Trends Spotted?

Post written by the fabulous duo of Gailen Runge and Roxane Cerda

We’re back! Exhausted and needing to catch up with oh so much, but also completely energized by all of the creative talent shared and on display at this Fall’s International Quilt Market. It was truly a joy, even if our feet are still mad at us.

Before we left, our social media maven challenged us to predict the trends to be had at Fall Market. Well, we’re back to share our scorecard.

Okay, Allison, here are the things we thought we’d run into (in no particular order). Let’s see how close we were to the mark.

More text on fabric?

Bingo. Text was everywhere on fabric, and present in lines from every house. Numbers are even starting to make a showing. So far, we’re one for one. Check out some of the new Basic Grey from Moda.

And this numbers only fabric from Tamurakoma & Co. Ltd of Osaka, Japan.

Text in projects?

Some. We saw projects here and there with text, but not enough to call it a trend. Though, the Carnival letter pillows from Jen Kingwell Design more than made up for the lower volume of projects. And of course, Hunter’s Design Studio have darling patterns that feature lots of words.

Color blocking?

Does a passion for almost solids (or tone on tone prints) count? I think so. Big blocks of color, and there was a definite movement for many away from bold multicolored prints to prints that read as solids.

Tribal/ikat/ethnic?

Also pulling influence from fashion and home dec. This was a mixed bag. Traditional tribal and ethnic influence was not to be seen (crystal ball fail), but ikat was everywhere in fabric lines! And oddly, the ikat fabric was often joined in fabric lines with chevrons.

Chevrons and triangles?

Yep. Chevrons and triangles were everywhere. Pointy is the new black. Take a peek at this fabulous quilt by Allison Harris of Cluck, Cluck Sew.

And this 3D triangle offering from Sweetwater.

And, of course, the ikat photos above from Dear Stella and Premier Prints. And check out the entire Chevron line from Riley Blake Designs.

Appliqué in modern quilts?

Yep, we said it, and we found it—though we’d really like to see more.

Black and White?

Yes, Publisher Amy Marson was right on track when she predicted this one. Black and white was, of course, everywhere! From clothing to fabric to booths.

Here’s the Lila Tueller Designs booth:

Here’s a great quilt in the Robert Kaufman booth

And there was Gailen’s little lost trend—her fabric reminiscent of Indian hand block bedspreads. We’d say it’s not a full blown trend, but we definitely saw its influences in lines like this fabulous New Leaf fabric line from Daisy Janie.

But this one tugged at Gailen’s heart strings—The Painted Summer line by the wonderful Lida Enche for In the Beginning Fabrics.

We’ll leave you with one last trend that we didn’t predict with our trusty crystal balls – licensed art on fabric. Well, I guess technically all art on fabric is licensed, but we’re talking artwork from entertainment making its way onto fabric. It’s not really new, but there just seemed to be more than usual. Here are just a few we saw:

Cloud 9 Fabrics will be debuting Mo Willems’ Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus fabric in April 2013.

You’ll soon be able to find Star Trek fabric from Camelot Fabrics.

Once again I would like to thank Gailen and Roxane for going above and beyond with their Market reporting! Having read a lot of Market recaps, I have to say that this one has a ton of inspiration that I didn’t see anywhere else! Well done.

(And P.S.—anytime someone calls me a “maven,” I really do have a good chuckle!)