I clearly remember creating my little colorful painting “masterpieces” in the backyard when I was 9 years old and then walking around the neighborhood convincing all of our neighbors to buy them. I guess in thinking back, you could say that both art and marketing has been in my blood since I was very young!

When we emigrated to the U.S. from Poland in 1975, my dad had a few thousand dollars in his pocket, a desire to make a better home for his family and a passion for creating a small business. My sister and I grew up working for the family business in one way or another until we moved away from home. Some of the most treasured times I can remember with my dad were spent talking “business talk” whenever we saw him. In the earlier years it was about his business, but as I grew older the conversations always centered around his advice for Fig Tree. Those conversations frame so much of what I do today!

My desire to create something almost always starts with the color. I get kind of weird excited about color! I believe that beautiful color combinations are everywhere if we can just train our eyes to see them. And colors that we see everyday, suddenly look fresh and new when put together into an unexpected grouping. I love that!

My designs, both for fabric & for quilting, always start with the color palette first and the design second. I work with vintage fabric swatches, my flower garden, wrapping paper, children’s illustrations from the early part of the last century, flea market finds, antique quilts, all to start finding colors that speak to me. The palette dictates the designs themselves and slowly a collection or a quilt grows. I call myself a hybrid fabric designer. I like to use many different mediums and techniques to create my designs including vintage fabric inspiration, painting with gouache, computer illustration, line drawings, sketches just to name a few.

I hope you will come and experience some of that “Fresh Vintage™” Fig Tree look at www.figtreequilts.com. For the latest happenings and inspirations, you can visit my blog “Fresh Figs” at www.figtreequilts.typepad.com, or see our most up to date adventures on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter where I am figtreeandco.