"Heirloom" Fabric + Thread Collection
The secret's out! My new bundle with Robert Kaufman is officially available!
But that's not all, we're also releasing a coordinating thread collection with Aurifil! Say whattttt?
These two projects have been going on behind the scenes for most of the year, so it feels so good to finally share about them! And given the fact that this is my first collection with Aurifil and my second collection with Robert Kaufman, as always I'm feeling so honored and grateful to partner with two incredible companies within the quilting industry. This is a real *pinch me* moment!
It all started earlier this year when I was brainstorming ideas for a new curated fabric collection. I am obsessed with Robert Kaufman's Kona solids and also the fact that they carry so many different substrates of fabric. Last year, I released my first "Palette Picks" collection and I had the best time curating the colors and textures into one cohesive bundle. You can read more about that bundle here.
So for this bundle, I really wanted to create a similar vibe where there is a nice mixture of textures and also a cohesive color palette that works for a wide variety of quilt patterns and preferences. My first bundle has blues, peaches and purples; so for this one, I went with pinks, greens, golds and neutrals.
I was so excited to add in some stripes for this collection. The stripes were actually what solidified the group for me and gave me a clear direction for the theme of this bundle. They're Essex cotton/linen blends and when I added those in, it instantly felt homey and vintage. Many of my grandmother's quilts were made from scrap fabrics and pieces of clothing, which ended up making the quilts feel like a "scrapbook" of sorts. Adding in these stripes made made me think of her quilts and really how quilters from generations past used various fabrics and textures in their quilts. The browns and charcoals tone down the brighter pinks and teals but they also ground the bundle and give it a sense of depth and antiquity. With that, the word "Heirloom" kept coming to mind as I was finalizing this bundle; hence, the name of the fabric bundle and thread collection. :)
Heirloom celebrates the intersection of traditional and modern sewing. It's dedicated to the rich history of our craft and the legacy that we carry with us as modern makers.
Another thing that was really important to me with this collection was that you can use it as a jumping off point for whatever project you're working on; or if you want to slightly tweak the overall look to create something a little bit different from the entire collection. I spent some time playing around with different groupings and here are a few of my favorites:
Then came the thread! It has been a dream of mine to have a curated Aurifil thread collection and I'm beside myself that it's actually coming to fruition!
With this collection, thinking about the "heirloom" theme, I knew that I wanted to have a mix of different weight threads. The beautiful thing about Aurifil is that they have tons of gorgeous colors AND there are so many different thread weights to choose from. My go-to thread is 50 weight in color 2026, found here, and I use it for literally all of my piecing. It's a really great cream color that isn't too stark and adds just the right amount of warmth.
That said, in choosing thread for this collection, I wanted to match the "Heirloom" fabric bundle but use my two favorite weights: 50 and 12 weight spools. I use 50 weight for piecing and quilting and I've found that it really is the perfect weight to add a subtle texture to a quilt. I used 50 weight Aurifil thread to machine quilt this Granny Patch quilt and also this Mosaic Star quilt.
I also thought that adding in 12 weight spools would be a fun opportunity to add in some hand stitched accents into a project. I recently finished a hand-tied quilt: my Scrappy Cathedral Window quilt found here, and this 12 weight thread is perfect for something like that! You can also do big stitch binding with this thread, similar to what I did with this Nightingale quilt.
My goal for this thread collection was to marry machine quilting and hand stitching in a celebration of both old and new. Since my granny was a big hand quilter and I consider myself more of a machine quilter, this felt like the perfect blend of traditional and modern; a nod to the past, present and future of quilting.
Once I had everything finalized for Heirloom, I was SO excited to make something with it! Over the next several weeks and months, I'll be sharing the 5 quilts that I created with the bundle and also a combo hand stitch/machine quilting project that I'll be starting soon. Stay tuned for more to come!
QUILT SHOPS: The Heirloom thread and fabric bundles are available for quilt shops to purchase directly through Aurifil and Robert Kaufman and most distributors.
Otherwise, you can purchase the bundles directly from us in our shop, found here.
I'll be back in a few weeks to start sharing about each of these quilts! See you then. :)
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