People who do applique’ or landscape quilts are often looking for a little bit each of a lot of different colors and shades.  Since we’re one of the few, if not the only store on the internet that carries the entire Fabric Freedom Perfect Palette blender line, we thought that line would be about the most perfect candidate for offering those people a really great package for a little bitty price!

Perfect Palette is Fabric Freedom’s premier blender line.  Each of the 43 different fabrics is made with 7 different color screens, making an extremely versatile and colorful line with over 300 possible shades across the range.

Our new Perfect Palette Charm Pack consists of one 5-inch “pinked” square of each of the 43 fabrics.  With all these fabrics, and shades within the fabrics, you should be able to get just the effect you need for many applique projects.

If you’re not into applique, but just want to make a really nice wall or lap quilt, or even a few totes, one or more of these colorful charm packs could be right up your alley!  If you need a bit more, we also have all 43 of these lovely fabrics in our Fat Quarter Collection.

Click here to shop for Perfect Palette Charm Packs

Click here to shop for Perfect Palette Fat Quarter Collection

Several months ago, Fabric Freedom released their Floral Dance and Deco Delight lines.  With them were several beautiful blenders that reminded us of rippling or falling water, or of shimmering curtains.  

We were so excited by the depth of color and the neat effect of these coordinates, that we were excited to hear that Bryan at Fabric Freedom, being prevailed upon by many sales reps and customers, had decided to expand the offerings and release an entire range of blenders with this design.  One of the Pacific Northwest sales reps helped name it, and the name Cascade was given to these beautiful fabrics.

There are 22 colors in the range, and each of the fabrics is printed with 7 different screens (shades), giving these blenders outstanding depth of color and effect.

These are wonderful fabrics, printed on 100% fine quality cotton, with Fabric Freedom’s usual fantastic finish and great hand. 44/45″ wide.

Cindy is, as I write this, working on a really nice kit using these fabrics, and we’ll be offering our half-yard and fat quarter collections in the next few days soon.

Have a look at Cascade by Clicking Here.

All our loyal and fantastically smart Cara  Serenity Daiwabo fans will be excited to learn that the brand new Serenity XVI series is here and in stock in our store!

The new Serenity series contains five lovely prints, in from 4 to 8 colors each, for a total of 33 new fabrics. As usual, these are EE Schenck’s premier fabrics, manufactured under exclusive contract by Daiwabo of Japan.

11955-E from Serenity 16 Series

Several times a year, the Schenck executives meet with Daiwabo and decide which of their finest prints to have printed on the finest 75 square long-staple cotton fabric.  These fabrics are printed with care and finished to the highest standards for that ultra-luxurious hand.

The Serenity XVI series contains 5 very lovely prints, including two really nice non-directional (or is that omni-directional) prints. Also returning is the popular extra-large floral, this time in four different colors.

These are heirloom fabrics, printed in limited quantities, and when they’re gone, they’re usually gone.  Occasionally, EE Schenk will select one of the prints to join their “Serenity Basics” lineup and have them reprinted and kept in stock.  Two prints from the Serenity 15 series, the 90037 and the 90044 prints, have now been “promoted” to basics, and we’ve got them back in stock.  All the Serenity Basics are now flagged on our webstore as such, so you can be sure those will be in stock for the foreseeable future.

QKO is one of the few stores that keeps in stock all of the Serenity Basics. We also buy all of the limited release Serenity fabrics.  So, if they’re availab.le, we probably have what you’re looking for in Cara Serenity by Daiwabo.

We soon will have some of our popular in-line collections available (i.e. 1/2 yd of each color in a specific print) and we will also be putting the new Serenity 16 Fat Quarter Towers on our site in the next day or so.

If you haven’t tried some of these beautiful, luxurious fabrics, you owe it to yourself to do so.

See all the new Serenity 16 series fabrics now by clicking on our “New Fabrics” link, or CLICK HERE.

See our entire Serenity selection by clicking on the Serenity link under the Fabrics Pulldown on our store, or CLICK HERE.

We’ve just completed unpacking our shipment of the 2012 Hoffman Challenge fabric and coordinates, and wow,

Hoffman Challenge 2012 Collection

are they ever beautiful!

