Quilting with Liberty Fabrics

About Jenni Smith

Jenni Smith is a quilt teacher, dressmaker, and pattern designer based in Yorkshire, UK. She runs online workshops and regularly writes tutorials for the Immediate magazine portfolio. For more information visit www.jenni-smith.co.uk.

Embroidery Magazine

Liberty, the iconic department store located behind London's Regent Street, has an extensive archive of about 50,000 patterns and its in-house design studio, founded in 1952, continues to create iconic textile designs today, all printed on the finest cloth. Smith was granted rare access to both the studio and archives, and the result is 15 projects with a complete fabric design history of Liberty, as well as a full colour reference index for every fabric used. Reflecting the brand's pedigree, the book is a special object in its own right too, arriving in its own linen slipcase and illustrated throughout with beautiful photography.

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The Quilter's Guild

This book is a celebration of my passion for Liberty Fabrics, with their iconic prints and soft texture writes the author Jenni Smith, they are cherished friends.  Indeed, Liberty fabrics have been inspiring sewers to create everything from high fashion to household textiles for the last 140 years. I myself have a nostalgia for the scraps of past Liberty prints that I keep in my fabric stash, far too precious to cut into.

Included in the book is a chapter detailing the history of liberty fabrics and what makes their design unique. The Liberty company has an archive of 50,000 prints, and it is these that its team of designers use as their source of inspiration when they begin their initial drawings and paintings for a new collection of fabric.

Liberty are specialists in printing onto fabric, beginning as they did, when the company was founded, with block printing and later moving on to screen printing and digital printing, as technology evolved. They are world renowned for their print quality and attention to detail, especially given the size, intricacy and delicacy of some of their floral patterns.

The small section in the book explaining about the base cloth, details the difference between the famous Tana Lawn fabric with its soft texture and Lasenby fabric, a more substantial 100% cotton, which is perfect for patchwork and quilting. It also explains the name origins of these two fabrics and gives an insight into why stroking Tana Lawn, is a favourite pastime amongst fans of this material.

Subsequent chapters are devoted to the 15 patchwork and quilting projects that readers can make. The designs utilize a variety of sewing techniques including appliqué, English Paper Piecing, Foundation Paper Piecing and sewing curves. Each project is accompanied by easy-to-follow instructions and diagrams which include material yardages, how to sew the individual quilt blocks, and how to assemble the blocks into the finished piece. The projects are mostly designed to be machine sewn but hand piecing is an option, and 2 projects are designed to be hand sewn and portable.

However, what makes this book unique is its adherence to the exclusive use of Liberty Fabrics, for the design and execution of each of the 15 projects. For me, the inclusion of an index of swatches of the Liberty Fabrics used, including a close-up photograph of the design, and details of its unique name and code, was a complete delight.  From the very beginning, my own patchwork and quilting story was nurtured by my love for these wonderful fabrics and with this book I have been inspired to revisit them.

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Sew magazine - December 2020

Celebrating 145 years of gorgeous floral prints, author Jenni Smith delves into the history behind the iconic designs that have made Liberty London such a household name. You'll be walked through one decade at a time, with 15 luxurious quilt projects showcasing differe3nt trends and styles from across the years.

There is also a full colour reference for all the fabrics used, so you can recreate the projects that inspire you most.