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Text By Cathy Gordon •
Photography Courtesy of Anna Maria Horner
The revelation happened in church, where Anna Maria Horner learned the divine
truth about fabric. Eye-catching swirls, stripes, and florals do not randomly
spread over a piece of cloth like clover in a field. They are repeated. “My
mom used to gently tap down my hand because, without realizing it, I was
pointing at the women’s dresses in the pews in front of me,” recalls the
Nashville designer. “I remember the exact moment when it hit me: ‘Oh, my gosh!
There’s the same flower over there! This is how they make this stuff! They
repeat it!’” Horner’s enthusiasm for tantalizing textiles hasn’t waned
through the years. With four lines under her belt for FreeSpirit Fabric,
including the newly released “Drawing Room” and “Garden Party,“ and an upcoming,
pattern-filled book, Seams to Me, destined for store shelves in October, she is
as busy as ever at her craft. And she manages it superbly while balancing a
whirlwind of activity at home with five children, ages 4 to 16.
(a) Anna Maria, all smiles, loves her work. “It reflects my feelings,” she
says of this sprightly logo she created in hot and pale pink. (b) Her
new quilting line, “Garden Party,” in a cast of bright colors. (c) No
calories in this scrumptious pincushion caddy, one of 24 sewing projects
featured in her book, Seams to Me.
(d) Every surface serves a purpose in Anna Maria’s Nashville home studio.
Daughter Eleni flits past a table of fabric samples. Inspirational odds and ends
are tacked to a 10-foot-long wall. (e) A needlepoint pillow for the
designer’s “Peking Handicraft” collection. (f) More of the same in a
sunny stack of fun, fresh colors. (g) Anna Maria pins up her
home-décor-weight fabric, “Drawing Room,” for a closer look. (h) A
detail shot of a festive, hand-hooked rug.
“With five kids in the house, I have a playful attitude,” she says.
“But at the same time, I want to be taken seriously. None of my work is
accidental. It’s all very measured.”She caught the artistic bug early. Her
father painted, her mom sewed. Grandmothers kept Anna Maria and her siblings
warm in hand-loomed wool blankets and beautiful hand-knit sweaters. “My family
was inspired by learning, doing, and making,” says Anna Maria, who dressed her
Barbie doll in clothing fashioned from her mother’s fabric scraps.
Originally published in the April/May 2008 issue
A Repeat Performance page
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