I love the program but the fabrics are not my taste. I look forward to seeing some quilts made up with them. Perhaps that will change my mind.

I think with the right quilt design these would make gorgeous heirloom looking quilts. I can see them used as D4P or as beautiful Dresden plate quilts....yummy!!

I like them a lot. I've never heard of Downtown Abbey....hangs head in shame for her oblivion...

but the fabric you referenced is beautiful to me.

My DD #1's name is Abby, so when we went to Scotland back a few years ago, we had to get her standing under anything with the name "Abbey" in it. :)

I've watched the series several times, and don't really see any real uses of those fabric in the series like I had hoped. Yes, perhaps they are indicative of the era, but just naming them after Downton Abbey characters just seems like a marketing move to me. Not that they aren't pretty, but unless you can put Mary or Edith in one of those fabrics, name them something else.

Hmm. Downton seems to have spawned a whole range of stuff, including jewellery. Last series finished a few weeks ago, but there's a special on Christmas Day.

I am so glad to read about this discussion because I feel the same way - that while they may represent the fabrics of the times, they are very difficult to work into a quilt. I know that they are being sold as quilting fabrics - and Andover has a 6-print contract with the BBC - which means that there will be 6 more complete collection (probably about 3 years worth), so I'm hoping that feedback from the shop owners and their quilting customers will help them see that we need fabrics that are also tailored to the industry. I think that what you all have posted is VERY representative of quilters everywhere.

I must be in the minority - because I really love these fabrics…..I can see using these in a crazy quilt - or in one of the older quilt patterns where we have light backgrounds, and many different medium and dark fabrics as accent pieces. I have a quilt my Grandmother made - and I plan to draft a pattern for a new one just like it, using these Downton Abby prints and a pale muslin colored solid as the background……….

I do LOVE the black---the others not so much. But I bet we will eventually see some beautiful quilts made out of them.

I only purchased one yard of the cream fabric that shows the Castle. The rest I was not interested in. By the way, I was able to watch the next season #4 free online and it's a GREAT season!!

Homespunhearth -- so I take it you have a shop or business?

See, I find the marketing of fabric lines so interesting.

n some cases, it seems like there is a lot of advance hoopla and bloggers get fabrics to make up inspiration quilts, and there's a lot of "chatter: -- then when the line is finally available, it feels like a letdown -- case in point for me was Sherbert Pips -- a very cute line, but I'd seen so many bloggers make up quilts before it was even in shops, I didn't feel very inspired to buy it and make it my own.

Then other times, it seems like there is a line that gets a lot of buildup online due to a tie-in to some other cultural phenomenon, Downton Abbey seems like a case in point. People who quilt and people who watch PBS show must be overlapping circles on a venn diagram? And there's a lot of build up that way, but the actual fabrics -- I look at them, say, those a nice, but I don't really know just how I would want to put them together. I've seen the patterns on the Andover site. They're ok, but a bit lackluster. I think I would need some kind of external push to want to pick these fabrics to be the ones I spend my Christmas and birthday money on, cause just sitting there on the bolt, there's not compelling me.