Clermont Farms by Minick and Simpson

For a while my family would head to Kansas and Missouri for the Forth of July for a big family reunion.    Everyone's house that we would celebrate at had a small farm or I guess you could say ranchette-- with land, horses, a big pond and all (and maybe even some chickens)! ;-)  All the kids would play around shooting off fireworks over the ponds till the big kids took over with our real fireworks show.  Yep... its another peaceful memory in the bank!  Once I laid my eyes on Clermont Farms a grin started intruding on my face as these memories came right back to me.  

Minick and Simpson, designers of Clermont Farms are here today to tell us what they had in mind when they created the line.  Before I hand the keyboard over to them I want to make sure everyone has seen the Kentucky Star Table Topper Kit exclusively at Fat Quarter Shop.  Absolutely darling kit!  Fat Quarter Shop has paired the fabric of Clermont Farms with the Madeline quilt pattern by Miss Rosie's Quilt Co. 




When we started to work on this collection the first thing we were sure of were the colors. What we wanted to capture were the colors of denim, chambray shirts, and red bandanas.  Once we had that we started on the designs. In a rare occurance, we were at this stage when we were in Houston last fall for International Quilt Market. Also a rare occurrence, we drove to Houston. It wasn't too hard to convince us for a small detour to Dallas at the Moda Fabric Headquarters immediately following booth take down in Houston.




At a fortuitous meeting with Cheryl Freydberg, the head of design, we started to play with motifs, scale, and texture. As usual, we had too many fabrics and had to weed it down some. Cheryl was a tutorial in design efficiency. She quickly sorted, stacked, and resorted our collection into a smaller, more concise grouping. While moving scraps of paper and color swatches around into groupings, she said she thought we achieved our goal of denim, chambray and bandanas. "It looks like clothing from an old farm", she said. "Do you have a name?". Uh, no. Polly and I groan at our poor attempts at names. It isn't our strong point. We tried to come up with some, but they sounded too much like other recent Moda collections. "How about a real name that has some meaning to you both." Oh! Okay. That is how Clermont Farms came into being.

Clermont Farm was a horse farm outside of Lexington Kentucky owned by our cousin. He raised champion trotters and pacers. The descendants of his horses are champions today. As kids we were regaled with stories of the farm and it's beautiful inhabitants. We are proud to be able to keep the story alive.

Minick and Simpson


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We also get to announce the Red Rose Farm Giveaway today!  I have read a lot of heart warming and hilarious poems this past week!  To be fair I am only choosing from those that followed all of the rules.  


So here we go!  The 2 randomly selected winners that followed ALL the rules are....







jane p

"Be mine
Red Rose Farm
I promise to be kind
And keep you from harm
A pretty purse is what I have in mind
Oh, you gonna charm"

AND

Mama24Monkeys

"Red roses so bright,
red roses so cherry,
dots and stripes,
to make one merry.

To sew such lovelies,
would make me bloom,
even on a rainy day,
especially for my cousin June.

Aprons and bags,
neither will do,
for potholders are in order,
for her delicious beef stew!"


Great job to everyone this was a fun one! And Congratulations to the winners!

To claim your prize email Stephanie [at] fatquartershop [dot] com with your shipping information by Sunday October 10 @ midnight CST.  



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