Art Deco Parrot Blue

My favourite fabric so far is a new version I designed of the Art Deco Parrot, this time in a blue, white and grey colour scheme.

I ordered a yard so I could make a pair of cushions in the cotton-linen blend fabric they offer. Being able to design the fabric myself was great because I actually adjusted the scale slightly so that I could fit two cushions with parrots down the middle of the front and back with just 1 yard.

Here's a picture of the cushions:

I love this fabric, it has a bit of weight to it and the nice feel of linen while the cotton makes it less floppy than pure linen. Incidentally, I also love the new Kona cotton that Spoonflower is now offering for a quilting weight fabric.

So I feel I've finally reached the point where I can design exactly what I want to decorate the home without having to compromise. I'd like to do curtains too, but that's a lot more expensive so it may be a while!

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Paris Poodle

This week was busy with illustration work but I did manage to do a last minute entry to the Spoonflower contest with the topic "bicycles". It's called Paris Poodle, a poodle bringing home her baguette. One time, I did actually see someone bicycling home in Paris with a baguette sticking out of their basket, but it wasn't a poodle. I have to be honest. You can vote for Spoonflower bicycle fabrics here.

Last week's contest had the topic "jellyfish". I didn't think that topic would inspire me, but sometimes you can be surprised at what you'll come up with in these situations. It turns out jellyfish are kind of a popular motif right now, I didn't know that. I'm still loving mustard, so that's the colour scheme I chose for my jellyfish design (Jellyfish Drift), but I'm finding I've also veered into loving yellow too. Especially with white and grey. In the case of Paris Poodle I think yellow works because it's a more whimsical design.

I've ordered samples of both so I can put them up for sale when the swatches arrive. There are lots of new fabrics in my Spoonflower shop now, including the Yellow Rose print I've shown previously, and a blue and white version of the Art Deco Parrot fabric, my current favourite. I ordered a yard of the cotton linen to make cushions so I'll show you those in another post.

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Ditsy sea creatures

The Spoonflower contest this week was fun, the theme was "ditsy sea creatures". In case you didn't know, a ditsy print is very small scale, so small that "At a distance, a ditsy print looks almost like a solid color". It's also a scattered print with no obvious repeat.

I always wish you could zoom in a bit more to see the fabrics better, especially with the small scale prints, so I thought would show you a close up of my design "Little Schools" (you can also click on it to see it larger):

The main thing that doesn't show up very well in the preview is that I added a linen texture to the background. I updated my design at the last minute because I thought the first one was just a bit too fussy. I like this one better. I also like how it looks from farther away, as if it's just scattered specks of colour.

p.s. I've been busy sewing too, there are lots of new wristlets in the shop.

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Art deco parrot

The current Spoonflower contest has been my favourite so far. The theme was Art Deco with a limit of four colours. I was looking through my books and found a wonderful book I actually forgot I had. It's called Art Deco Textiles by Alain-René Hardy. Here's a link:



I've always loved textiles of course, but now that I'm actually designing them I've been revisiting my bookshelves and finding lots of help and inspiration. This book is absolutely packed with full-colour gorgeous pictures of Art Deco textiles. I bought it for the pictures, but I did start to read it as well and learned that Raoul Dufy created over a thousand Art Deco textile patterns. I was interested to learn that because I have always loved his paintings so much.

I also learned that tropical motifs were popular and decided to use that as a starting point for my design. I think the main reason I love Art Deco designs is that flora and fauna is so prevalent and I never tire of a pretty floral fabric or the charm that animals can add to a design.

I was really happy with my design, but after voting today I'm humbled by all the incredible designs this week. You can see them all and vote for your favourites here.

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Fabric Design lessons

Fabric collection in progress: Vintage Roses

As I seem to have really taken to fabric design, I've invested in some fabric design books to help me learn some new techniques. I'll post more of them as I go along, but to start out I recommend Kim Kight's A Field Guide to Fabric Design. I've been following Kim's blog True Up blog since it started, and have always found it to be a source of fabric and sewing inspiration. So her new book came just at the right time for me as I was starting out with fabric design:



This book is small enough to not be intimidating, while being full of great tutorials and inspiration. The first thing I needed help with was how to design repeats in Photoshop and Illustrator and this book has nice clear tutorials on this. It also covers hand printing and digital printing, and even covers topics related to selling your designs. The best part for me was to have a book that's up-to-date and full of the kind of fabrics I love and sew with myself.