Six of the fabrics, including the Challenge fabric, are from the Garden Romance line, lavendar colorway.  These elegant fabrics are attended by 5 pearlescent blenders from Hoffman-California’s Bliss line.

All fabrics in the lineup this  year are beautiful and completely well-matched as usual.  These are fine Japanese screen prints and the quality of the goods and the printing in finishing is simply excellent.  Even if you are not entering the Challenge this year, you deserve some of this fine fabric!

We’ve held down prices on these fabrics again this year, and for even more savings we’ve created a Special Collection.  The collection includes 1 yard of the Challenge fabric and 1/2 yard of each of the 10 coordinates.  As usual, if you buy multiple collections, or add yardage to any of the fabrics in a collection you will receive full cuts, unless you specify otherwise.

The Hoffman Challenge fabrics are always eagerly awaited, and we’re one of the first stores to have all of them in stock, but we’re sure some of them won’t last long.  By the way, if you’re looking for inspiration, or just want a lovely book to look at, we also have a few of the photo books showing all of last year’s winners and trunk show participants.  It’s a beautiful little book, and it’s shown in the 2012 Challenge category on our store along with the 2012 fabrics.

Shop for them by clicking here, now!

Bali Watermelon Collection

Let’s try something new and unique, we said!  So, we’re sitting at the Hoffman California booth at Spring Quilt Market wondering what we could do that would be unique and fun, and suddenly it occurred to us, “Why not bundle the new Balipops with a nice selection of matching fabrics that are either found in, or complement the fabrics in the Balipop?

It took a lot of looking at and matching up fabrics, but we’ve done it, they’re here, and we’ve put together our first Balipop special collections!

We’ve put together a Special Collection for each of the 6 new Balipops.  They vary in price depending on how many and which fabrics are in the collection, but in every case they’re discounted from the amount you’d pay to buy the pieces separately.

Each Balipop Special collection contains a Balipop, and a half-yard each of 6, 7, or 8 different Hoffman California Bali Handpaints, Bali Mottles, and Bali Watercolors that are in the Balipop or coordinate nicely with the fabrics in the Balipop.

And, if you decide you need more than a half-yard of some of the fabrics, just buy additional yardage and we’ll make sure your cuts are continuous with the half-yards contained in the collection.

These are really beautiful collections, you really need to see them.

Click here and you’ll be magically transported to a listing of them!

Camden Cafe is a new line from Fabric Freedom of London and wow, is it gorgeous!

From Camden Cafe by Fabric Freedom

Bryan and his crew prove once again that no one does metallic fabrics like they do, in this beautiful line.

Camden Cafe was inspired by a trip through the famous Camden Market in London. Known for its individuality and crowded stalls selling everything from antiques to retro and modern, it is a great source for discovery. Metallic gold in dots and fine line, covers all 18 pieces in light and shimmer. 6 new contrasting designs bring a lot of impact and vitality to this collection. Many shades of orange, blue and beige are used to bring all depths of tone and colour, and they work all together across the colorways. A large floral inspired by the simplicity and line of Art Deco decoration is featured on 3 different ground colors. This influence follows through to a sunburst, foxgloves and fan, as well as stylised leaves and a tonal floral. Using metallic gold on all the designs gives this range a dramatic impact.

You’ll be inspired by these fabrics.  We only wish that the pictures could do them justice, so make sure you look at all the enlarged pictures in the product detail screens!   Kit and half-yard collections coming soon!  On finest 100% quilters cotton with that fabulous finish and hand you know and love from Fabric Freedom.

Shop for Camden Cafe by Clicking Here.

90066-D from Cara Serenity 15 by Daiwabo

We’ve just put on our website the latest Cara Serenity series by Daiwabo – Serenity 15.

This edition consists of 5 prints each in multiple colorations, 29 fabrics in all, and they’re as lovely as ever. We think these are some of the nicest Serenity’s we’ve seen in awhile, many of them hearkening back to the more traditional Japanese look.

Serenity 15 marks a change in the fabric that Serenity is printed on, as well. Due to a shortage of the fine 60-square goods that it has been printed on in the past, EE Schenck was forced to change base goods.  Rather than cheapen the quality as so many manufacturers have done, they opted to change to an even higher quality 75-square goods and keep the prices the same as the two previous releases.  EESCO’s commitment to quality is one of the reasons we’ve become one of their largest Serenity dealers, and we admire the way they are maintaining and even improving quality in the face of shortages and rising prices.

