"Lately Arrived From London" Sneak Peek

Here's a preview of a Moda reproduction collection that will be in quilt shops late summer or early fall, 2011. Roseanne Smith has been making a star out of the first yardage printed for the sales reps to show to shop owners.

Roseanne uses a strip method to make these large stars, which she loves to do.

They go together well except for occasional operator error.

A little ripping...see the results at top.

She still has to piece the border but I thought you'd like to see it as of last weekend.

If you're a shop owner look for your Moda rep to be carrying the preview of Lately Arrived from London any day. The collection reproduces fabric from about 1780 to 1820. The name refers to the advertisements for ships carrying imported fabrics into American ports in that period.

There are large and small scale prints with a pillar print

and a large chintz. It's a small line of 28 skus. (Sku is commercial jargon, a word that means a single item---so 28 different items: prints/colorway combinations)

The colors are rather limited as the fabrics reproduce an early look when dyes were the basic natural colors and print styles were constrained by technology and taste. The colors range from white grounds through tan and beige to plum as in the chintz above. There's also a little red.

Roseanne added blues from my current Civil War Reunion line for her star.

I'm going to be doing a small Print-on-Demand book to accompany the fabric collection. More about all this later.

A draft page spread from the Blurb book (print-on-demand.)