Textile Patterns and Fabric Arts

Essential Journeys Bicycle Jersey

Short sleeve and sleeveless examples of the Essential Journeys Bicycle Jersey. Photo by rebecca d'angelo, courtesy Essential Journeys.

Kimberly, owner of Essential Journeys, is an avid bicyclist. When she isn’t making her wonderful soaps she is usually out on the road with a group of friends riding around Asheville, or off leading a group of bicyclists on an Alaskan adventure.

So to combine her two passions she asked me to design a bicycle jersey that would be fun, colorful and promote Essential Journeys.

We started with the base art from label designs for the floral pattern on the front and sleeves. We made one sleeve green and one purple – why not, much more interesting then both the same.

On the back we used her biking diva logo and added bright sun rays behind her. The back pocket list her product lines and of course the website URL. Another fun feature of the jerseys are words up the sides: “Soap Pedaler” and “Petroleum Free.”

The jerseys are offered in short sleeve and sleeveless options in cuts for both women and men. For information on ordering, visit Essential Journeys online shop: Bicycle section where you can order jerseys as well as matching arm warmers.

Quilt for Scott and Angela

My guess is that I am not alone in having a quilt project take on a life of its own and evolve as you work on it. The quilt my friend Sue and I made for Scott and Angela definitely changed throughout the making. I originally sketched out a fairly simple diagonal block pattern, cut the strips and spent a bunch of time moving fabrics around to get the arrangement I thought worked. Sewed all the blocks together and found myself thinking, ick, that is just clunky. So I went back and added applique strips over top with decorative stitching. Loved the look and the accent the decorative stitching added. (FYI, decorative stitching uses up a lot of thread, so plan accordingly!)

All good, then I put it together and once again didn’t like it. It still looked too chunky. So, I did a crazy/brave thing, I cut the quilt right through the middle of each row of squares and reassembled. And… yes, that is the look I wanted, whew. Of course that means that my seams don’t line up, but if you don’t look too close you don’t notice.