We love the new fabric, it has a somewhat silkier feel to it, and we know it will work as easily and be as beautiful in your projects as Serenity has always been.

We have the new Serenity fabrics on our website now, check either in the “new fabrics” area or in the Fabrics by Collection under Serenity.  We’ll be putting up our popular single print half-yard collections soon, and hopefully we’ll be receiving our fat quarter towers any day now as well.

While we were at our buying show a week or two ago, we saw a couple of quilts made using

Shenandoah in Deco Delight - Light Version

Creative Sewlutions “Shenandoah” pattern.  The quilts were made using Serenity Daiwabo Taupes, and we intend to offer a couple of kits soon using this pattern and a variety of those lovely Serenity fabrics.

However, it struck us that the same pattern would look awesome using the rust/red/green colorway of Fabric Freedom’s new Deco Delight fabrics.  We went back and forth on whether they would look best on a light background or a dark background, so we decided to do the kit in both a light and dark background!  Choices are the engine of life and quilting, we say!

So, we present the Shenandoah throw both ways.

Shenandoah Deco Delight - Dark Version

Both quilts use the same five beautiful Deco Delight fabrics, using large, medium and small prints.   The Dark quilt uses Fabric Freedom’s Perfect Palette in black for the background, the light version uses Perfect Palette in the Sand color. Perfect Palette blenders are dye-matched to all Fabric Freedom fabrics and use 8 screens to ensure beautiful variability in the color tones.

Both quilts are throw size at 54 x 70 inches (137 x 178 cm ).   Both kits contain all the fabrics required for the top and bindings, Creative Sewlutions original pattern, and our exclusive fabric cross-reference.

These kits are suggested for all levels of quilters, from beginners to the most advanced.  The design is extremely forgiving, and there are no points to match.

Either of these quilts will really dress up your space as a throw, a lap quilt, or even a wall-hanging. The beautiful art deco glass designs in the brilliant red/rust colorway of Deco Delight are, well, a Delight!

Check out all our new kits by clicking here.

We’ll have to wait awhile for the 2012 Hoffman Challenge fabrics to arrive, but we’ve just received

Hoffman 2011 Challenge Collection

another eagerly-awaited item,  the 2011 Hoffman Challenge Collection book!

Each year, Julie Breidt, the Hoffman Challenge Curator publishes this full-color book containing pictures of all the Challenge winning entries as well as all the items selected for each of the traveling trunk shows.

It seems that each year, the entries get more creative and beautiful, if that’s possible. We’re amazed by the creativity and craftsmanship of all of the entries.  We congratulate all of the entrants — your work is so incredibly beautiful!

If you’re thinking of entering the Hoffman Challenge you may want to give this a look for ideas and inspiration. If you’re not, this book is a great item to have on your coffee table anyway.

This is a limited edition softcover book, 62 pages in full color.  Click Here to see the product listing for this book.

Deco Delight - Large Print

The last couple of weeks we’ve added several new fabric lines from Fabric Freedom.  They’re all gorgeous, and they’re all very interesting!

First off, the latest in the “Deco” series has arrived.  Deco Delight is well, simply delightful! Reminiscent of stained glass lamps from the 30′s, the designs really pop and shimmer with that inner glow or backlit effect you love to see in stained glass quilts.  The 5 all-new designs are presented in combinations of blues, greens, golds, veridian, and magenta, in large, medium and small prints to meet your design needs.  Coordinated with the line are a set of new tonal fabrics that are amazing — they look like shimmering colored glass.   We can’t wait to see what you come up with using these fabrics!  We’ll have our usual half-yard collection available soon, as well as our famous sample packs for this line.

Click Here to shop for Deco Delight fabrics.

Along with the new fabric line, we present the Deco Delight quilt kit.  This kit features the blue colorway of the line and produces a fabulous stained-glass effect quilt. The finished quilt size is approximately 38 x 47 inches

Deco Delight Quilt

(96.5 x 119.4 cm ) and our kit contains all fabrics required for the top and bindings (pre-cut 2.5 inch binding strips are free for the asking).  Backing fabrics are optional.

You can see all the product details for this kit by clicking here.