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My HINDSIGHT fabric is here! I’m celebrating 15years of fabric design!

CONSERVATORY craft needlepoint kits are in stock now, and ready to ship!

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We are preselling Nathalie Lete’s Sunday in the Country for December!

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You can find me below around the clock & through the calendar.... see you there! xoAMH

An unusually not oppressively hot day in Columbia for late June so we headed to the garden center. It’s interesting to see some varieties available to thrive in zone 8, that would be dicey for the more harsh cold of my zone 7. I absconded away with the items in the first three photos and can’t wait to see the looks on the kids’ faces when they realize they’ll be traveling 8 hours home with a friendly Fatsia 🤣 I’m really hoping that potting that guy and keeping it close to the house will have him safely wintering over with us in Nashville. 🎍

I thought you might like a little tour around my sister’s back garden. So beautifully gentle, and Southern with that lovely dash of tropical coast 🥰 I promised her I’d get three new flowering shrubs in the ground for her while she’s out, so off I go. Happy Friday 😘

If you need me I’ll be at my sister’s in South Carolina comparing notes on handwork, coffee, flowers, British tv, food and family 🥰

Monday morning Hindsight inspiration from around the world 🥰 You all get me!! From bold patchwork to intricate details to snappy garments, what a joy your creating is to watch! In order of appearance: @lauraraquel96 @tiedwitharibbon @thomas_threads @ruthiewindsong @matobsgirl @quiltemporium @cholynnequilts @cotton_rose1 @littleislandquilting @jo_sew_fine #amhhindsight2020 #hingsightfabric #amhhindsight

Happy Father’s Day to my dad Eleftherios Demacopulos ❤️ His given name translates to “Liberty” and it is the middle name of myself and my brother and sister. Demacopulos translates to “democracy of the people”. Born in Greece during WWII you could say his name was given to him as a prayer. We have spent a very good part of our lives spelling these names but I’ve spent every of minute of mine being proud of them. Today, my prayer is the same for our country, liberty. I love you dad, thank you for my name. I also love knowing where your gaze was landing in these photos. 🥰

Heading out to do some dirty work in the garden this morning. Nature is such an integral feature of my artwork, but taking the photos myself is very important to me. I want to have stood there with the flowers and look at them from all sides so that I’m not just sharing the image and the shapes and colors, but hopefully conveying the very experience. Often I do not change one leaf or petal from the photograph to the art, as is pretty evident in my Front Walk print and the inspiration photo. And I’m smitten with the idea that had I taken this photo the next day, or even hours later, it would have been different. Sending Saturday sunshine your way. ☀️

This is a test 😍

One down, three to go. This quilt pattern has four applique panels that swirl around a center applique. The second photo is my first drawing before I began making it come to life in fabric. I’m still deciding on a name for it. I’ve been thinking about flowering cycles, growing patterns in the garden, the four seasons and so on. I like thinking slowly about a title as I sew the quilt. As I am most often making quilts in anticipation of launching a single fabric collection I tend to limit my fabric choices to only those in the collection. But I indulged myself and my stash to create something soft and intense, and varied in its print styles along with key solids. So I’m adoring the feature uses of Hindsight but also plenty from @conservatorycraft and some older bits. This is about as happy as creating gets for me. I hope you’re taking pleasure in something peaceful and creative today 😘 #amhmoonbeam

Sometimes I recolor past designs (Domestic Cat from Field Study Linen) just to get my juices flowing when I am in between collection development. This’ll be somethin’. Promise. 🥰

Good Morning ☀️ I’ve been thinking about making a fabric print of Canna leaves for about 6 years. Still thinking. 🥰💚💛

There are so many steps and moments between my inspiration sources and the fabrics they become. I find the opportunity to tell my story special and so important because no one but I can tell it. This is the first sketch for the Monarch fabric from my One Mile Radiant collection. In July of 2018 I was was walking with my two oldest near my home in Nashville and we were so charmed by the butterflies that had taken over a heap of Black Eyed Susans. I knew they would be the perfect inclusion in my fabric collection that celebrates the natural beauty of Tennessee. I’ve always been enamored with the spots at the edges of their wings that remind me of leopard spots (and we know I love those!) My first sketch was based on those spots scattering like seeds in the air behind the butterfly as it headed towards the flowers. As often happens those thoughts trigger the next thoughts, and so on- the creative process. I was reminded of the beautiful French and English Picotage, Provincial and Mill Engraving designs of the 1800s with their patterned grounds and I took cues from some of my favorites (photos 5-7 shared from a beautiful book by Susan Meller and Joost Elffers). Studying these encouraged me to simplify my design, make it only about the butterfly and its markings, with a halo of winglike striped color and the ground spotted like the wings’ edges. I also left some blank spaces in the spots to create yet another pattern. The real beauty though? I have the peaceful memory of my walk with my kids at my fingertips each time I sew with this fabric. The last 3 images are more starting point photos that I took for other designs in the collection. I hope my work brings you as much joy as my memories bring me. 🦋 Love from Tennessee 💕