As I'm spending a lot of time on Spoonflower lately, I happened across Kim's guest post where she gives a bonus tutorial for her book's Blog Tour launch. So today I used her tutorial to add a printed selvedge to my fabric and I love the effect.

I'm still working on the collection of fabrics that started with the one at the top of this post, I decided to create some vintage inspired fabrics that I would want myself. When you love vintage fabric it can be hard sometimes to find the yardage or style you want for your projects, so this is the perfect solution. I'm looking forward to being able to print these designs in any fabric and order as much as I need!

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Animal Friends book

I've finally sewn up my own copy of my Spoonflower baby book Animal Friends. I have two copies so I have one in my Etsy shop.

I added quilt batting to the cover to give it some structure. But all the other little pages are just soft cotton fabric - perfect for chewing.

I sewed up one of the little animals that comes with the book just to see how it would look. One tip if you make them yourself is to roughly cut out the shapes, then line them up together by holding them up to the light. Pin them in place. Then after you sew them together you can trim them. I just added wavy lines around the animals anyway, you don't need to sew exactly on the lines!

If you'd like to sew your own, the fabric is available in my Spoonflower shop here.

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Happy New Year! New fabric designs...

I've been keeping busy with the Spoonflower contests and learning so much while doing them. My Bluebell field fabric was #2 a couple of weeks ago and my Weekend Bread fabric was #7 this week! So now they're both for sale in my Spoonflower shop.

The current contest was good practice making a set of coordinates. I called mine French Seaside, and it includes a polka dot, a stripe, seagulls and a French yacht pattern. The set needed to include a dots and a stripe print, but I also created an extra print of a striped beach chair and made them each as separate prints to go along with the four-in-one coordinate fabric.

Sometimes you get caught up in making the illustrations, but I always like to make sure the result is a fabric I would actually like to sew with. And even better if I can picture a specific project for it. In this cases I was inspired by beach houses in soft grey and cream, like the beautiful one (Shell Cottage) in the last Harry Potter movie. If I was decorating a beach house I would like prints like these.

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Spoonflower baby book

Spoonflower photos here

My latest Spoonflower contest was a baby book. Mine is called Animal Friends and it fits on a fat quarter. With a yard you get two books and two sets of matching stuffed animal characters.

My entry was #8! As before when you're in the top ten your fabric is printed by Spoonflower and becomes available for sale. You can find my book here.

I thought I would show some pictures so you can see it larger and also how the pages look in spreads once the book is cut out and arranged.

You can click on them to see them larger. Here they are:

Today I did a little tweak to the file so that the page numbers would line up perfectly because when I created these spreads I noticed some that were slightly off. Also I lightened the background blue on page one a bit. Overall this one was a lot of work but a really fun project!

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Spoonflower tea towel calendar

I finally had a chance to hem my Spoonflower tea towel calendar! It's formatted for cotton-linen so that each fat quarter is a tea towel. The fabric arrived with some crop marks in the corner so you just trim the fabric so that it's straight then hem. I ironed the hem on both sides, then cut a little triangle from the corner to reduce bulk before sewing. It's really very quick and easy.

Here's another picture:

I haven't washed the fabric yet, and it has a little stiffness so that it actually hangs nicely on the wall with just two pins at either corner.

Available on Spoonflower here.

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Spoonflower baby book and feathers print

My Snowy Feathers fabric was #3 in the Spoonflower contest this week! I didn't overwork this one because I wanted a sketchy look, but I wasn't sure about it.

Sometimes you just can't see your work clearly. So I was very happy it did well, and once again I get to see a photo of my fabric (before it arrives in the mail) and it's available in my shop now.

Next contest is the baby book contest, which I had so much fun doing. Well, and I worked really hard on it. I was doing revisions up until the last minute. This is mine:

*click on the picture to see it larger.*

It's designed so that you get a complete book in a fat quarter, and I created mine so that if you order a yard you get two books plus two sets of stuffies:

You can see everyone's baby books and vote for your favourites here.

