Last fall, I drove out west with my daughter Lucy for her return back to college. While visiting in Utah, I made a trip to the The Quilter’s Lodge. Have you been there? It is a beautiful store as well as a venue to provide retreats for quilters. While browsing through all of the fabric, I found an interesting and colorful line. The fabric artist, Lorraine Turner, was new to me, and for good reason – she’s a new artist for Free Spirit Fabrics. Her first line, Calico Horses, had several prints that I felt would work well as pincushions.

The art throughout the fabric required planning for various cuts and matching up with different sizes of glass. I was originally going to use the large white milk glass hobnail ashtray, but the glass is so shallow that I didn’t really like the way the pincushion looked in that glass. So I found another large ashtray. I really like the finished product and feel like the glass complements the print.

Being able to capture the beautiful faces of three horses was a bonus!

Succulent Surprise was one of my favorite prints in this line. The saturated colors spanning the rainbow worked well with larger cuts, such as the one above in Ittala glass. The fabric is beautiful coming through the bottom of this interesting glass.

Hunting for small cuts of the succulent fabric was enjoyable for the salt cellar glass.

I was drawn to the Birdseye Mustang print because of its whimsy and variety of colors. Using a colored piece of glass works well to highlight the blue within the print as well as showcase the glass.

Pincushion Pals made with Lorraine’s fabric.

The glass color of the salt cellar below is a deep red, possibly “brick red”. Finding a snippet of fabric that shows off the glass and fabric at the same time requires patience in waiting for the right piece of fabric. I leave pieces of glass sitting out in my workspace waiting for inspiration. It’s surprising how many times I have a piece of glass there and happen to lay down a piece of fabric and the two seem like perfect companions.

The cut of fabric came from a cactus that was in the Calico Horses print. The picture below is the cactus but glued onto the bottom of the pincushion of the large ashtray. It’s easy to see the beautiful strokes of color used in the red glass salt cellar from this cut of fabric.

The Lupine Valley print has saturated colors of violet and periwinkle with touches of green and pale pink. This print is beautiful! The gentle scalloped edge of the clear pedestal glass seemed like a perfect match with this fabric.

This print also works well for smaller fussy cuts.

This batch of pincushions have all been sent to new homes. Little pieces of art from Lorraine and I have been sent all over the world! I had orders from Australia, Finland (a first for me), and from all across the U.S. Making the pincushions and matching pins is such a pleasure. I am grateful and happy that I’m not the only one who enjoys them!

Happy quilting and sewing! ▶︎ ▶︎ ▶︎