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She is one of today’s bona fide “rock stars” in the quilting industry. And at the Premiere Schoolhouse event at this year’s Quilt Market in Houston (Fri., Oct. 25, 10 am), this designer will unveil her landmark 50^th collection of fabrics.

The event is sponsored by FreeSpirit Fabrics.

But things weren’t always so assured for Tula Pink 18 years ago when she put her nascent talents into creating her very first line. And the idea of having full-time career as a fabric designer wasn’t even really on her radar.

Today, Tula Pink works with FreeSpirit Fabrics to develop fabric collections, is an Ambassador for BERNINA, develops collections for Aurifil Threads and Renaissance Ribbons, and writes books for F+W Media about quilting and sewing.

We chatted with Tula over Zoom—fresh off trips to both the dentist and the gym—about this milestone, her journey, thoughts on the industry, deadlines, and an offbeat potential collaboration.

 

Here’s a generic opening question for you! Did you ever think 18, 19 years ago you’d hit this mark?

Honestly, no! It’s funny, fabric design was sort of a sudden death career path. If you stop selling, manufacturers are not going to print your work. And you’re not entitled to anything. You just keep putting out [collections] and hope they do well! So no, I didn’t think I would still be doing this!

 

Was there a moment where you said to yourself that you were going to do this, full time and nothing else? That this was the path for your life?

There were a few moments. It was a big one when I gave up my day job. Then I was kind of at crossroads 12, 13, years ago. I decided to go pedal to the metal for a full year. And if I didn’t see a path for the future, I could at least say that I tried. I wouldn’t have any regret. 

I took that year, moved to the country in Missouri, and my mother rented me a house. It was really a shack, and I lived there for a year. I made minimum wage as a fabric designer and said, “I could do this!” And when my brother joined me that was a big thing, because he has the business background.

 

To me, the one word that is really associated with your fabrics is color. And not just “Oh, she uses bold colors or bright colors.” It’s like a palette that is almost exclusive to you.

I think if you look at every truly successful fabric designer in our industry, you could say the same thing. You can almost pick our palettes out. Think of Kaffe Fassett. I don’t even need to see the print. I can just see the wall of color and know who that is. I noticed that early on. The [successful] designers didn’t follow trends or change with the seasons, they were true to themselves, and you could spot it a mile away. I had to figure out what that was for myself.

When you walk into a fabric store, what draws you to a certain fabric? It’s the color. You can’t see my print or my animals or how much work I put into the repeat. All you can see is the color. And that’s your first opportunity to catch their attention, and you have to really nail that down. Color is the single most important tool a designer has. 

 

When you’re designing fabric, do you want until inspiration hits you, or just forge ahead with “it’s time to do another one?”

If only I could wait until something hits me! (laughs). I don’t have that luxury. That’s one of the most underrecognized skills at what we do. I am a creative person, but I’m on a deadline that can’t be moved. The sales team needs time, the manufacturer needs time, and the retailer needs time to build a program. A lot of people depend on it. The schedule is insanely strict. So, I’m conceiving of my next collection while I’m working on my current one. Actually, I’m thinking about three at once and how they connect to each other.

 

I see you’re branching out into hardware and notions. Is that because you wanted something in the market for yourself but didn’t see it anywhere else?

Every single product I’ve ever come out with is because I wanted it. I am a designer, but I’m also a consumer and a real quilter. I get really excited about going to quilt shops and shopping there. I am not very different from my customer. And I know if I need something, they need it too. The other side is that I’ll see something that I think people would want, and so I try and bring attention to it by partnering up with smaller brands, like SewTites.

 

If you could jump into your Back to the Future DeLorean and go back in time, what would be the number one thing you’d say to the younger Tula as she was first entering the industry?

Oh my gosh! You’re going to hate this answer, but nothing. I would keep my trap shut. Everything Tula has done at every single point and time has led to this, and I wouldn’t want to change one thing. 

 

Not a fan of the Multiverse, then?

No! With every success and failure, I’ve learned something. And that became an integral part of what I am today. All of those experiences were super necessary to get me to this point. Some of my early collections got changed a lot, but I wouldn’t change that either. If I had had my way that early on, I wouldn’t have learned the humility I needed. I needed all of those lessons. I needed to work in my mom’s quilt shop when I was younger. My introduction to Quilt Market was going with her to buy product for her store.

 

I didn’t know that!

That was probably the late ‘90s and early 2000’s. She’s since retired, but it was called The Quilt Shoppe, and it was in a little town of 500 people on the way to Hamilton, actually! [Note: Hamilton is home to Jenny Doan’s massively successful Missouri Star Quilt Company]. 

I was at Market for many years as a buyer and consumer. I went on a shop hop with my mother. And when I was on staff at Moda, I wrote orders at Market! So, I’ve done a lot of jobs in this industry. And every single one informs what I do with my fabric design today.

 

So, at this upcoming Quilt Market, what do you want to take away from it the most?

We’ve actually been thinking a lot of about this putting together the Premiere Schoolhouse. What’s the message we want to put [across]? This might sound sappy, but I think less about what I want to get out of Market as what I want to give to it. What I want to leave behind. Right now, the buzzword in our studio is “optimism.”

I’ve seen how easy it is for us at Market to affect the greater industry, to determine how people feel about it. [Market] is the coolest place to be. It’s happy, it’s joyful, it’s an amazing thing. And we have to set that tone. 

Our key message is how we can come to Market, meet with customers and designers and people in our industry, and have them feel better then when they came to us. About the industry and about going back to their shops. And make people excited. We’re not selling dentist tools or torture devices. We’re selling fabric and fun and the thing that gets us through hard times in our lives. That’s what we want to bring to it.

 

That’s funny. Because the Torture Device Show is right after Market at the George R. Brown Convention Center. You should check out the new line of iron maidens. Maybe it’s time for a collab?

Yes! Hot pink torture devices!

For more on Tula Pink, visit www.tulapink.com