Quilters can spot a Liberty print from across the room. Those dense, intricate florals have decorated everything from scarves to dressmaking for well over a century — and they are among the finest fabrics you can put into a quilt. Sold through Riley Blake Designs, Liberty Fabrics' Tudor Celebration Quilt Nouveau brings that heritage into your patchwork with a screen-printed botanical that rewards a closer look.
What Is Lasenby Cotton?
Liberty Fabrics are traditionally screen printed onto a soft cotton base known as Lasenby cotton — named for Arthur Lasenby Liberty, founder of the famous London store. It is a fine, smooth-weave cotton that feels silkier and lighter than the quilting cotton you are used to, which is exactly why it excels at three things: craft projects, apparel, and classic patchwork quilting. The fine weave takes the print beautifully, holding delicate lines and subtle color shifts that a coarser base would swallow.
For quilters, the finer hand of Lasenby cotton has practical consequences. Seams press flat with almost no bulk, which makes it lovely for intricate piecing, and appliqué edges turn cleanly because the weave is tight and even. Press carefully rather than ironing aggressively, since the lighter base is easier to stretch out of shape when damp.
The Design: An Arts & Crafts Botanical
The Tudor Celebration Quilt Nouveau print draws its inspiration from a hand-painted artwork discovered in the Liberty archive. This is an Arts & Crafts style trailing botanical — delicate swirling branches dressed with stylised carnations, lilies, acorns, and heart-shaped leaves. Look closely and you will find tiny strawberries tucked among the foliage, a subtle nod to William Morris's beloved Strawberry Thief design.
Using Liberty Prints in Quilts
A busy trailing print like this one is a workhorse, and it plays three roles well in a quilt top:
Fussy-cut feature fabric. The swirling branches and individual motifs — a carnation here, a cluster of strawberries there — are made for fussy cutting. Center a motif in a square, frame it in a solid or blender, and you have an instant block that looks far more complex than it was to make.
A rich all-over print. From a few feet back, a dense botanical like Quilt Nouveau reads almost as a textured solid, which makes it a brilliant companion to larger-scale prints or geometrics. Use it to bridge two stronger fabrics in a block — a blender with genuine character.
Backing and binding with a story. Sold by the yard at a full 43 to 44 inches wide, it makes a glorious backing for a quilt whose front is made from coordinating Riley Blake cottons, or a binding with genuine heritage pedigree.
Cutting and Piecing Tips
The fine weave rewards a fresh rotary blade; a dull one will chew rather than slice. Use a standard quarter-inch seam allowance, but consider shortening your stitch length to around 2.0mm, since the light base can pull open at a longer stitch under tension. Press seams to the side or open — either way, they will lie remarkably flat.
If you are mixing Liberty cotton with standard quilting cottons in the same top, pre-wash both or neither. Consistency is what matters: the two weights shrink a touch differently, and keeping them matched keeps your blocks square.
Color Pairing
Trailing botanicals earn their keep by supplying a whole palette in one fabric. Pull thread and companion fabrics from the motifs themselves: a tonal solid echoing the leaves, a soft cream from the background, a deeper tone borrowed from the carnations. Let the print supply the complexity and keep its companions simple — small geometrics, tone-on-tones, and solids — so the botanical stays the star.
Care
This is 100% cotton, and care is straightforward: machine wash cold and tumble dry low. As with any fine-weave fabric, a lingerie bag is cheap insurance for smaller pieces in the first wash, and pressing with a medium iron keeps the hand soft.
A Liberty print in a quilt is a small luxury with a long pedigree — fine cotton, an archive artwork, and a design lineage that runs back through William Morris. Quilt Nouveau puts all of that within reach of your next project.
Shop the Liberty Tudor Celebration Quilt Nouveau 01667446B 44"/45" Fabric Per Yard at Linda's Electric Quilters.