Back at it 🥰 my next set of acrylic and mylar templates is called Moonbeam 🌙 I get lots of questions about how to turn the edges for needleturn applique- and the simple answer is there are lots of ways! Anyone that’s taken an applique class with me knows it’s an hour or more demo of several methods. And I use every method, it all depends on the circumstances. With this piece, I’ve cut everything using the acrylic templates and rotary and then I use the corresponding mylar template to trace my fold line with a fine line pen (don’t be scared, just fold until you’ve hidden the line). I’ve gotten comfortable enough with my turning, smoothing and stitching skills that often I don’t machine baste or press a crease first. I’ve been working mostly at the dining room table to be near the kids for a few months, and don’t like bringing the iron in there. I’ll share more when we launch these, but for now, have a look back through the #amhinbloom hasthtag to find the videos we posted a couple of years ago that offers a quick glimpse of some of my methods 🥰 #amhmoonbeam

I’ve learned so much from gardening over the years. Getting my hands dirty has always been one of the best ways to calm and process anything life has brought to me. I’ve learned that to eliminate entangling threats to the flowers you often have to dig really deep. But I’ve also learned it’s never too late to dig out weeds if they overtake your flowers out in the open, it’s just messier, less pleasant. I’ve learned that it’s lovely to rejoice in the fully matured bloom, but to be patient with the rest. You don’t clip off a bud simply because it happens to represent a different phase of growth. You lovingly just make sure it has what it needs to grow. I’ve learned a relentless monsoon from the hose does not contribute to root health as much as a gentle continuous watering, evenly, daily, ongoing indefinitely. And each of these gorgeous little Echinacea heads, when they’re ready, can be harvested for healing properties once they’ve done their job. How incredible is that? 🌸

You could say I have my work cut out for me 😃 Wouldn’t have it any other way. This is the third of 3 new quilt patterns and it’s getting stitched day and night. My (updated) goal is to have the 3 patterns and the Moonbeam template set that serves all of them ready in July. So far it’s been a year of plans getting slapped and switched and set aside. I am grateful there is always this work to be done no matter what else is required of me on any given day. Sending you love this Tuesday 😘

Happy 7th birthday to my 7th child, Mary Anna (on the 7th!). A few nights ago I had another conversation with my kids about what is happening around the world and defined systemic racism and protest for them and asked about what they are seeing and feeling. They absorbed it so thoughtfully. After MA paused in thought she said, “I don’t get it. It’s like people are using their hearts wrong. God gave everyone a heart and they’re not using it right.” I believe these conversations with my family to be my primary and most important role. Whether it’s phone calls or talks or high fives out the door to peacefully participate in a protest, I am here for them. As for saying something in this space to either express my prayer for change or mourn George Floyd’s death, OF COURSE. If you’ve been following me for more than a week, you know that in addition to the creative content I share, that I also speak my heart from time to time. I’ve offered my prayer, my voice, my black quilt block because I feel conviction, not just emotion. I’ve received private and public complaints here and at Facebook akin to ruining someone’s day because they follow me for sewing. Well. Damn. I don’t remember those sorts of complaints when I’ve outwardly grieved my mother’s death. And I’ve done that plenty. I mourn the loss of of black lives and privileges due to systemic racism. I created a Home Safe Home block shrouded in black because the Floyd home and countless others are mourning. I have left comments off on previous posts to leave some quiet around my prayers. I also don’t find forum moderation to be my role. So if that begins here, I will turn off comments faster than you can say BLACK LIVES MATTER. Dearest Mary Anna, May your beautiful heart never change. May you be able to tell your children a story of change. May you always say what is wrong, and do what is right. 🖤❤️

For George Floyd 🖤

God is every color. Praying for justice, peace, change. Talking to my children. 🖤

Recent acquisitions 🥀 I’ve been out in the garden all morning potting flowers I bought on Thursday to avoid the lines that form on the weekends in the garden center as we maintain our distance. Indoors the garden on my wall is growing as well. I’ve been collecting floral paintings for years and before now always at an estate sale or the flea market or an antique store. I’ve maintained a vision of completely filling a wall and hanging them ceiling to floor - but that will work better on some other wall that doesn’t have wainscoting or a chair rail. I found these on @etsy and I must say the hunt online is just not the same, but I am pleased with them. I stay focused on renderings that feel quite *practiced* but avoid those that feel especially *professional*. So they are a little naive without being overly abstract, and they carry the artist’s identity without being pushy. Anyway. It’s not necessary to think this way as I collect, but I’m subconsciously guided by the pure interest I have in how many ways you can paint a flower, and I say yes, thank you, that’s a lovely way to paint a flower to each artist who did not know they were doing so for me. Wishing you peace today, inside and out 💕

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Anna Maria Horner

Anna Maria Horner | 410 Woodbine Street, Nashville, TN, 37211, United States