Sunkissed by Sweetwater | { Fat Quarter Shop Fridays Sponsored Post } WITH GIVEAWAY!!

Happy Fat Quarter Shop Friday everyone! Welcome to the first 2011 edition of our popular designer spotlight series. Today, Susan of Sweetwater, a family run design company from Colorado is here to talk with us about their new line Sunkissed. Bringing us gorgeous prints in wonderful colors, Sweetwater's previous lines include Authentic, Make Life, and Pure.

Their newest release, Sunkissed is available in stores now. Helping to cheer those Winter blues away it is full of bright picnic plaids, flowing floral designs and neat stripes. I've been personally fascinated with this line and am so pleased with it now that I've seen it in person. The pale grays and butterscotch oranges sing to me!


As always, I look forward to seeing their signature text prints. Something Sweetwater is famous for. I ask Susan about their popularity later in the interview as I've noticed lately a lot of new fabric lines include this type of print.

RWQ: Please tell us a little bit about yourself. What is your design background?

Sweetwater is a family run design company located in northeastern Colorado. All of the designing, marketing, shipping, and distribution takes place at the corporate office just southwest of the town of Fort Morgan. Sweetwater is actually a spin-off of its parent company Farmyard Creations. Farmyard Creations began as a quilt company in 1985, providing quilt patterns and designing fabrics for quilt stores throughout the Unites States, Canada and even overseas. In 2001, Sweetwater was born by taking the fabric designs of Farmyard Creations and turning them into paper. Coordinating stickers and other accessories were then added to give the Sweetwater line a soft, sophisticated style. Recently, Sweetwater has been focusing their energy on fresh and innovative graphic design, as well as a fun line of fabric and quilt patterns.


RWQ: Where do you draw your inspiration from when designing in general?

Our inspiration for design comes from shopping! Yes, shopping! Although our husbands don't understand or fully agree we get a lot of ideas from shopping trips. We love to see the current trends, colors, and textures.

RWQ: Is there anything you want to tell my readers about your inspiration for Sunkissed? Do you have a favorite print in the collection?

The colors of summer were our inspiration for Sunkissed. The fun and yummy colors of popsicles and ice cream remind me of the hues that were selected for Sunkissed. My favorite print of this line has to be the gingham design. Who wouldn't like to have a picnic paired with a quilt made out of the gingham print?


RWQ: They say imitation is the highest form of flattery. One of my favorite aspects of your designs is the word prints you incorporate. The typefaces you use are beautiful. Recently there have been a lot of fabric lines introduced doing the same thing. How did those particular prints come about and what do you think of other fabric company’s noticing the popularity and trying to do the same thing?

We have noticed words popping up on fabric and of course we would have loved to place a patent on it :) But, we knew that wasn't possible and that indeed there would be more and more fabric with this sort of graphic element. This just makes us stretch our creative minds a little further to find other ways to set our fabric apart from others.

RWQ: Blogger’s Block A Palooza, is scheduled to begin on Monday, January 24 and features your new line of fabric! Myself and 16 other quilters have designed blocks that will be showcased twice a week for several weeks. John Adams (aka QuiltDad) has scheduled and coordinated everything. I wasn’t sure if you were aware of the quilt along and wanted to see if you had a message or anything you wanted to pass along to the contributors and participants?

We were not aware! Thanks so much for passing this along to us. We are so very flattered that Sunkissed was the chosen fabric for this project! We can not wait to see the blocks! Thanks to all of the contributors and participants. We will be sure to check in on the project.


RWQ: How can my readers find more information about your company?

The best place to find out what is happening at sweetwater is our blog -
http://www.sweetwater.typepad.com/


Thanks for being with us today Susan and sharing your wonderful new fabric! Sweetwater's complete line of offerings include scrapbook supplies, quilting patterns, stationery, hand made gifts available in their etsy shop, and custom graphic design.



As a special treat to my readers, Fat Quarter Shop is donating a fat quarter bundle of Sunkissed for you to win! This will certainly get you started if you're participating in the Blogger's Block-A-Palooza!


Leave a comment on this post to enter for a chance to win. Only one entry per person, please. All duplicate entries will be deleted.

I will draw one winner using the Random Number Generator on Friday, January 21, 2011!


Thanks for sponsoring this giveaway FQS! Please take the time to visit Fat Quarter Shop today by clicking on the image above.

CLICK HERE for more information on Bloggers Block-A-Palooza.

Thanks for joining us,

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