Victoria Findlay Wolfe is one of our absolute favorites. She is famous worldwide for her use of vibrant colors and patterns to create unique and stunning works of art. She has been an Aurifil champion from the beginning and we’re incredibly grateful for those years of collaboration.
We love that Victoria is always pushing the boundaries of quilting, playing with color and design, testing out new techniques, and blurring the lines between traditional and modern. She is a wonderful educator and is ever eager to share her knowledge with her students. Her fabrics are truly the perfect partner to her quilting passion. We were thrilled to learn of her partnership with Free Spirit Fabrics— quilt industry perfection!
Night Fancy hit stores in January and is the absolute perfect combination of prints, as though Victoria designed them a fabric pull for her next quilty masterpiece in mind.
The collection started with inspiration from one of her quilts, Diamond Rain. It is a dark quilt, which she doesn’t often make, but it hit all the right notes for her: movement, layers, and contrast with pops of color!
Inspiration continued with her move from NYC out to Long Island, her days newly filled with sewing, looking out at the trees in her yard, a walk in the garden… Nature is filled with pattern, design, and movement, and sometimes one must slow down to notice.
Victoria is known for using busy, bold designs that move your eye in all directions. For this collection she has used small-scale prints for fun backgrounds with hints of many colors to connect with the larger random stars and flowers dancing across the night garden and sky!
Softer, colorful prints help connect scrappy quilts with a jumble of colors. Night Fancy is all about the richness of color and texture that abounds! Her coordinating set of 4 large spools of Aurifil 50wt thread is the perfect companion!
In celebration of the release of Night Fancy, we partnered with Free Spirits Fabrics & our Aurifil Artisans to showcase and highlight Victoria’s threads and fabrics. We’re delighted to share those projects here today!
Mary Davis | Bargello Tote
This Aurifil Artisan challenge was to make a project using some gorgeous Victoria Findlay Wolfe fabrics. I was given 4 fat quarters, a spool of thread, and the rest was up to my imagination.
I knew I wanted to do something with strip piecing and the bargello instantly came to mind. This was my first time making a bargello, and now I want to try a whole quilt.
Sarah Ruiz | Draw String Bags
I received 4 fat quarters for this project — three of the prints from the collection plus one light purple solid. The yellow print in particular seemed to call out to be featured prominently rather than cut into strips. I was a bit stumped on where to start, so I turned to the folder on my hard drive where I’ve collected dozens of patterns over the years — some that I’ve made, and some that I haven’t. When I landed on Jeni Baker’s pattern (plus expansion pack) for lined drawstring bags, I knew it was the perfect fit!
Jeni’s pattern has tons of different size options, so it was fun to try out several of those. The small purple bag is the Snack size with the peek-a-boo lining modification. The yellow bag is the Everything side and the orange bag is the Project size, both with the bottom accent modification.
Sherry Shish | Zipper Pouch Tutorial
I decided to make a zipper pouch tutorial and showcase the beautiful and contrasting prints from the Night Fancy line! The colors are beautiful and the pouch is the perfect size for office supplies and even big enough for notions for a retreat!
I ended using forty3 (40wt/3ply) Aurifil thread to give the pouch extra durability, but the project can be completed with 50wt with no issues.
Karen Foster | Log Cabin Mini
I knew immediately that VFW’s Night Fancy would translate perfectly into an Improv Abstraction Log Cabin and that a mini would be great to matchstick quilt to try out a new technique using Aurifil’s Forty3 (40wt/3ply) thread on the long arm.
A photoshoot at the beach was a fun chance to play with perspective. Is it easy to tell the size it is?
Elise Baek | EPP Butterfly
Spring and butterflies are on my mind and after seeing this vintage block, I just had to give it a try with VFW’s fabrics! It’s originally a hand pieced block but I had to turn it into EPP pieces to play with and had so much fun!
The piecing was done with Aurifil 50wt in white #2021 and to make the butterfly pop I added a chain stitched outline with Aurifloss brown #1140 and the butterfly antennae in a golden yellow #2134. Look out for more butterflies to come!
Isabelle Selak | EPP Mini
I was sent three fat quarters of Night Fancy prints, one beautiful lime green solid, and a large spool of coordinating Aurifil 50wt thread. I decided that EPP would best highlight the potential for meticulous cutting of these fabrics. I combined the papers from two sets of 1 1/2” 60° Party Pack from Paper Pieces EPP and got to work.
Once I finished sewing my pieces together, I quilted the mini quilt with a 60° grid using Aurifil 2692, black thread.
HUGE thanks to Free Spirit for providing all of the fabrics and to our amazing Artisans who always wow us with their creativity and skill. Feeling inspired? What will you make with your Night Fancy threads?
ABOUT VICTORIA
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Meet Victoria right here on her website. Read her latest interview with Aurifil via her Astrid launch by clicking here.
