New fabrics from Oakshott

No kimono photos today, as the exhibition is closed for the weekend and I have been quilting my "Land of the Rising Sun" entry. A big bag of fabrics and sample cards arrived in the post, from Oakshott, the people who make the lovely Indian shot cotton fabrics. I am working on a special project for them which will be available as a pattern (from Oakshott) to use with their fabrics. It will be part of a series of patchwork designs using their fabrics by popular quilt designers and will be a bag.


Oakshott's fabrics are the most gorgeous, glowing colours, thanks partly to their fantastic colour combinations, with different colours for the warp and weft, with a subtle sheen. They are a nice fine quality too, so they are easy to use with other patchwork fabrics. Their "Colourshott" range is perfect for use in place of plains, they add a wonderful depth of colour to any patchwork design. I used them for a number of blocks in "Japanese Quilt Blocks to Mix and Match", mostly for the mid blues in the kasuri style blocks and for the meisen silk designs, as well as some of the kimono block backgrounds. It would have been very difficult to achieve the look I wanted for the kasuri blocks without these fabrics, as I needed some comaratively vibrant blues to contrast with the dark blue tsumugi cotton from Euro Japan Links Limited.

Subtle transitions from one colour to another are easy to achieve with Oakshott's fabrics.

Great for contrast for this kimono block.

To make it even easier to colourscheme your project, they have produced fat eighth packs with around a dozen fabrics in each (some slightly more, some less), themed around the seasons. I think I'll use the "winter" colourscheme for the bag - icy blues, lilacs and pinks that have a hint of vintage kimono fabrics.

They are hand woven too!