Mod Corsage- Notes on a Collection

High (hi!) time to share this newest bit of fabric work with you kind people!  Introducing Mod Corsage- a 24-piece quilting cotton collection that headed out to stores worldwide about a month ago.  Here's the official inspiration statement that I drafted for the collection:

One of my favorite personal projects is a patchwork design called Mod Corsage where I've drawn inspiration from vintage Broderie Perse applique but put a modern, straight-line spin on the bouquet building. An exciting part of creating these somewhat improvisational, patchwork bouquets is sourcing the best fabrics for the floral, stem/leaf and background elements of the design. As a designer who never tires of floral themes, it occurred to me that these three, simple categories were a perfect direction to base an entire fabric collection. Mod Corsage offers bright, illustrative bouquet scenes with vintage flair as well as softer, more traditional floral renderings for balance. There are quirky, modern geometrics with high and low drama, and plenty of floral component pops here and there to build bouquets across all patchwork traditions. And, of course, so many of the fabrics are gorgeous stand-alone pieces perfect for fashion, accessory and home projects. Mod Corsage is everything I love about patchwork, flowers and color all rolled into one collection!

Memory

In some ways this collection feels like one that I have been meaning to make every time I sit down to design fabric.  That feeling happens once about every 5 or 6 collections... and I think it has something to do with purely expressing what I find beautiful.  And what makes my hands want to draw.  This is also a collection of process FIRSTS for me.  The above print, Memory, is the first time I have ever digitally altered a photograph to create a print.  Here is the bouquet photo shot taken a few years ago on my phone that started this print.  Though this print probably would have gone much faster had I drawn it, I am really digging the different feel that it has.

Observations

Another process first is this hand-drawn print, that was simply created by sitting on the front porch of my house and making a drawn bouquet out of everything that I saw blooming around mid-June of last year.  And I turned in more a drawing, and not a very perfected digital file, as I normally do, with flattened color.  I was interested in testing out the subtle print boundaries of the mill and how the screens would come out as they tried to match the roughness of graphite.  I love this one.  It feels so close to my sketchbook, that I have a tenderness towards it.  If one can have a tenderness towards a piece of fabric.  Here's a pretty usage.

Impression

And the remaining process first, is this watercolor print.  Again leaving the nuances of color as they existed in the original painting, and therefore leaving a bit to chance.  This one has such wonderful fussy cutting opportunities, as well as whole piece interest.

Leaving

Likely the most groovy of all of the prints both in form and color is this guy.  Really fun for fussy cutting too, or a mod dash of off beat color for garments.

Passage

Oh this is the fussiest of all the fussy cutting opportunities in the whole collection, but again great for full garments, bag and home decor uses.  Really large scale repeat, but section by section, has elements of ribbon like stripes on grain & bias, and triangular solid and woven bits too.  I've already used this one a whole lot for bias stems in applique.

Peonies

This has such a happy small-to-mid scale rich floral appeal, and I am itching to make Miss Mary Anna some sweet summer dresses or shorts out of all of these. 

Centered

This print was created with one thing in mind and that was to provide the pretty center to any sort of flower one might want to build in patchwork, whether fussy, applique, improv.... but the space of color that I left between the "centers" makes for a feminine but modern field of pretty.  It popped up in my Instagram stream a bunch as I was working on my patchwork projects for Quilt Market a few weeks ago.  After working with it so much it started to feel like eyeballs.  Lolz.

Stamped

A sweet, simple, iconic floral, that we all know may get used more than anything.  An ironic truth to designing fabrics that I have finally and happily come to terms with.  There is still a trick to getting them just right though, the really simple fabrics, I am happy with the way this one turned out.  So much so that I had decals made for the floor of my quilt market booth!  A sad moment to peel up and discard after the show was over!

Thaaank you for making it this far with me.  To the end of this blog post and the 10 years I've been designing fabrics! Back soon w some pretty patchwork!

xoxo, hoping life is happy where you are, Anna Maria