and flowers that are often used for healing. While they possess properties to heal our physical bodies, the very beauty of the plants themselves seems intended to be a balm for the soul. Potent and pretty. The duality enchanted me. The three palettes of quilting cotton carry a healthy dose of color.

 

Quilt pattern available on www.makeitcoats.com