Oops been super busy and forgot to say

I moved house - well not my real home but my blog home.  Would love it if you popped over to say hello and catch up.  I can be found here

summer school and GTS - a very busy(and fun) week

Wow!! what a blast the last two weeks have been.  As you know in march I completed the ABSPD module 1 course and since have been working hard creating patterns.  Well I also signed up for Summer Camp.  I have enrolled on all three routes (beginner, intermediate and advanced).  This time round I only managed to complete the beginner and intermediate routes although I did work on the advanced I didn't manage to create anything I was truly happy with.

So what is summer camp?  Well every two weeks we get a professional style brief. All three were following the megatrend of impulse which is current for spring summer 2015.  The beginners brief was much more like what I normally design so this came together faster as I was much more confident in this area.  All three were following the megatrend of impulse which is current for spring summer 2015.  We were given the theme of tropical paradise.With imagery, keywords and prompts, the lovely team at Make it in design (MIID) had prepared the perfect starting point.  I decided to go for tropical fruit and incorporated stripes.

Taken from http://makeitindesign.com/

Here is my work (centre) along side some other artists participating.  I love how we all interpreted the theme in our own style.

I wanted to include influences from these beautiful  Horrocks' dresses that I was lucky enough to see on a recent visit to the Fashion and Textile museum in London.

For the intermediate brief we were given the theme of retro geometrics.  A little out of my comfort zone as I have not really included many geometrics in my designing.  Nostalgia and interlocking along with a nod to tropical fruit I went for a watermelon inspired theme but then in my final piece adapted it to a more retro and modern colour palette.  I have included both as a sneaky peak at the design process, and a glimse of  some of the other interpretations of this theme.

Taken from http://makeitindesign.com/

I was unable to complete the third brief with the theme of water rays, and more on the reason for this to come below. I strongly advise you to check out all three of the galleries on the MIID site.  So many talented artists and stunning patterns.

Well the reason for not completing the final piece was that Global Talent Search started on Tuesday.  I initially was not sure about entering- as is the case for so many artists- but felt that it was best to be brave.Well I have submitted my design this morning and now there is no more that I can do with this piece.  I am very proud of this work and hope to share it with you soon.  Wish it luck

taken from http://lillarogers.com/

Herb Garden

This weeks Spoonflower contest is all about the herb garden.  I have always loved growing herbs since i picked up a book on traditional herb gardens when I was in high school.Chives, basil, sage and rosemary have always featured in my garden and my front garden is full of lavender.

  But more recently I have been interested in herbal teas. Camomile and Honey being one of my favourites.  It is with this in mind that I produced the pattern below. If you like it you can vote for it here.  It will also be made for sale soon and in two other colour ways - chic yellow and grey and a serene blue and green

Also - Summer School starts this week.  There are three different levels from beginner , intermediate and advanced .  Each will have a new brief every two weeks.  It going to be lots of fun.  I'm really looking forward to seeing how everyone interprets the themes.  Summer school lasts for 6 weeks and is completely free.  If you haven't signed up yet follow this link and I will see you there.

Exciting times

Firstly a big thank you to you.

Thank you for all the encouraging comments and support I have been receiving.  If you want to you can also contact me through Facebook.  (I will have my social media buttons up and running soon.)  In the meantime, follow the link and say hello.  If you like my page you will the first to hear about further instalments from the blog along with other news.

Why not Rhino's?

Spoonflower last week was all about fishing lures - well not feeling too inspired I gave that one a miss.  Others however came up with some stunning designs. Which can still be seen on the front page. This week it is all about rhinos.  Safari themed prints commonly have elephants and lions but its not that often that you see a rhino.  However, there are herds of them at Spoonflower this week including my own design. I wanted to create a design which had scenes, was fun and vibrant and could be used for the quilting market.

A bit of coordination

I wanted to show some fabric samples of this design.  I am UK based so my Spoonflower samples will take a while to travel from USA but I have had some made up at the UK fabric printers, Print me Pretty and what's really great is that because the samples came out so well, they have now been made available to buy. If you are based in the UK, this is brilliant as it is much faster and there is no chance of the customs import charges. They are currently available in two types of cotton . I also created two coordinates and all three are now available.  I hope to have two further colour ways available soon both on Spoonflower and Print me Pretty.

Voting
There is still a little time to vote. So I advise you head over there and share some love to these beautiful creatures.  If you are not into crafting but still would like this design head over to Society6 where I have made it available on some different products.  My favourite is the bag.

Fabric8

On Friday the 8 finalists of the Spoonflower/Kaufman Fabric8 competition unveil their coordinating designs and we get to vote this year winner.  I would definitely recommend checking them out as these are some very talented designers and I'm personally looking forward to see how they develop their designs.

20 ways to doodle- mini book review

During my course I was very lucky to win a copy of 20 ways to draw a doodle.  Well last week it arrive in the post, attractively packaged in one of  Rachaels gift wrap designs.

  Rachael has chosen 45 themes as a launch point  to doodling.  You could ask why would you need a book to teach you how to doodle but then your missing the point.  It a beautiful reference guide to many different styles of doodling. I know that when I'm just doodling I always fall into similar themes and styles.

The book also encourages the use of different media to get different effects and most importantly to keep your work and refer back to it for inspiration.  I have found it useful to flick through until something catches my eye and then use this as a place to start. Thank you Rachael for the book I know I will be referring to this a lot in my designing.

Sewing Notions

This week I entered the Spoonflower Contest. The brief asked for a design on the theme of sewing notions.  This is something I love as when I'm not designing I am dressmaking.  This contest was a bit different from the usual as it required not one but four designs set up as fat quarters shown as a yard.  Perfect really as this contest has a guest judge Denyse Schmidt and the top 10 will be featured in Love Patchwork & Quilting!

Voting is open now so please follow the link and vote for your favourites.

June already

This past month I entered two competitions.  The Tigerprint monthly competition with the theme Kids Character   and Spoonflower's annual Fabric8 competition.

For Tigerprint the brief asked for a birthday card design for an 8-12 year old boy or girl.  It needed to be age appropriate and to appeal to the adults buying the card.  The most important part of this process for me was the research.  I am really new to greetings card design so I really looked into what was about.  I was really surprised of the lack of boys birthday cards for this age group.  Most boys birthday cards were images based upon toys or cartoons.  I also tried out some new techniques and styles.  I think my favourite is the camping.  

The second competition was the Spoonflower & Robert Kaufman competition Fabric8, this is an annual competition for new and emerging designers. The prizes are really cool, with the winner getting a contract to design a fabric collection for Robert Kaufman Fabrics.  This years theme was Cosmic Voyage.  I wanted to go for a mid century modern cats is space feel.  I also think I will be making a dress with this material as I really think the colours will work well.  I am waiting for the swatch to come and then this will be up for sale soon.