Heather Ross - Briar Rose for Windham Fabrics.

I promise this is the last post this week that is destined to sink your pockets, empty your bank accounts and have you clawing at the walls waiting for fabric to arrive in the shops. A few months ago while I was on vacation in San Francisco, a fellow fabric fiend casually asked if I wanted to come have lunch with Heather Ross. It meant hiring a car for a day and driving down the coast to the Santa Cruz area, but honestly... who is going to say no to that? One of the perks of that lunch was getting to see digital swatches of her latest fabric collection, Briar Rose. How many of you picked up on my subtle bee reference with "...the quilting community is going to be buzzing like crazy." I'm a sneaky one...

Having worked with other manufacturers in the past, Heather has now teamed up with Windham Fabrics and that is a big win for us, the consumer - we'll get rich color printing, quality basecloth, reasonable prices and we'll be able to get it at our favorite local and online quilt stores that we want to support.

The twenty prints in six designs can speak for themselves. They are bold and saturated, yet still playful and whimsical. Although I only have small swatches, it's evident that the designs will work both in intricate piecing and in large scale projects like dresses and bags. I'm already plotting a pair of green strawberry pajamas. Or maybe pink? I can't decide. I might make them both.  Small snippets are begging to be fussy cut like the bees, the frogs and the clover print crickets.  Craig (my reluctant fabric connoisseur) is a big fan of the frogs. "Buy more of those frogs. Okay?"   Who am I to argue?

The pictures I posted to Flickr yesterday were drawing lots of questions, so I'll answer those here as well. This is the best basecloth that we've seen for Heather Ross prints in quite some time. Like other collections from Windham, the basecloth feels smooth in your hand. It isn't rough or scratchy. The basecloth feels light, yet durable.  The light color prints are no more transparent than you'd expect from quality quilting fabrics. Even from the small swatches, I get a sense that the fabric will have plenty of drape for children's garments. Speaking of which, the collection also includes four jersey cotton prints - two of the strawberry and two of the calico flowers.

Briar Rose is an easy collection to fall for. From my Flickr comments, there's no clear winner among the prints. Truly something for everyone. What grabs your eye?  Is it the berries? The bees? Briar Rose and Briar Rose Jersey are both due in early July. I'm pretty sure Heather and Windham have hit a home run with this one.


On a side note, I'd like to pick your brain about storage. Man, I love storage.  I have these lovely charm packs and layer cakes which I bust open to show you photos of. Great for you, but not so great for my shelves. I'm a bit at a loss of the best way to keep them once that happens. They never go back together in a tidy way. For now, they live in scrapbook boxes or an old cake canister. Do you have any good hints for your open charm packs and layer cakes?