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New Fabric Collection

by | Nov 16, 2022 | Uncategorized | 0 comments

New Fabric line from the Musers!

Scandinavian Winter Fabric Line

For those of you who are just getting to know us, McKay Manor Musers is a design company owned by Sheila McKay and her two amazing daughters – Kira and Kayla.  We had this picture taken of us last year, and it totally represents how excited we are!  

We started our little business over twelve years ago when Kira designed a quilt for her first daughter Gabriella.  Between now and then we have designed over 125 sewing patterns ranging from quilts, to stuffed animals, bags, home decor and wearables.  I had no idea we had created so many until I counted them up – time flies when you are having fun together. Most of the patterns are for sale on our website – either pre-printed versions or downloadable versions.

We always thought it would be really fun to design our own fabric line, but it was also really intimating.  We had been approached by a fabric manufacturer, Clothworks, (who had used our patterns to showcase fabrics from other designers) to see if we would be interested in designing a fabric line for them.  We took them up on the offer last year and one year later, one bolt of each of the fabrics arrived at my home – and in quilt stores.  We have 17 cotton fabrics – and three really soft flannel fabrics – We are so excited to share them with you.  The collection is called Scandinavian Winter.  I have all of the fabrics for sale up on our website now.  

I also put together a LookBook, that shows closeups of all of our fabrics and our patterns.  Click here to see the lookbook!

 

The collection includes so many of the things that I love – Nordic animals, Hazy mountains reflected in an alpine lake, Aspens and Evergreens, Colorful Scandinavian patterns and Snowflakes.  The snowflakes in our designs are based on photographs of actual snowflakes and I was inspired by this poem from Charles Ghigna. 

     Like is a snowflake, a free-falling star, a fragile reminder of all that we are.

     Born of a raindrop, laced by the breeze, spinning through space, dancing through trees.

     A diamond of light, a gem in the sun, a journey of hope, a new life begun.

Kayla created the snowflake patterns you see below, by packing the delicate snowflakes on top of each other and I so love how it turned out.

I was lucky enough to visit Norway with Kayla and Kevin – and fell in love with the Scandinavian designs, so I wanted to build them into the fabric collection.  I looked up which animals were found in Scandinavia and decided to use my favorites in the fabric – a caribou, a deer, a moose (of course, since my nickname is Moose), a polar bear, a fox and a bunny.  I wanted to do something really cool with the animals, so I decided to put a different snowflake design inside each one.  I have always loved line prints as well – so I mixed up the animals with the snowflakes and the evergreen trees and the Scandinavian designs.  It comes in two colorways – Nordic Blue and Aurora Borealis.  

Working With Panels

And panels – I LOVE panels – maybe it is because they require MUCH less sewing – and they are just so pretty.  Our design is called Hazy Mountains – with the moon and alpine mountains reflected in an alpine lake – it was inspired by many of my amazing hikes out in the wilderness.   It comes in two colorways – Nordic Blue and Aurora Borealis.  The panels are 60″ tall and 42″ wide.

We created three different patterns that use the panels – Scandinavian Splendor, Nordic Tracks, and Arctic Comforter.  The first one, Scandinavian Winter, uses a strip from the panel on the front and then the rest of the panel on the back. The second one – Nordic Tracks, uses the center panel in the center of the quilt and then strips of it as the border.  The last one, Arctic Comforter, cuts the panel into three equal parts and adds strips between the panels and then borders around the panels.

We designed two more panels, Fair Isle Animals and Ice Crystal Snowflakes.  Each of them have six designs with borers, and then a Scandinavian border design on the top and the bottom of the panles.  These panels are 42″ tall and 27″ wide.  

We also designed patterns to use the six animals and the six snowflakes.  From left to right, they are called Nordic Ribbons, Scandinavian Lattice and Scandinavian Building Blocks.  All three are availalbe for sale on our website.  Just click on the picture of the pattern if you’d like to learn more about it. 

The flannel fabrics are so incredibly soft, I wanted to make a quilt just using the three different colors.  This one is called Chilled Chevrons.  I found as I was creating the sample quilt, that you can change the look just by shifting one column of parallelograms.  The one on the left reminds me of ocean ‘waves’ and the one on the right reminds me of ‘mountains.  The picture in the center is of my finished quilts – I chose the one that looks like mountains!  I used Shannon Cuddle Frosted Navy Hide on the back.  I just cut the backing two inches wider and two inches talled than the quilt top and rolled the back to the front and zigzagged the edges down.  I also stitched down each of the columns to connect the quilt top to the Shannon Cuddle backing (I did NOT add any batting) – it makes a ‘lightweight’ but really warm blanket – Cotton and cuddle, what could be better!  By the way – this cool pattern designed by Kira, is made from parallelograms rather than from triangles – so you cut the sewing time in half!

I believe I have all of the fabrics and the patterns out in our online shop now – would love to see you make projects using them.  Please share pictures with us if you do!

Sheila

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