Flowers to Fabric

When I started scrolling through the photos that inspired my newest fabric collection, something unexpected stopped me. I had almost as many photos of flower buds as I did of flowers in bloom. At first I couldn't explain it. But then, somewhere between digging holes and tucking the dahlia tubers I'd overwintered back into the spring soil, it hit me.

A bud is its own kind of joy. Not the triumphant finale, but the exquisite in-between — that suspended moment holding every promise of what's coming without giving it away. There's an intimacy to a bud that an open flower doesn't have. You have to lean in, breathe in, and wait.

And I think that's what designing a fabric collection feels like. An idea arrives small and tightly furled. You tend it — with color studies and sketchbook doodles and a hundred small decisions — not quite knowing what it will become until the prints and scale finally settle into a compelling, colorful story.

This particular collection started with this single photo from my garden nearly two years ago. I wasn't looking for inspiration that day — just moving through the space, noticing things. But something about that image stopped me when I looked at it later. A grey, rainy morning had set the colors off brilliantly against the green foliage, and the flowers, weighed down with water, flopped into each other in a wonderfully wild and natural way. That wildness followed me indoors and into my sketchbook.

In the studio, I work in the same way that I garden. I start with one flower and then, almost without deciding to, reach for another. And another. What begins as a considered composition takes on its own momentum — stems crossing, petals layering, color finding color — until the whole frame is full and breathing and alive. Any "plan" I had quickly spills into a feeling.

The vibrant energy of this collection lead the way and pulled me along. What surprised me was how the abundance itself became the point — not a single flower as the star, but the whole gathered armful of them!

The result feels personal to me — like cutting flowers from your own garden, arranging them with the same quiet care it took to grow them, and carrying all of that love inside. Into your hands. Into your home. Into whatever you make next.

Introducing Floriori!

Floriori makes its debut this week in the Moda booth at h+h Americas in Chicago — and this is just the beginning! Later this week I'll be back in your inbox with more photos and a free pattern I call Sewing Room Blooms that I hope you’ll love. 🌸