What a week this has been! My plans for garden related projects and daily painting went off the rails as I caught up on sample sewing for my upcoming Orchard + Grove collection, but I had so much fun playing with the new fabrics! Until our new studio is finished, I don’t have a dedicated sewing space, which means that when I’m working on multiple projects like this, our whole house turns into a production area, with the ironing board situated just inside the front door, my sewing machine on the auxiliary desk in the office, and my cutting board and fabric piled on the dining room table. Needless to say, I’m counting the days until the studio is done!
This upcoming collection was inspired by roadtrips past the orchards of the California valley, and all the fruit trees in our own backyard. When we moved to this house in 2009, there were a few mature fruit trees – a tangerine, an orange, a pear and a plum – and a few young trees that had just been planted – a variegated lemon (so cool – yellow and green striped on the outside and pink inside!), a green fig and a white peach. Those trees have all grown into mature and productive trees, and since then, we added a Eureka Lemon, a Fuji Apple, a nectarine, a cherry, a grapefruit, a clementine and a lime tree, a Meyer Lemon, another pear, an olive and a pomegranate, plus some more trees in pots. Our yard is only a quarter acre, but we’ve packed a lot in there!
Orchard + Grove will have 31 prints all together, and – as always – they will be GOTS-certified organic and also Oeko-Tex 100 certified. Those of you who follow my Instagram account will recognize some of the prints from paintings I did this spring when all of our citrus was blooming and I was ready to get back out in the garden. There are lots of flowers, fruit, trees, birds, butterflies and bees – in keeping with my garden vibe. 🙂 Here’s a little sneak peek!
I hope you have a great weekend! I’m looking forward to having a little time to give those trees and the rest of the garden a little TLC and start getting it ready for fall.