Meet Mulberry

Today we’re thrilled to hand things over to Julia Wentzell & Caverly Smith of Briar Hill Designs. They released their debut Aurifil collection, June’s Cottage, to coordinate with their RJR fabric range early last year. Today, we get to hear all about their new collection, Bequest, check out a pattern launch, and see how some of the colors in June’s Cottage still make a perfect partner.

Hello fellow lovers of needle and thread!

We’re Caverly and Julia of Briar Hill Designs. We’re textile designers with RJR Fabrics; Caverly the artist paints all the artwork for our fabric collections, and I’m Julia the pattern maker, designing quilts and sewing my heart out!

I feel very honoured to get to share on the Aurifil blog.  We have a thread box with Aurifil which I love to sew with.  I love their beautifully-made thread, and I’m pleased to share one of the many projects I’ve made with Aurifil thread.

(But let me just show you these first!)

Made with Aurifloss and 3mm silk ribbon.

Made with Aurifloss and 7mm silk ribbon.

Sorry about that distraction, us sewists can’t help ourselves from talking about our craft though, can we?

Onto the business at hand!

This is Mulberry, one of our newest patterns, made with fabrics from our second collection, Bequest.  I’d love to tell you about the creative process of designing and making this quilt.

The Mulberry design is a take on the Lone Star, continuing the diamonds out to the far corners of the block.

Here are my favourite parts about this pattern:

• I love the secondary design that appears when you sew the four blocks together.
• I like how different four blocks can look when you have light and dark in different places.

Let’s be honest. Sewing with bias could be intimidating for some of us. It’s so important to me that I give my customers all the tools they need to proceed with confidence. The pattern includes a comprehensive section full of good sewing techniques that will help you produce a great quilt top. Fabric prep, cutting, pressing, sewing, and cutting strip sets and working with bias are all topics to help you make the most stunning quilt top.

I love the saturation of colour in these big blocks, and how in this Twin size, you can play out a different colour story in every block.

I designed this quilt last Spring and couldn’t wait to make it in our fabric once it arrived!

My to-do list turned into a traffic jam this past fall, due to some quilty setbacks. I realized pretty quickly that I couldn’t release the four patterns I made for the Bequest fabric release in time without some help.  So I called out to my friends at the Maritime Modern Quilt Guild for help and Anja Clyke offered to help by piecing the quilt. I starched all the fabrics, and dropped them off at her door with a spool of Aurifil 40wt, and she pieced the blocks beautifully. Thanks friend!

I then trimmed the blocks, sewed the four blocks together, and chose 2770 Very Light Delft 40wt thread from our Briar Hill thread box.

Mulberry got the best quilt treatment using Hobbs Tuscany wool batting, and Aurifil 40wt thread. Sheri from Violet Quilts quilted Mulberry in this Baptist Fan edge to edge panto on her Gammil Statler.

The texture on this quilt is just incredible. I wish you could pet it!

Thanks for reading along!  I love to share my quilt process. So much of our craft is us alone in our sewing room, which is nice, but it’s also energizing to connect with others who love sewing as much as we do!

Happy Sewing!
– Julia

Aurifil, Briar Hill, & RJR have joined forces to bring you a GIVEAWAY

To enter to win 1 Small June’s Cottage Thread Collection, 1 bundle of Bequest by Briar Hill Designs for RJR Fabrics, and winners choice of three digital patterns from Briar Hill’s Etsy shop, please click here to head to the Rafflecopter entry page. You do not have to complete all the options to be entered but the more options you choose, the more entries you have! Entries will be accepted from now through 11:59pm Eastern Time on Wednesday, March 20. Winner will be randomly selected and announced here on Thursday, March 21. Good luck!

ABOUT BRIAR HILL DESIGNS
Website — Facebook — Instagram — Etsy

Briar Hill Designs was born out of a beautiful synergic friendship between two self-proclaimed fabric lovers, and Canadian sisters-in-law, Caverly Smith and Julia Wentzell. Caverly’s fine art skills and Julia’s expertise in pattern making transport you to a simpler time before the breach of etiquette when unspoiled natural beauty was abundant. The collections, artwork and patterns are inspired by that hilltop paradise of the past.

**Images by Briar Hill Designs & RJR Fabrics