Hello everyone! It’s Polly Minick and Laurie Simpson of Minick and Simpson here on the Jolly Jabber. Today, we wanted to share with you the story behind our Austin Bluebird Sampler, which Fat Quarter Shop is offering as a full quilt kit. It has truly been years in the making!
Our inspiration came about from a quilt we purchased from a textile dealer. The only thing we knew about the quilt was that it came from Texas. One of the blocks caught our eyes, which was the applique block that is on the bottom left of our Austin Bluebird Sampler quilt, with the birds on a branch surrounded by rosebuds. But just doing one block was not the best way to show off its charm. We then recreated that block and designed more applique blocks with the same bluebirds. We have longed admired sampler quilts from the 19th century where all of the blocks are pieced together in a hodge-podge sort of way. When we were in search of a name for our quilt, we knew that it needed something to do with Texas, so the Austin Bluebird Sampler came about.
We love almost everything about this quilt. The colors are both modern and traditional at the same time. We really love that it’s quirky and most of all that it was inspired from a quilt made a very long time ago.
Our Austin Bluebird quilt uses a mix of prints from our previous collections from Moda Fabrics, which are Lexington blues and some reds from Grant Park and Midwinter Reds. We also used our favorite three Bella Solids to add to the antique look of the quilt. We were so happy to find out that Moda Fabrics decided to reprint our previous collections just for this quilt, and we created a special eight-piece Austin Bluebird collection.
We hope that you will love this quilt as much as we do. Our quilt kit ships this December, so don’t forget to reserve your quilt kit and backing set today at Fat Quarter Shop! Thank you so much and happy quilting everyone!
5 comments
Thank you for sharing how you ladies came up with this quilt, it's so neat to learn what motivates people to do what they do in art. I love how this is comprised of all the different sized blocks, the sailboat was the first to catch my attention. Thank you again!
~Brandy
I love this quilt! The blocks and colors are wonderful. I'll be looking for a BOM for this.
This is a lovely quilt and I wish I was experienced enough to make it.
For now, will just have to drool over the pictures.
Wow it sure is pretty!!
This is truly a work of art. The more I study it, the more I amazed at the hours spent to create ths plan, assemble, and bring it into reality this beauty. Thanks for sharing.