Wednesday 14 May 2014

Hope Valley - (finally) a start


Seasoned quilters will know the fabric line Hope Valley from the über talented fabric- and quilt designer Denyse Schmidt.

I bought my first set of this line in 2011


Denyse Schmidt has designed many, many successful collections and the most popular one is probably Flea Market Fancy that was re-issued briefly last year. Whilst Fleamarket is a bright and cheerful collection (of which I also have a sizable stash that yet has to find a pattern), Hope Valley is full of subtle elegance and beauty. The colour spectrum it covers successfully is ranging from grey, teal, orange, pink, brown to soft greens and mustard and I have seldom seen any designer combining these to great success. I adore the small scale pattern it depicts and above all it is a totally coherent collection. It just works !



You can see that I absolutely love everything about Hope Valley and you probably ask yourself why in God's name I had it so long in my stash. Well, when I bought it I decided as many probably do too to put it away for something special, you know that elusive and perfect pattern that will only work with this fabric. For a long time I thought to make a string quilt from it like this fantastic one from Fussy Cut but I guess it wasn't quite right for me as I never attempted it.




So Hope Valley sat on its shelf and sort of got forgotten a lot and oddly enough I started to fall out of love with it (scandal)... that is until the perfect pattern actually did come along.



A few months ago I spotted on Faith's blog Fresh Lemon Quilts the Saddle-up quilt she made for the new fabric line Safari Moon from Art Gallery fabrics. And it only took a few seconds for me to realise that it was the perfect pattern. This is probably because Safari Moon also has small scale prints and overall appears similar to Hope Valley (to me at least). Faith was inspired by a quilt on a fashion leaflet and turned it into a much larger version and that is exactly what I love about it.


This isn't a hugely complicated pattern and at its centre is the humble square but it really is so effective and I have been happily cutting and arranging Hope Valley for a few weeks now, taking my time and enjoying the process immensely.

Absolute bliss....

6 comments:

  1. Lovely!! I don't have all of these prints, but quite a few. You're making me want to rummage through my stash and pull them all out!

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  2. Hope Valley is hands down my all-time favorite line! I have lots of it. I'm on my third HV quilt and this pattern just might be my fourth! o:)

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  3. I love Hope Valley too. This is going to look great.

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  4. You have chosen the perfect pattern to show off these beautiful prints. Sometimes a simple square is all it takes.

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Thank you for your comments! I love reading them and will answer every question you have on my projects. But I have a very busy daytime job and am therefore not able to thank each and every comment. Please don't be offended if I won't reply.