And lastly, here's a new bird clutch, this time in a green plaid fabric I got at the Workroom from Karyn at one of the vintage Trunk shows. Because as much as I love Spoonflower, right now for me it's still all about City of Craft!

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Kite Friends - top ten!

I had an email from Spoonflower this morning, my Kite Friends fabric was in the top ten for this weeks design contest! It snuck in at #10. I was thrilled. Extra fun: getting to see pics of my fabric before it's arrived in my mailbox. Since it was in the top ten, this design is now available in my shop. *Today is the last day of 2-for-1 fat quarters.*

And a last minute reminder about A Handmade Holiday this Saturday. I love this video insight into the Kid Icarus shop and creative process. I also spotted my plaid coffee sleeve in the third shot!

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Spoonflower feathers and bells

There's so much going on getting ready for craft shows but I am loving the fabric design so much lately. And two Spoonflower contests sparked my interest. The first (starting today) is "feathers". This was my design, Snowy Feathers (this is what a fat quarter looks like):

Then the week after that is "bells" so I thought I would work on that one at the same time. My design is called Bluebell Field. The picture at the top is the 8 x 8" swatch size, and here's what a fat quarter looks like:

This contest called for a small scale print. I think small scale prints are my favourite, they're nice for quilts and I also like to make little things like pouches so they work for that too. For things like curtains I would go bigger - Snowy Feathers drapes anyone?

It takes a while for my sample to be printed and then mailed to Canada, but you can't make your designs available for sale until you receive a proof of your design. So I thought I would get a jump on it this time so if someone likes a print they don't have to wait for weeks until it's available. I've already sold some of my Green Garden and Storybook Cottage tea towel calendar fabric and I can tell you it was very exciting.

Don't forget, the 2-for-1 fat quarter sale is going on all week! You can combine any designs in fat quarter sizes and you will see the discount right away in your shopping cart. This is going on until Friday December 2nd.

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Spoonflower "Green Garden" fabric

My Spoonflower Green Garden fabric washed and trimmed

I did finally manage to find my Spoonflower Green Garden fabric! I ordered a fat quarter and I thought I would show you what I've done with it. I've been wanting to make some pencil cases for ages so that's what I made.

I ordered the quilt weight cotton, so I added a thin layer of muslin to back it, and then used a thicker solid green cotton for the back of the pencil case. Gingham seemed like the obvious choice for the interior.

I'll be bringing pencil cases to my next craft show, A Handmade Holiday this Saturday in Kensington market. This show also happens to be the launch of the Kid Icarus screen printed 2012 calendar. I illustrated April and I can't wait to see the finished calendar. The calendar is a limited edition of 125 priced at $80.

Here are all the details:
A Handmade Holiday
Time: Saturday December 3rd 2011 (one day only)
Time: 11:00am – 6:00pm
Location: St. Stephen-in-the-Fields, 103 Bellevue Ave (College and Bellevue)


My Green Garden fabric is also available at Spoonflower.com, and this week fat quarters are 2-for-1! A really good deal I've taken advantage of myself to order extras of my kite fabrics. My shop now also has my Storybook Cottage calendar which is formatted for cotton-linen fabric - perfect for tea towels.

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Crafty news

Lots of things to share with you today. First of all, I just got a spot in City of Craft 2011! Yay! I'm so happy to be in this show again this year.

My 2011 holiday cards are printed and I'm cutting and folding today. These ones are in a square format. I found the perfect square envelopes on Etsy at this lovely shop: Papier Lapin.  Helen is so friendly and even arranged for local pick-up so I didn't have to wait. Not to mention saving on shipping. It's hard to find square envelopes, and the ones in her shop are even eco-friendly. I'll have this card design available in sets or single cards at all my craft shows coming up.

And last, but not least, I had so much fun creating my Spoonflower contest entry this week for the topic "Kites". Some animal friends flying kites in a field on a windy day. I always like a limited palette.

