Hi friends! We wanted to bring you something extra special to celebrate the launch of Elea Lutz‘ newest fabric line: Oh What Fun Fabrics. As we share the beautiful projects from each maker this month, we wanted to check in with Elea and hear more about her inspiration for her designs and offer a giveaway for one of our followers. Grab your favorite drink and join us.
Elea had her hand in almost every creative medium – from drawing to sewing and soap making. Her grandmother was and still is a big part of her inspiration having learned embroidery, crochet, sewing and painting from her. So when Elea left her job in 2007 to become a stay at home mom, it was only natural to turn to art again as a source of creativity. Elea grew a successful brand for herself from the ground up, creating a line of toiletries and lifestyle products. With the success of the brand came a lot of added work that wasn’t fulfilling to Elea and so she pivoted back to her first love of art and drawing.
Skip ahead several years to two growing boys, two big dogs and several fabric lines later and we have Elea creating her signature cute and classic fabrics for Poppie Cotton. Elea’s love for all things Christmas shows through in this line, drawing on memories from her childhood and the family traditions created over the years; baking Christmas cookies, opening gifts on Christmas morning, a Christmas Eve dinner with family followed by a church service and always listening to hear dad reading ‘The Night Before Christmas’. When Elea shares these memories it’s enough to stir up my own childhood Christmases and leave me feeling nostalgic for the “good old days”.
Of course memories alone are just that. But when Elea works her magic and turns her memories into bits and pieces of adorable art on fabric it becomes a whole other thing; something tangible that we can touch and feel and eventually sew up into things that remind us of our own sweet Christmas memories and in turn become things like quilts, pillows, dresses and decorations that will become a part of our own children’s childhood Christmas memories. It’s truly something magical.
Elea’s advice for designers starting out is to keep putting yourself out there, keep making those connections, they all add up to something. Making connections is something that Elea does well, checking in with creative friends and sharing inspiration via a private Facebook group: Elea Lutz Design and Friends Group. Join us there to share your own makes with Elea’s fabrics or get recipes and craft ideas from the group. It connects us to each other in a way that feels inspiring and recalls memories of when I first discovered sewing blogs and chat groups.
We are so in love with Oh What Fun fabrics and feel so honored to have Elea as part of the Poppie Cotton family, We want to celebrate by holding a giveaway of a fat quarter bundle of her newest line over on our Instagram account. Just look for our post labeled “giveaway” and follow along with us there.
As for Elea’s next fabric line, it’s top secret for now but rest assured it is full of everything we have come to know and love from her lines; retro classic, and vintage nostalgic. Thank you for joining us today, we have so much more in store so tell your friends and stay tuned!