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A dear friend asked me about making some map pillows for their homeschool room. What a fun and stretching request!
Since I’ve never sewn nor purchased map fabric, I started doing a bit of searching on Etsy. I came across some great map fabrics and options! Spoonflower was also a really great resource for searching for map fabrics. (Since the nature of Spoonflower is to print fabrics on demand, they are a bit more costly than the average $9 to $12 per yard of cotton fabric that you can find most places.)
I sent a few pictures of the fabrics I had found and let my friend choose her favorite. She landed on Tim Holtz’s Expedition Antique Map Fabric. (I bought mine from Bella’s Creative Home.)
The fabric has a bit of a vintage or old world look to it. It’s fully of creamy whites and distressed coloring. Despite it’s pull away from the stark whites I’m used to working with, I like the fabric.
Whenever working with customers (or friends), I only give them options that I like personally. It is really REALLY hard for me to create quilts and patchwork pillows with fabrics that I don’t like.
So despite this being fabric that I typically wouldn’t be searching for, I really do like this map fabric. I actually liked the map fabric well enough that I ended up purchasing two more bits of fabric from Tim Holtz’s line.
I bought his Botanical Fabric and his Travel Ticket Fabric too. (Both pictured right below.) He also has some Travel Labels fabric that is quite tempting.
I searched around a little bit on Tim Holtz’s webpage because his designs fascinate me a bit. I’d never heard of him before searching for this map fabric. It appears he creates most of his prints with stamps. The Fat Quarter Shop and Fabric.com each have a pretty good variety of his fabrics in one place.
Next comes the most enjoyable part of the process for me. I get to mix and match fabrics to my heart’s content. I started pulling some other fabrics off my shelves.
I essentially used the map fabric as my anchor fabric. It has lots of color to choose from. The travel ticket fabric also was quite colorful.
I don’t have an equation or process I follow to combine fabrics. I tend to lean toward scrappy looks with a large variety of fabrics. Then I begin pulling fabrics I like. I test combinations here and there. I like using multiples shades of the same color and often find the combinations I like best are the ones I wasn’t originally thinking up in my head.
The bold florals above (the roses and cone flowers) are both from Anna Maria Horner’s Retrospective line. I’ve been itching to use them in a combination and felt they fit in well here.
I’ve loved this Penmanship fabric for some time now. It’s a great neutral fabric that adds interest. It’s hard for me to photograph, though. Hopefully this image above gives you a better representation of the fabric.
In an effort to give a few options for the patchwork combinations, I took a few other images without such a variety of fabrics. Here’s another set with a bit less pink and mustard yellow.
Adding pink is always a bit hit and miss with people.
The pastel aqua below has become a staple in my stash. It’s a Bella solid called Ruby Ice. I found it a couple years ago searching through every swatch my local quilt shop had on hand. (I was in desperate need of finding a background fabric for my long overdue Dresden Plate Quilt that shamefully still is not finished.) They ordered it specifically for me. I still go back searching for it time and time again at our shop. The bolt still sits there with fabric on it. (Our local quilt shop customer base is usually more interested in batiks and other non-aqua fabrics. 🙂 )
And here’s one more combination below without the bold turquoise and aqua. I’ve been saving that pink / coral wink fabric by Birch Organics. It’s a great basic. I only bought a fat quarter this time around to use. It’s one of those fabrics I haven’t grown tired of. Such a pretty coral!
Maybe, just maybe, I’ll go back to browsing some more of the Tim Holtz fabrics and coming up with combinations with his works.
The pictures below are some better close ups of his fabrics. The details draw me in! I’m seeing the layers upon layers in his fabrics.
I’ll go back and forth a bit with my friend hoping to find a combination she loves as well. I think this is a good start for now. I’ll be sure to keep you posted on the finished product!