The amazing thing about Spoonflower is that you can make your designs available for sale and you receive royalties. To sell a fabric you need to proof a sample yourself so not all my designs are available yet, but here's a link to my Spoonflower shop. I've ordered a proof of my Storybook Cottage tea towel calendar fabric so that should be in the shop soon.

p.s. I did receive my Green Garden sample fabric, and I would like to show you (thank you for asking Kristen!) but now I can't find it. Hopefully that will turn up soon...

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Spoonflower calendar contest

It's been busy this week but I wanted to find time to fit in a design for the Spoonflower calendar contest The deadline is November 8th (today!). It's a storybook cottage in the woods with a 2012 calendar on the roof. If you like my design you can vote for me on Spoonflower starting tomorrow (click on the picture above if you'd like to see it larger).

The contest preview was on a 18 x 21" fat quarter, so this is how I designed it, but the cotton/linen tea towel fabric is a different size so I may reformat the design to fit. Alternatively I think it could make a nice poster.

UPDATE: I've formatted this design for cotton/linen which is perfect for a teatowel. The storybook cottage teatowel calendar is available on Spoonflower here. Each fat quarter is a tea towel, you just need to trim the edges and hem. The updated image is on Flickr here.

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Green Garden Spoonflower fabric

I think I've mentioned it before, but for those who don't know yet, there's a place online where you can print your own custom fabric called Spoonflower. Since I've been doing more digital illustration lately, it seemed like a good time to revisit the site.

I subscribe to their email updates, and every week there's a contest for fabric design. This week the topic is root vegetables, so I came up with the design above. Figuring out how to do repeats such as the half-drop used for this one was the tricky part (thank you Bradley!). But now that I have a rough idea how to do it I hope to keep improving my designs.

You can find me on Spoonflower here. Once you receive a test swatch of your fabric you can make your designs available for sale on Spoonflower.  I've ordered a sample of my Green Garden design, so I'll post that when it arrives. But in the meantime, it's just really fun!

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Zippered wristlets!

I've finally figured out how to adapt my wristlets to include a zipper. A couple of people have told me they wished my wristlets had zippers at craft shows and I thought it was a good idea too (see? I do listen to you!).

I just had to figure out how to add the zipper with the front flap there as well. I have a few ready now and I've started putting them in my shop. I love the pink and purple floral fabric on this one. Have a look!

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More birthday treats

Vintage treats: small "train" suitcase,  apothecary glass jar, floral tin from England

One of my other birthday treats was a trip to St. Jacob's where there is a huge Farmers' market, with a giant Antiques & Collectibles warehouse across the road. When we first discovered the warehouse in the winter, we were hurrying home, so I only had half an hour to rush through, so the big treat was to come back this weekend with lots of time to look around.

I've been meaning to recommend the place as it's amazing. It's the kind of place where each dealer has their own partitioned "room" and the contents range from gorgeous antique furniture to cheap and cheerful $3 vintage tins. The sheer amount of stuff will put vintage lovers into a happy daze.

There are also a couple of places in the town that have antiques. I found the little glass apothecary jar from Hamel Brooms on King Street in the old blacksmith's shop. I'm not sure what I'll do with it but it had a pleasing quality about it that I couldn't resist.

Then Sunday was the Spring Trunk Show at the Workroom, I had a great time and picked up a few treats. It's hard not to get tempted by the charming handmade things that inevitably surround me every time Becky and Karyn curate a show.

This time I picked up a pocket pony (I hadn't realized these existed but immediately discovered that I needed one) and a green rabbit from Stitch Face who is just as sweet as her creations.

I also bought a pretty vintage robe from Becky, that I can't seem to stop wearing. This picture really isn't doing it justice - it has flattering vintage shaping and a charming floral print:

Finally I picked up some fabric I can't wait to sew something with, from Kalpna's rummage department and some vintage dress patterns from Karyn.

As always the Workroom is such a homey place to have a trunk show, so much fun chatting with everyone and wandering around looking at all the crafty inspiration. We had a beautiful day for it. Thank you to everyone who dropped by!

My other birthday treat was that Bradley made me my very own monkey cake! I'll post that next.. I'm warning you now that the sock monkeys helped out so you can skip that post if you can't take the silliness.

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