Introducing Modern Designers - Tula Pink - A Fabric Swap

One of our goals as a guild is to introduce our members to the fabrics and inspiration of modern designers.  No discussion of modern designers would be complete without including Tula Pink!  Tula has almost a cult following of #tulatroops with over 12,000 posts on Instagram who love, use, swap, and collect her fabrics, recreate her designs, and adore all things Tula.  The #tulapink hashtag has more than 20,000 photos on IG. Tula's designs are unique, bold, and whimsical.  Her early fabric lines are much in demand and should you find such out-of-print fabrics, they might sell for as much as $150 per yard.

The signature print in Tula's new Elizabeth line.

Tula Pink describes herself as "an illustrator, a fabric designer, a quilter, an author, a maker, and a generally good person" who took the fabric industry by storm in 2007 with her first line, Full Moon Forest.  Her 12th fabric line, Elizabeth, has just recently come on the market, as has her rendition of True Colors, a designer series done by various Free Spirit designers (including Anna Maria Horner, Joel Dewberry and others).

A needlebook made with Tula Pink's Prince Charming fabric.

We will swap modern fat eighths of fabrics by Tula Pink at our June meeting.  You still have time to purchase your fabrics and participate in the swap.  A limited selection of Tula Pink fabrics are available locally at A&E or you may wish to purchase your fabrics online.

Instructions for cutting modern fat eighths are below:

What is a Fat Eighth?
A fat eighth (FE or F8) is one eighth of a yard of fabric, or a yard of fabric cut into eight equal pieces. Traditionally, this long narrow cut from the fold line to the selvage, resulted in 8 strips measuring 4-1/2" x 44".  


Like the Fat Quarter, quilters changed the cutting dimensions of of that same yard of fabric to be both longer and wider by doubling the width and halving the length and ended up with a piece 9" x 22", and called it a Fat Eighth.  A fat eighth has so many more possibilities for quilting than a long, skinny 1/8 yard piece. 


Modern quilters still found this cut too confining, and realized by changing the cutting dimensions yet again, shorter fatter pieces were even more user friendly.   This newer cut, still a FE or F8, and hugely popular with modern quilters is sized at 11" x 18" or 10.5" x 18" (after selvages are removed).
  
The Rules

If you wish to participate, here is what you need to do:

1.  Purchase one yard of any Tula Pink printed quilting cotton fabric.   Some possible sources for your fabric might be:

A&E Pharmacy in Pensacola, or online from Hawthorne Threads, Fat Quarter Shop,  Fabric dot com, Intrepid Thread and Fabricworm.

Be sure to buy 100% cotton quilting fabric.  This is not a swap for velveteen, flannel, corduroy, voile, laminate, home decorator, or other fabric types.

2 - You may swap up to three yards of fabric (minimum of 1 yard each of 3 different designs).

3.  Cut your fabric using the tutorial below.

4.  Place your cut fabric in a zip top bag labeled with your name.  To make it easy for our swap team, each fat eighth of fabric should be folded individually.  If you are swapping more than 1 yard, place each SEPARATE yard in a labeled zip top bag.

5.  Leave your labeled bag(s) on the designated swap table at the meeting.

6.  Your fabric(s) will be sorted and separated by groups.  At the conclusion of our meeting, drop by the swap table and pick up your beautiful bundle(s) of modern designer fabric.

7.  We won't have a variety of prints if everyone purchases and brings the same fabric.  Please utilize our Facebook page to let us know what fabric(s) you've selected.  With the number of participants we are anticipating, it should be okay to have no more than two or three people bring the same print.




Cutting Modern Fat Eighths

1.  Press your fabric to remove the center crease.  Do not remove the selvages.

2.  Using your rotary cutter, cut your fabric lengthwise through the center.  You now have two pieces, measuring approximately 22" x 36".

3.  Cut each 22" x 36" piece in half again lengthwise.  This gives you four pieces, each measuring 11" x 36"

4.  Cut each 11" x 36" piece in half crosswise.  This gives you eight pieces, each measuring 11" x 18".  A modern fat eighth.

(Note that the width of the fabric may vary, which may make your F8 somewhat less than 11"; if you cut your fabric width into equal quarters, it will be close enough.)

As always, if you have questions regarding the swap or this tutorial, you can email me at wendimihalik at yahoo dot com.