This is Asbury…

I may be biased, but I’m just going to say this: Asbury is my best collection yet. I’m not saying I’m not smitten with the other collections, but this one has just gone a couple steps further. I feel like I am genuinely maturing as a fabric designer with this one, starting to really blend story and style, color and meaning. Heck, it may just be because I’m feeling kinda awesome today after turning in my finished book manuscript, but I’m just gonna say that this is a damn fine collection.

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Asbury is largely based on my childhood growing up near Asbury Park, New Jersey, a shore town that once boasted a vibrant and wonderful amusement park, but by the time I lived there the rides were almost all shut down. The thing is that I didn’t really miss the rides; that absence made Asbury Park an irresistible draw for my young imagination. I populated the boardwalk and pavilion with endless activity and excitement. It was a remarkable setting to create entire worlds.

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As an imaginary space, Asbury Park is perpetually imbued with the qualities of nighttime for me; the colors are all reminiscent of an amusement park at night with that strange saturated color that only comes from the mingling of multicolored electric lights and the deep black of a clear, dark sky. That sensibility is really the essence of Asbury; it speaks of both childhood fancy and adult reflection. The fabrics work just as well in Bee’s room and Baby Rabbit’s nursery as they do on K and my bed; they work for playroom bags for Bee and skirts for K. That was really the goal I had with Asbury, a collection that spoke equally to adults and children alike: for children it is about play, for adults, nostalgia.

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Now Asbury is out there in stores, but for whatever reason it may be a bit hard to find. While it seems some of the bigger online shops have chosen to not carry it, Andover has a list of shops that are carrying Asbury on their Asbury page. If you can’t find it locally go ask for it. That’s kind of the way things work around here; shops determine what is available to consumers. If your preferred online retailers aren’t carrying it, tell them you want it. Or, of course, you can just go support the shops and retailers that are carrying it.

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If you are looking for the entire collection online, I know that at the very least Fabricworm, Sew Modern, and Stash Fabrics have all of the Asbury prints. You can also hop over to the Andover site and download the free quilt pattern I designed for Asbury; as you might be able to tell I am currently in love with giant, patchwork half-square triangles.

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All I’m saying is that Asbury rocks. Seriously. Big time. And anyway, who doesn’t love bumper cars???

Yay Asbury!!!
-t

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