More Fabric Designing

Firstly, let me say thank you to all of you who gave me feedback on my fabric designs.  You have inspired me to do some more!  Seeing as I live on the Sunshine Coast, I thought I'd go for another beachy themed fabric.  One comment I received is that there is very little patriotic Australian fabric out there, and it made me wonder what Aussies see as patriotic.  When we celebrate Australia Day, thousands of us choose to do so at the beach, it is an iconic part of life if you live near the sea.  So anyway, here is 'A Day at the Beach'.  I did want to include the lifesaver's flags, but they are copyright so had to do without.

Makin' Backpacks

I've been busy this week sewing backpacks. This is a little one that I designed for my children when they were kindy kids. They got used to death, a very handy size. I have been refining and writing up th pattern to sell, and this is the "demo" model I have made to show it off. It has a zip across the top and the front pocket is velcro'ed shut. The yellow fabric is my own hand dyed, and the blue print has been hiding in the cupboard for years - a remnant I bought to make little girl's clothes out of, but little girls all grew up before I could decide what to do with it!

And this one is an adult sized backpack. Once again, I made the pattern years ago when I wanted one for myself. My original backpack I made from hand dyed cotton drill and copped heaps of use, had the zipper replaced and now looks pretty tired and worn. So for the updated model, I thought I'd use the matching print I had to the child's backpack, which turned out pretty colourful and funky! I've written up the pattern and will have it available soon for all backpack lovers. This one has more pockets than the little one, with the front pocket zippered, side pockets and a pocket inside. It's also lined whereas the little one is not.

Fabric Designing

I've been on a learning curve! I have always been fascinated by the designs printed onto fabric and so I've been having a go. I've ordered my first trial from a website called Spoonflower, that custom prints your design onto the fabric, can't wait for it to arrive in the mail!

Here's a design I did with some photos I took of a bunch of marbles, it's called "Marblicious"

I did another one, using some watercolour images which I then played with in the computer, this one is "Sea Shanty"

I'm really pleased with this one, and it was lots of fun to do.

Let me know what you think of them and if you'd buy fabric like this. These fabrics will eventually be put up for sale, but I want to design a few more before getting more test swatches printed because of the overseas postal costs, and it takes a few weeks to get here. Oh, if only it could arrive sooner!

Mmmm, what to design next....

Tulips

I decided to dust off the watercolour paints and have a go at painting some tulips. So I drew myself a little bunch of tulips, and this is what happened:

But then I decided that I didn't like that, too amateurish. So I dug out some books with tulip pictures in and did some practice runs:

then came up with this:

Definitely an improvement! It was really nice to use the watercolours again, and I would like to get them out a bit more often in the future.

Christmas and a Brand New Year

Good evening to my blog readers,

I know it has been a long time since I posted, it has been a long and difficult year for me. Things have gone wrong, and I haven't been able to do much creative work, but life is returning to normal in my home, and I will soon get busy stitching and blogging again. So stick with me because 2012 is going to be a good year! In the meantime, I do wish you all a very merry christmas and a happy new year.

Wildflowers

Here is a little machine embroidery that I recently finished. I enjoyed this one, using very different colours than in the past. I decided to use a piece of fabric that I had painted previously that was at the time a complete dud. I painted over it afresh and found the process of not starting with white fabric interesting and satisfying.

Funny thing happened when I was scanning the embroidery - there was a little creature perched on top!! So I didn't crop him out of the image, so you can see him sitting there dreaming about being inside the scene of flowers and grass. Poor thing had to go out into the miserable rain!

Australia Day Awards

Well, what do you know, the Sunshine Coast Australia Day Creative Award went to my friend and mentor, Cynthia Morgan. She is such a talented, generous and down to earth and inspirational lady, I hope to be just like her when I Grow Up!! And it was wonderful to see her contribution as a Textile Artist being recognised within the community.

Exhibition Success

Good morning, dear readers. I do apologise for being so slow to tell you all about how well our exhibition was, despite the rainy weather, which got so much worse afterwards, poor Queensland has been awash! Anyway, back to the exhibition, which went very well, and I am happy to report that I sold 3 works off the wall! That's the best I have done so far in a show, and sales table items proved to be extremely popular too. I almost feel like a Proper Artist now - probably would help if I did less housework and more artwork! Thank you to all that bought my works, I do hope you enjoy owning them as much as I enjoyed making them.

Anwyay a very good and generous friend helped out with setting up and manning the gallery, and he wasn't even a part of it, just did it for us because he wanted to. So, how could I not give him a little gift to repay his generosity? Best way for me to do that was hit the paint pot and sewing machine! And here is what he got:

I was very pleased with this little piece, just seems to sing a bit of happiness, and I do so love the wild weeds & grassy look. He was very happy to receive it as well!