Here’s a quick answer. Our most recent guest post for the Burda Style blog talks about using prints for sewing women’s apparel.

This past Thursday morning I went shopping in the garment center and visited one of my favorite stores, Beckenstein Men’s Fabrics (I don’t know what the whole “fabric czar” thing is; I still call them Beckenstein’s but maybe they changed their name?), where they have a fantastic collection of high-quality wool fabric. The shop is loaded with other inspiring fabrics, too: Scottish tweed, Italian suiting, seersucker striped cotton, and melton wool in a wide variety of colors. And it’s all presented in a suitably old-school setting, too. It feels like the shop of a thread-worn gentlemen’s tailor, and when I visit I always wish I could stay to curl up on a chair in the corner with either a needle and thread or a good book.

I was shopping for S’s school uniforms, which I’ll be blogging about soon. But despite the weather, I’m also thinking seriously about winter coats. Maybe this year I’ll do something with a plaid fabric.

The contest runs through June 13, so be sure to throw your name into the hat over at Fat Quarterly.

Hokkoh had some really beautiful prints that felt fresh, unique, and contemporary. You can read more about them over at True Up.

Lecien had this stack of laminated cottons that would be great for the raincoats. Even for boys.

If you’re interested in organic cotton, the market is starting to respond with some great options. You may already be familiar with Cloud 9, who produce very cute prints and are also releasing new print collections and fabrics (like organic flannel!).

And Birch is a newcomer to the organic cotton market, with some great prints as well (and a bunch of cute Birthday Party dresses on display, too!).

Robert Kaufman also announced an organic cotton collection, called Free to Grow.

I thought the presentation of Anna Griffin‘s new collection for Windham Fabrics was so sweet, with an Alice in Wonderland theme. Aren’t the teacups pretty?

Seven Islands represents several popular Japanese fabric companies. I snapped a few photos as I dashed past, mostly of Heather Ross‘s new Far Far Away II collection and all the cute samples made from it, but you can see plenty of other darling samples and fabrics, too.

And this amazing quilt was designed by Kellie Wulfsohn of Don’t Look Now (thanks for the info, Rosa). Just beautiful.

One more booth that I meant to photograph and didn’t but thought you might like to know about anyway: The Snap Source offers a wide variety of great-looking snaps of all sizes and colors. For those of you who don’t like to sew buttons and buttonholes, you might be interested in their selection. The tools look very easy to use and are affordably priced.

For example, here are some of the materials from the show (click on the photos to enlarge for detail):

The little yellow booklet on the left is Moda’s April catalog, put out in advance of Quilt Market. Notice the sewing pattern theme, with the emphasis on children? Let’s look inside:

We were excited to find illustrations from our sewing patterns scattered throughout the book, demonstrating how the various fabric collections could be used in children’s clothing.

The large book you can see in the top photo of this post, with the girl and the dollhouse on the cover, is the Moda Look Book, which is produced for every Quilt Market. It features all the new fabric collections, along with supporting materials like quilt designs, sewing patterns, etc. Here are the City Weekend pages (because we know if we don’t show you, you’ll accuse us of teasing):

See what we mean? Such a great presentation they do.

Moda is also well-known for providing all sorts of pre-cut fabrics so quilters can purchase a little bit of each fabric in a collection.

Here are some jelly rolls, which are 2 1/2″ x 44″ strips of fabric:

And here (starting from the right side) are a layer cake, a charm pack, and what we’re calling a petit four, which is not a standard Moda pre-cut but which they made specially for us to introduce our fabric collection:

Ok, you need to get a sense of the scale on that petit four. They’re a tiny 2 1/2″ square. This snapshot will help:

Cute, yes?

Inside that house-themed tin you saw at the beginning of this post are another Moda pre-cut, the candy bar:

So what can you make with jelly rolls, charm packs, petits fours, and candy bars? Well, I asked that, too. You can sew them together to make very easy quilts like these:

Or you can get much fancier, with quilts specially designed to make use of these special cuts. Entire books have been written about quilts made just from Moda pre-cuts. You can visit the Moda Bake Shop for free patterns and ideas, too.

Next week we’ll show you our first quilt design, which you may have glimpsed in the photos of our booth. We’ll tell you all about it shortly.

I have a new post on the BurdaStyle blog this month covering manufactured fibers like polyester, nylon, spandex, and the new and exciting microfibers.

If this is all a bit too much technical detail for you, don’t despair. Next month I’ll come up a level and will use this fundamental information to start discussing how the fabrics made from these different types of fibers can be best used.

City Weekend debuts next month at Quilt Market, where fabric store buyers place orders for the following season. We don’t want to discuss too much about the collection yet (since it’s not going to be available in stores for several months), but we are looking forward to sharing more details with you when we return from Quilt Market.

Suffice it to say that in addition to the printed cottons, City Weekend also includes interlock knit fabrics. So of course we’ve been busy designing some new Oliver + S patterns to highlight the knits. Stay tuned for more details!

If not, you might be interested in my post this month on the BurdaStyle blog.

The first piece in the series, a basic primer on fabric construction terminology, published this morning.

In upcoming months, I’ll be covering topics such as the different types of natural and man-made fibers, uncommon fabric types, how to shop for interesting apparel-sewing fabrics, and how a designer puts together a fabric collection.

Enjoy!